Chris the Photog AKA DIY Cheapo Depot

DIY Iconic Squirrel Portrait

2011-11-07T12:31:00.000-08:00

If you already have squirrels raiding your bird feeders your well on you're way to easily creating an iconic squirrel portrait. The three basic ingredients needed are. A feeder, a branch, some wood screws and a battery powered screw driver or drill. Most important some sort of blind or hide. Photographing from behind a dark blanket or sheet from a window in your house will work just as well if you don't have a photoblind or other makeshift hide.

The first step is to find a suitable section of branch to photograph your squirrel on. I found a piece of branch that had been broken off by the wind outside of my church one morning. Look for an interesting piece that is one to three feet long with an interesting grain or bark pattern or moss on it. It should be one and a half to three inches in diameter. This will be big enough to hide your makeshift feeders on the back side of it. If you live in the city check with the surrounding neighbors or tree trimmers working in your area for possible pieces of branches.

The second step is to screw the branch onto a piece of scrap wood. Most any piece will do just as it is big enough to support your piece of branch.

The third step is to screw some makeshift feeders onto the back side of the branch. This may take a few tries to figure out how to keep them out of sight. You can use bottle caps or in my case I used a few salsa containers from my lunch at a mexican restaurant one day. Just use anything small that can be attached to the backside of the branch out of sight.

The fourth thing to do is to attach the whole set up to your bird feeder. I have a platform feeder so I just grabbed a few more wood screws and attached it to the side of my feeder. Other possibilities are to clamp it with a "C" clamp. Tie it on with rope or wire. Be creative and figure out a way to attach it to your bird feeder.

The last and final step is to put peanuts or black sunflower seeds into the little feeders and wait. I place my feeder about six to eight feet away from my photo blind with dark trees as a background. I like a dark background so that my subject stands out. What kind of background do you have? A fence or a hedge can work well. Some background that is darker than your subject and is far enough away to be out of focus is a big help.

Now begins the waiting game. Prefocus your camera on the branch and wait. Check to make sure that no parts of the feeders are showing. Maybe photograph the birds that are feeding on your new feeder as well. Don't make a lot of movement or noise and your patience will be rewarded.

Good luck and God bless,

chris

Quick Down and Dirty Sweep For Auction Site Photos

2011-11-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

A sweep is a seamless or creaseless backdrop. For product photography or auction site photography one can be cheaply and quickly made using supplies from the Dollar Tree. all that is needed is colored tagboard or wrapping or craft paper depending upon the size of the object you want to be photographed. For small items the tagboard will do for larger items and wrapping paper works great for bigger oness. If you need pure white use the backside of christmas wrapping paper.

The set up is easy. Put a chair onto a table facing outward. Tape or weight the wrapping paper to the opposite end of the table from the chair. Very loosely unroll the roll of paper up onto the top of the chair. Leave a lot of slack in it so it creates a big bow for the sweep. Put a small piece of tape onto the roll to keep it from unraveling any further and tape it to the top of the chair. You can now photograph your item on the table. i prefer using a room with soft natural light. No harsh direct sunlight. A Cloudy or foggy day works really well. A reflector made out of cardboard and aluminum foil can be used to bounce light into shadowed areas.
For smaller obects I just tape the tagboard to the end of the table and lean it up against the chair until I get a nice sixty to ninety degree bend in it and then I tape it to the chair.

Here are some sample images created using brown wrapping paper.

good luck and God bless,

chris

A Typical Hummingbird Set Up

2011-08-10T18:06:00.000-07:00

Hummingbird Photography

Photographing perched hummingbirds is one thing but photographing them flying is another story altogether. So I need a really, really fast shutter camera or shutter speed for photographing hummingbirds in flight. Right? No. Actually what you need is a really, really fast flash or better yet several flashes.

The best flashes for hummingbird photography are hotshoe flashes that have a manual setting that allows the power of the flash to be reduced to 1/16th power or less. Hotshoe flashes have the unique ability to shorten their flash duration as the power is lowered down. Most hotshoe flashes on 1/16th power have a flash duration of 1/5,000 of a second or faster. Studio flashes won’t work as well for hummingbirds in flight because they don’t work this way and the flash duration is too long to be effectively used for hummingbirds.

I use a Canon EOS camera so I stayed with that line when I purchased my flashes from KEH Camera. I purchased some Canon 430 EZ flashes. These flashes can be manually dialed down to 1/128th of a second though I set mine at 1/16th power.. There is a trade off however. In reducing the power of the flash you also reduce its effective range. At such a low power the flashes need to be placed under two feet or less from the hummingbird.

