Category Archives: Equipment DIY

Articles about working with, fixing, and modifying various types of photographic equipment.

DIY: 12″ gold/silver reflector as a flash bounce.

May 13, 2013
12inch_reflector_flash

Why I had never tried this before I don’t know… I have a small 12 inch Promaster reflector that has silver on one side and gold on the other. I also have a few Rogue filter gel rubber bands (2 work a lot better than one in this case). Put them together and it makes a pretty serviceable flash bounce. Check out the image below for a quick test of … Continue reading →

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Portable Wireless Flash Tripod Setup

November 16, 2012
DSC_9783

I put together a portable flash setup for a convention coming up. My plans here are to potentially use this as a secondary light source in more detailed photo sessions (assuming I have any). The nice thing about it is the portability and I’m also able to get around a few limitations of the gear being used. All of the items are things I’ve acquired in the past, so there … Continue reading →

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Yongnuo RF-603N Camera Hotshoe Modification

November 3, 2012
rf603a

I received a set of Yongnuo RF-603N radio frequency triggers today. They are low cost, yet decent quality flash and camera triggers available online. While I like them for their small size and general reliability, not all is perfect. There was an odd design omission related to the shoe connection that is generally used when connecting one of the transceivers to a camera. Here is a quick modification to help … Continue reading →

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DIY Transparent Color Slide Digitizer

August 17, 2012
IMGP2629

I was recently given the task to digitize transparent slides from the 1960s. The color transparency slides posed an interesting problem. Conventional scanning was difficult because the slides are small and are designed to be back-lit by a projector. There are dedicated devices available that can scan film negatives, but they are expensive and difficult to find. The standard scanner that I had wasn’t sufficient for the task because it … Continue reading →

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Examine and clean a Pentax K-7 rear dial.

May 31, 2012
k7reardialclean600

The rear dial on my K-7 has been having issues for quite a while. Scrolling left especially didn’t work properly. The aperture would jump around randomly and even cause the camera to temporarily lock up. After my successful modification of the K-01, I was feeling confident enough to take the K-7 apart to see if I could do something about it. In the past I tried the old trick of … Continue reading →

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