I use six flashes that are all placed less than two feet from the feeder spout. Two at 45 degree angles on the background. One flash above the subject and one below. The other two flashes are at 45 degree angles above and to the sides of the subject. They are aimed at a point about seven inches away from the feeder to catch the hummingbird when it backs up to take a break from feeding. A typical set up uses flowers placed close to or in front of the hummingbirds feeder spout. Often times I will also include flowers just behind the feeder as well.

I do my hummingbird photography in the shade. My yard has a lot of sun so I use an instant shade pop up that is 8 feet square. That way all of light is coming from my flashes and I’m not hindered much by ambient light. It’s also a pleasant place to photograph on a hot sunny day.

I mount all the flashes on light stands and old tripods and I trigger them using a wireless flash triggering system. There are a wide variety of triggering systems out there. I use Ishoot Snipers and they work just fine.

Backgrounds of a wide variety and colors can be used. I place mine about four feet behind the feeder. Some photographers use a blow up of out of focus flowers as a backdrop. What ever you use make sure it is large enough to cover your area behind the feeder. My personal preference is an olive green backdrop made of painted Masonite hardboard.

Exposure is dependent upon the flashes and your cameras sync speed. Typically I use a shutter speed of 1/200th of a second at Fstops ranging from of F13 to F18. I prefer stopping down to keep the hummingbird in focus.

For focusing I manually prefocus on the tip of the hummingbird feeder with my camera on a tripod. Then I turn the camera so that it is pointed to an area with the feeder spout just out of the frame. The camera position is about six feet away from the feeder.

For lenses I use one of two telephotos. I use a Canon 100 to 300 IS or a Canon 100-400 IS. When using the 100-400 I use Kenko extension tubes so I can have a closer focusing distance.

To do hummingbird photography having a hummingbird feeder is critical. I put mine up in early spring filled with a mixture of plain white sugar mixed at a ratio of one part sugar to four parts tap water. I have about eight hummingbird feeders in my backyard. (You don’t need eight. One will do) When I photograph hummingbirds I take all of the down except for three of them under my shaded pop up. I use a single spout feeder to photograph. A multi spout feeder can be used. Just block off all the feeder spouts except one with tape.

With hummingbirds it is a bit of a waiting game. If you don’t use a blind you must sit as motionless as possible with your fingers on the shutter release. Wait for the hummingbird to begin feeding a few times before you start blasting away with the flashes. Start off slow and eventually they will get used to the flash. Usually the best time to click the shutter is when they back off from the feeder to rest a bit. Most hummingbirds do this. They will move forward and feed and then back off four to eight inches or so and hover there for several seconds before moving forward to feed again.
So put some gear together and go out and have some fun.
Happy Humming and God bless,
chris

DIY Beanbag and Help a Hungry Person

2011-06-06T16:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when you go on a trip you just don't want to lug along a tripod or there are weight limits on luggage. Perhaps you are going on safari and no tripods are allowed to be used on the Land Rovers. A great alternative even for use on your own vehicle is a bean bag. You can purchase one and they typically sell for twenty to forty US dollars. A cheap and easy route is to go to Dollar Tree and buy some mesh laundry bags. They are 12inches by 15 inches in size with a zipper. They come three to a package for just a buck plus tax depending upon where you live.. They weigh hardly anything and won't take up much space in your suitcase or travel bag. When you arrive at your destination you can stop at a local market and buy four pounds of local beans or nuts to fill your laundry bag /bean bag. At the end of the trip have you or your guide donate your bag with the beans or nuts to a local food bank or needy person.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

Kayak Camera Support

2011-04-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

This week I modified my Kayak Camera support. I added a shelf to make it more stable and I lowered the support so that it is now right at eye level.
The support was built using a piece of 6 inch by 1/4 inch thick aluminum stock. I took the stock to a local metal fabricator and I had them bend it on their press. I then attached two four foot pieces of aluminum angle bracket as feet to support the stock piece by drilling and bolting the pieces together. I added the wood shelf to make it more rigid and add a little storage space for filters and lens cleaner etc. The support slides easily back and forth in front of me so I can push it forward when I want to paddle. It works great.

God's light and love,

chris

Changeable Perch Feeder

2011-02-13T13:18:00.000-08:00

Recently I was creating some images of chickadees using small branches with bright red berries on them next to the feeder. I was having a problem with the angle of the branch and the fact that the birds were landing too close to the platform feeder I was using. There has got to be a better feeder I thought to myself. First I tried a tube feeder and that solved the distance the birds were landing away from the feeder. They moved out just far enough onto the branch to make it workable. There was still the problem of changing the angle of the branch. While traveling through the Dollar Tree Store (Hear that Dollar Tree Execs?) I stumbled upon some floral foam. With that stuff you can stick a stem into it and it will hold at any angle. Well it would be too hard to put it into a tube feeder I thought. What else could I put it into that would hold the foam block? When I got home I discovered two cookie tins that I had purchased from the Dollar Tree around Christmas time. Thank you Lord. One of those worked great. I drilled a couple of holes into the tin. Then I added the foam block with some black sunflower seed. I screwed it to a scrap of lumber and added the berry branch to it. It works perfectly with perching birds. I'm really excited about using it this spring for a wider variety of birds. I've got some ideas of modifying it further for a bluebird feeder.

What you will need.
cookie tin
floral foam block
two wood screws
1-1/2" spade bit
power drill
white or black spray paint optional

Step 1 Drill two holes into the lid of the tin. One hole towards the bottom and one roughly in the center. Putting it upside down on some scrap wood helps. Do this slowly to avoid crumpling the metal.

Step 2 Use the wood screws to fasten the bottom of the tin to a piece of scrap of wood to hold the feeder up.

Step 3 Spray paint it. I spray painted mine white as one of my earlier attempts with an unpainted one reflected a color cast onto the bird.

Step 4 Place the foam block into the bottom of the feeder. Line it up so the block will be behind the bottom hole. Fill with birdseed.

Step 5 Attach your feeder somewhere with bailing wire or wood screws. Stick a good looking perch into the foam and you are in business.

Good luck and God bless,

chris

A Predator Call for Pennies

2011-01-01T00:57:00.000-08:00

I have known for some time that many photographers and hunters use predator calls to call in predators such as foxes, coyotes etc. I also know that some of them will use a squeaker from children's stuffed animals. Well today my dog Badger tore apart yet another dog toy from "Dollar Tree". Inside was a round plastic squeaker. He also tore that apart. The squeaker part was located in a tube that was about a half an inch long. On impulse I picked it up and blew through it. A squeal with a perfect imitation of a cottontail being killed emerged. As you can imagine an idea for a predator call immediately popped into my head.

I cut a short length of 3/4 inch pvc (1/2 inch would also do) about four inches long. I drilled a hole of about the same diameter as the tube from the squeaker about one inch from the end of the pvc. I took the squeaker tube pushed it into the hole and glued it into place with super glue. I'm sure some other glues might work as well.The final step was to spray paint it black. Make sure you stick some tape over the squeaker to keep it from being filled with paint.

Blowing the call is quite simple. You just place the flat of your hand over the end closest to the squeaker. Put your mouth on the other end and blow. You can flutter the flat of your hand against the call to vary the sounds coming from the call. It sounds great.

God's light and love and blessings to all,

chris

Those Magical Mushrooms or You Light Up My Life

2010-02-10T14:55:00.000-08:00

Greetings to all,

Today the rain stopped so I could at least get out and stretch a bit. I did some indoor photography in the morning and then I just had to get out. After all this rain cabin fever was setting in. Those of you that live in places where it rains a lot can relate. Outside it was foggy and heavily overcast. The prefect conditions for doing some macro work. I decided to go out and wander about and see if I could find some mushrooms to photograph.

Before I went out I gathered the necessary items I would need to be comfortable while photographing. First on my list was a set of kneepads. Crawling around on your hands and knees on the forest floor can be tough on the knees so they are a big help. Second was a ground pad like the type used for back packing to lay on. This allows you to fully stretch out on the ground without getting very dirty. A major plus if it has just been raining and it allows you to get down and dirty for those really low shots. Think Mushrooms! The next item is one that I have found to be almost indispensable. A small LED flashlight. These are just perfect for lighting up underneath the crowns of mushrooms. I tape a short cylinder of tagboard about three inches long to the end of it with electricians tape to narrow the spread of the light a little. As always I brought a 100mm macro lens, ground pod and a shutter release as the majority of shots would have long exposures and very small f stops. See one of my older posts for a very simple ground pod and a nice poster of mushroom images.

http://diyphotocheapodepot.blogspot.com/2008/06/diy-ground-pod.html

After finding a mushroom I do a bit of selective gardening around the mushroom to clean things up a bit. Care must be taken not to go too deeply or it will disturb the mycelium and make it difficult for the mushroom to reproduce next year. Then I lay out the pad, lay down and work to get a good composition. The majority of fungi are best photographed from ground level and from the side. there are obviously exceptions to this however, the best angle typically is right at ground level. This means gettin' down on your belly. A right angle viewfinder is a plus for some folks that can't get that low. After getting the composition and focusing taken care of I start on the exposure.

Using an ISO of 100 or 200 will often give longer exposures in the six to eight second range if I use Aperature Priority and set the lens at f16 or F22.0. This allows me to paint using light from the flashlight on portions of the mushroom I would like to stand out. It also gives the most depth of field; something that is really needed when doing macro work. To paint using the flashlight I like to swirl the flashlight in a circular motion over the area that I am painting. By continually moving the flashlight you eliminate hot spots from showing up so easily. The distance you use the flashlight from the mushroom can vary. I typically hold it about 8 inches to a foot away. So much is going to be dependent upon the situation and the power of the flashlight.

I try to shoot a number of different compositions and exposures. It is critical to check your backgrounds for lingering little items and hot spots. I can't count the number of times I have caught myself thinking. I don't remember that being there. We get so focused on our subject that we miss the little things around it.

When you are done please be sure to replace any leaves or sticks back around the mushroom that you may have moved when you were setting up.

So get creative and make some great images,

God's light and love to all,

chris

Playing in the Sand Box

2010-02-05T21:23:00.000-08:00

Greetings to All,

I have a friend named Joe Benoit that is a superb photographer. He and I have been photographing off and on together for a long time. The great thing about being around Joe is that you can learn some pretty cool things from him. For one thing he loves to experiment and try things that are out of the box so to speak.The other great thing is that he is extremely organized. He keeps all these neat articles in binders on photographing things in fun,unique and bizarre ways. So whenever I'm in a photographic slump so to speak I can always rely on Joe to spark my interest in shooting something in a new and different way so to speak.

Today was one of those days. A few days back Joe suggested we get together for a fun day of photography as he has a few things he wants to show me. Oh and by the way could I freeze a couple of cookie trays full of water for him. Ok, I can do that.
So when Joe showed up this morning we shot ice that was covered in food coloring and backlit with gelled flashes. Then we shot smoke from an incense stick. After that we shot a few things that I have been wanting to try. We shot an egg being hit with a hammer and the we did an old stand by of a lemon slice being dropped into a drink. Basically we had fun playing in the sand box so to speak.

Just before Joe left he gave me some polarized filter material. Then he showed me how to shoot plastic objects using polarized light. I'll hopefully get some time to play with that on some upcoming rainy day.

God's light and love to all,

chris

Going Slow for that Silky Flow of Water

2010-01-29T18:54:00.000-08:00

Greetings to all,

It's old news to many and its almost or probably a cliche' but some people like to blur their waterfalls or water so it looks like flowing silk. It's not that difficult to do it just requires the right water, weather and equipment. For weather the best times are when it is overcast, cloudy or foggy. The other circumstance is when there just plain isn't a lot of bright light like early morning or late afternoon or being in a dark shaded area like a canyon. Equipment wise you can decrease the light to help this along by the use of a filter called a ND or neutral density filter. These are sold in varying powers that cut down on the amount of light reaching the light sensor in the camera. These typically come in one , two or three stop densities with some expensive ones even cutting out more light. So by placing one of these filters in front of your lens you need to increase your exposure time which is just what you need to do in order to blur water out to a silky flow.

To blur water typically you need to blur it with a shutter speed of 1/15 of a second or longer depending upon the water flow. This means you need to use a tripod or other camera support such as a ground pod or bean bag placed upon something. Usually in order to get such a slow shutter speed you are going to have to put your camera on Manual or Aperature Priority and choose an F stop that is closed down as much as possible for the lighting conditions. I start by making a check with the f stop at about f11 and keep closing down further and further until I get the look I like. Often times in the dark canyons I'm shooting in I will get an exposure of f22.0 at around thirty seconds. You really need a solid tripod for that.

When shooting look for interesting rocks, logs and stream flows to help you with your compositions. Try finding things that will work as anchors in your foreground of the image as well as diagonals that will lead the viewer into the image. Above all experiment and have some fun. Check your histogram often to see what kind of results you are getting. Personally I tend to like to underexpose my images just a little bit as the streams where I live have very dark rocks in them. Be careful of getting direct sunlight into your compositions as there is usually too much contrast for your camera to be able to handle.

I shot these images today as kind of a challenge to myself. I took only one lens a 28- 105 zoom my 50D a remote release to keep things steady and a ground pod. The conditions were perfect for what I wanted to do. It was cloudy and getting ready to rain. I slid down into the creek bottom and just had fun looking for interesting rocks, logs and riffles to shoot images of. By the time I had walked up stream awhile it was strarting to rain and I hightailed it out of there. Most of my exposures were taken at F22.0 from 3.2 to 10 seconds. There is only one shot that I did differently and that was the one cropped to a panorama. The exposure for that image was F3.5 @ 1/10th of a second.

The other thing you can do is to shoot multiple images of the same scene without moving the tripod and then later combine them so that you end up with a sliky smooth look combined with the fast stop action look of a faster shutter speed. Just be sure to not move your camera or tripod when changing the cameras settings.

So get out there and shoot some images of this glorious planet that God has created for us and above all have some fun.

chris

Getting Down and Dirty

2010-01-26T09:51:00.000-08:00

Greetings to all,

Often times the best perspective to photograph wildlife is from the same height as their eye level. For a lot of critters this isn't much of a problem. Deer, elephants, bison etc. often times are at the same or a even higher level than we are. So for those types of critters getting to eye level isn't difficult. Besides these are just guidelines anyway which are meant to be broken once in awhile to be creative in the image making process. However, for today we are going to stick to the guidelines and discuss the job of taking the portraits of shorebirds. For this it means getting down and dirty. Smaller creatures like ground squirrels, lizards and shorebirds have an eye level of well let's just say it is below the knees. Please note that a lot of the things being covered here about shorebirds apply to many small ground dwelling creatures especially the perspective.

So how do you approach this kind of photography? Well if you are physically able enough from your belly. You have got to get down and slither and crawl. Put on some old clothes or some waterproof gear and get down on your belly and crawl. This can lead to some interesting locations and situations. Shorebirds inhabit a diverse range of habitats from grasslands and beaches to mudflats. Grasslands aren't so bad but mudflats. So how do you photograph in these less than desirable locations?

I guess it depends upon your dedication to the art of photography as well as your technique and the proper equipment to be used. Many photographers set aside clothing to be worn in the mudflats or on the beach. When they arrive at the scene they change into chest waders or rain gear or just plain old clothing they don't care much for anymore At the end of their photographic session they change back into the clothing they came in and stow their soiled clothing in a plastic bag or container to be washed off and dried later at home. There are many choices in clothing check with most any outdoor supply store or sporting goods store to see what is available in. There is also the Thrift Store if you decide upon wearing clothes that you don't care too much about.My personal preference is stocking foot neoprene chest waders and an old army jacket from a garage sale.

So what techniques are used? There are two main ones used along with a combination of them both. The first is progressive approximation. This involves finding a subject to be photographed and slowly crawling towards your intended subject very slowly. ( in mudflats this can be a grimy, smelly experience) Stopping frequently to allow your subject to adjust to your being close by. Every animal has its personal space and it will tend to move further away from you when that space is violated. With careful observation you can often observe an animals behavior to see when they are feeling comfortable or being stressed. Shorebirds for example will stop feeding, stand erect, turn their bodies away from you in preparation to fly. The second method is find your intended subject and observe its possible direction of travel . The goal here is to seek out a location ahead of it and wait to photograph your subject when it passes by.

While you are crawling along one of the key things of importance here is to keep your hands and equipment clean . Many photographers carry along a towel or two for that very purpose.So where is your camera during all this crawling about? In keeping your equipment clean one technique often used is to push your camera and tripod or ground pod along on the ground,mud or sand ahead of you. Using it as a brace to keep your hands and camera up out of the muck. Commercially there are many types of ground pods available. The best types for mud and sand are those that resemble frying pans. They work well because you can push them along the mud and keep your equipment clean and dry.

A back pack or fanny pack is a useful item to have along as well. You can store your dry towels and other needed equipment sealed up in a dry bag or other sealed container ready for your use. though some shooters keep things to a minimum and only bring a few needed items which they store in the pan of the ground pod.

So get out there and get down dirty and create some beautiful images in the process. Oh and don't foget you can use a low perspective for a lot of other things besides wildlife.

God's light and love to all,

chris

Because the ground pods above resemble frying pans it is relatively easy to make one using a frying pan from the thrift store and mounting a tripod head inside of it for your camera to sit on. First off I would suggest doing a search for camera ground pods to get an idea of what size pan might work for you. After that I would hit the thrift stores and find one that is similar in size to one you are interested in. Also, hit the hardware store for either a 3/8" or 5/8' bolt of the same size and length that is on the top of your tripod legs. You do have a tripod don't you? The next step is to drill a hole in the bottom center of the pan. Check your tripod head to see if it is either 3/8'' or 5/8' as these are the most common sizes.

After drilling the hole slide the bolt into the hole and mount your tripod head on it and you are ready to go. If the tripod head is too low you may have to add a wooden spacer between the tripod and the pan. A spacer can be easily cut out of exterior plywood of varying thicknesses or out of some other type of lumber. As a final step you may or may not want to spray paint your new Mud Scooter to give it a more polished look. go out and have some fun with it.

Auto Blind

2010-01-25T12:04:00.000-08:00

Greetings to all,

The second most expensive blind I own is my car. Well technically the bank owns part of it. The most expensive one is my house. Problem with my house though is that it doesn't move and my car does. For many of you using an automobile as a blind is old news. For others of you new to wildlife photography it's not.

A lot of wildlife is totally unafraid of vehicles. They zoom past them day in and day out.Many animals especially deer love to use the open spaces next to roadsides in the early mornings and late evenings to feed. Birds of prey often use fence and utility poles beside the road as perches. Because of this vehicles can be another tool in your arsenal of photography tools. Just be sure to use it safely. That's important to be said because you are still using a motor vehicle and you don't want to endanger yourself or others in the pursuit of a wildlife image.

The first step is to prepare your camera in advance and place it securely in the car somewhere close to you. I keep mine in an open cooler on the floor of the passenger side of the car. I wouldn't recommend keeping it on the seat next to you as I have learned from a serious repair bill that telephoto lenses don't fare well in emergency stop situations. Ouch. Also the use of a bean bag or a window mount for your camera can be set up in advance. Window mounts are available commercially and can be a superb tool to keep your images sharp. Bean bags are also available though it is very easy to make one of your own by stuffing a fabric bag full of beans or rice. More on that one some other time.

When you see an animal on the side of the road first check to see if there is plenty of room for you to completely pull of to the side of the road with your vehicle off of the roadway. Second if it is dry or in summertime make sure there is no dry grass for your vehicle to set on fire. Give traffic behind you plenty of time to be aware of your intentions. Ease off the side of the road with no jerky braking and slowly come to a gentle stop.If you are in a good position turn your engine off to reduce vibration in your image. Hopefully you already have thought of having your window down. Shooting through windows doesn't usually yield very fine results. Slowness is often the key here so don't flail away with your camera and spook the animals off. Ease your camera up to the window place it on a bean bag or camera mount and compose and shoot.

Other people in the car can be both a God send and liability. If you have an agreeable mate they can drive and you can set up in the passenger seat with your camera ready to go. You have your own personal driver. This is especially helpful when doing the auto tours at many wildlife refuges where you are not allowed to get out of your vehicle. They just drive slowly and you tell them where and when you want to stop. Having a driver is very effective for hawks and other raptors. Many times they will immediately fly off when a vehicle comes to a stop. So if you prefocus on the bird before you come to a stop you can get some mighty fine images.

The liability of another person in the car is the shakes. Any motion in the car can result in unsharp images. My children have gotten to know that when Dad is taking a picture from the car they are to remain motionless. Pretty hard to do when they were much younger. which is why sometimes we just stopped and looked at the animas and dad didn't take any pictures. So keep in mind vehicle movement when shooting and that includes motion from the wind.

So if it is rainy or snowy or maybe you are just feeling cabin fever get out there and create some images.

God's light and love to all,

chris

DIY Auction Pics

2010-01-21T12:56:00.000-08:00

Greetings to all the image makers out there,

If you only infrequently sell stuff on internet auction sites then this will be beneficial. Many times when I'm photographing simple objects I don't want to go to the hassle of setting up all the lights and product photography boxes etc. I just want something I can do in less than 10 or 15 minutes or so.

The simple solution is to make a sweep out of tagboard in whatever colored background you desire. A sweep is a fancy photography word for a background that doesn't have corners or creases showing. Tagboard is available in a multitude of colors from office and art supply stores. I buy mine at you guessed it the Dollar tree for 50 cents a sheet. (hear that Dollar Tree Execs?) To make a sweep all you have to do is lean the tagboard up against something on a table top and tape the top to hold it in place. Nothing complicated to it at all. Look at the set up picture to see what I mean

I set the object to be photographed towards the middle front of the tagboard. I put my camera with a flash mounted on it on a tripod at a height close to and higher than the object I want to photograph. I wrap the flash head with a napkin to diffuse the light some. I just wrap the napkin on with a rubber band. The next step is to set the white balance on my camera to flash. Following that I set the camera setting to Aperature Priority and I set the cameras f stop to f22.0 for maximum depth of field. I then focus on the front of the object to be photographed and fire away. OOOPS. But not first after shutting off all the kitchen lights to help prevent color casts from them being in the image. It's that simple and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg for a product photography kit or take up your whole afternoon.

Good luck and God bess you,

chris

It's a Dollar Tree Kind of Day

2010-01-20T12:39:00.000-08:00

Greetings to all you image makers out there,

Some days just don't work out for photography due to the weather or an illness in the family. On those kind of days I like to curl up and read a good book, work on images on the computer or go to Dollar Tree. Yes, that's right go to Dollar Tree. This morning as I was taking my daughter to school it was pouring down rain mixed with sleet. After dropping her off I decided to go to the local Dollar Tree ( Hey corporate guys at Dollar Tree you need to pay me for this!) and randomly pick out some stuff to photograph.Today I picked out some white tagboard and some mylar wrapping paper for use as a backgrounds. I also grabbed a green vase,red tinsel,a velvet box, a can of soup and yes a garden trowel. To top it off I grabbed some party hats, some beads and whistles. If you are new to my blog you can look back at my post of where I show how to make a product photography box out of foam core from the Dollar Tree.

http://diyphotocheapodepot.blogspot.com/2008/06/diy-product-photography.html

When I got home I set up some lights and began to photograph the items first by themselves and then I grouped some of them up. It was a lot of fun and I ended up with some pretty cool images that I can use for cards and what not to send to friends. It's good practice for product photography or putting images on ebay or Craigslist as well.

So when you have a rainy day or just need something fun to do just hit your local Dollar tree or 98 cent store and find some fun stuff to photograph.

God's blessing and loveto all,
chris

On the Water

2010-01-01T01:22:00.000-08:00

Greetings to all and a Happy New Year,

Do you live in an area where you just can't get close to wildlife or birds. If you are like me the answer is yes. I get really annoyed when I see all these cool bird images that are taken in Florida. If you have ever been to Florida to photograph birds then you would know that there are many, many locations where you can walk right up to birds. I really do mean walk right up to them. I'm not saying it's easy photography but it sure makes it a heck of a lot simpler to do.

Here in Northern California usually the closest I can approach a great blue heron is about a hundred feet. Much closer if I use my car as a blind. But there is another way that you can typically get a lot closer and that is by using a small boat such as a kayak, canoe or small electric boat. A floating blind works really well too . But that is a topic I have covered in a previous blog.
For some reason most birds and wildlife don't typically view things approaching them from the water as a threat. last time I was out in my little electric photo boat I was able to get less that 20 feet away from some otters. Turtles were unafraid of my boat and I was able to get so close that I had to back up the boat as I couldn't focus that close. Western Grebes would nervously swim away when I got to less thirty feet or so. In summary I could get fairly close camera range to most of the wildlife i encountered while out on the water.

The simplest approach is get upwind or up current and slowly float into your subject. Keep in mind the lighting direction and keeping all movements to a minimum. Additionally you want to keep your profile low in the boat so as to not skyline yourself and movement seen by your subject. Also since you are photographing on the water it is usually best to keep you camera angle as low to the water as possible. This means bracing yourself on the gunwales of the boat or using a bean bag. Sometimes I use a tripod but for the most part I usually use a bean bag.

When photographing from a boat special care must be used with your valuable camera equipment. I always carry a dry towel to wipe off any paddle splatters or stray water. I never put my camera on the bottom of the boat. Instead I keep it in a small cooler if I am in my photo boat. It is readily available at my feet at a moments notice. If I am in a kayak or a canoe I prefer to use a dry bag or a waterproof case. Personally I prefer a waterproof case over a dry bag just because for me they are easier to access and open as well as keep organized.

Today my wife and I picked up a new kayak. We purchased a Native Watercraft Ultimate 14.5 Tandem. They are one of the most stable kayaks out there and they are great for photographing from. It will be nice over the next year to get out and photograph from it. Previously I have been using a Mendocino Kayak that is very stable. But it is a sit on top and every time i used it I could hardly walk as my back hurt so bad from the seat position. i really wanted a Slo Mo Kayak but I have the needs of my family to consider so a tandem it was. Below are links to both of their sites.

Good luck out there creating images and God bless,

chris

http://www.nativewatercraft.com/

http://www.slomoboats.com/

Take a Break!

2009-12-15T16:34:00.000-08:00

Sometimes as photographers we get so tied up into creating images that we don't stop and take the time to thank God for all he has given us. Today when I got up it was about to rain. I immediately thought about all the images I had lined up that I planned to photograph today. Instead I took a long walk and had a good talk with God. When I got home the rain was just beginning to start and the wind started gusting. I decided to go into the kitchen and whip up a batch of Peppermint Toffee. After all it is the Christmas season. What better way to show God's love than by giving of oneself to others. Well at least in a round about way in the form of toffee!

For unto us a child is born and he shall be called ,Jesus.
Merry Christmas and God bless,

chris

Final Touches to Photo Blinds

2009-12-05T19:10:00.000-08:00

Greetings Image Makers,

I just got back from a very productive photo shoot in the photography blind at the Colusa National Wildlife Refuge. Every winter I make a a couple of pilgramiges over to California's Central Valley to photograph waterfowl. It is an experience I always cherish. Each year in August the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex has a lottery for spots in the photography blinds at the Sacramento, Colusa and Delevan refuges. When I first started shooting there in the dark ages it wasn't that way. You can check out how to apply here.

http://www.fws.gov/sacramentovalleyrefuges/pdf/Photography/Photographer's%20Guidelines%202008.pdf

Anyway there weren't too many birds but I did mange to get some superb Mallard shots and later on the auto route I took some nice snow geese shots. overall it was a superb experience.

When I returned from my trip I set to work on completing the two photo blinds I was building. I painted the insides of the blinds a battleship black. Next I installed the window coverings. I used landscape fabric which is both waterproof and mildew proof. It has the advantage of being see through but is still opaque enough to hide your movements from outside the blind. the last step was to paint the outside with a mix of black and white for a camo sort of look. i'm reall happy with how the blinds finished up and i am looking forward to some great shooting days ahead with them.

God's light and love to all,

chris

Shooting Shelf DIY Blind Camera Support

2009-11-27T22:18:00.000-08:00

Greetings to all,

I hope that everyone has been out getting some great images made. I just got back from a trip up into Northern California to do some shorebird photography. Humboldt Bay has some superb marshes for photography. Since I returned I put some more time into the blinds I have been building. Today I worked on completing one of the adjustable shooting shelves.

I believe that one of the best features that a permanent or semi permanent blind can have is a shooting shelf. A shooting shelf is an adjustable platform (table) to support your tripod head so you don't have to use a tripod in your blind. The shelf also frees you from having to fight with tripod legs while still giving you a stable platform to shoot from.

The shelf easily can easily be adjusted to the desired camera height by loosening two wing nuts, raising or lowering the shelf and then tightening the wing nuts again. A swing arm ballhead support on the shelf allows the photographer to move the camera position closer or further from the window sliders as well as to the right or left. Additionally the swing arm can be moved to the far end of the shelf to enable shooting from the side window sliders. To make full use of the side sliders the shelf can be repositioned to those windows by undoing the wing nuts and moving the shelf.

In summary the combination of the shooting shelf, swing arm ballhead and the window sliders make a blind very comfortable and easy to shoot out of. If you are planning on building a blind or want to make a nice addition to one you already have consider this feature.

God's light and love to all,

chris

I'm Going (Blind) Crazy

2009-11-21T23:11:00.000-08:00

Greetings to all,

Just when I thought I was through building blinds for awhile i came across a really superb blind designed and built by Mike Zurawski. In searching for blind designs on the WWW I always find a bazillion hunting blinds and hardly any designed for photography. (not that I don't like hunting) Mikes is that rare exception. He has designed an awesome photo blind. He has some other great ideas that you need to check out too as well as some really great photography. A tour of Mikes work shows that you don't have to travel all across the world to create wildlife images.

I used Mikes design for my new blind with a few changes. First I made it a little bit bigger as I'm not a little guy. Mike's is 30" x 33". I made mine 33" x 33" a small change with a big difference in that I can turn and shoot out of all the sides fairly easily. Another change that I made and not one for the better is that I used smaller wheels. I couldn't find any wheels that i could afford anyway unless I payed over thirty bucks apiece for them. So the cheap guy that I am I bought ten dollar wheels instead. I can always put on bigger ones later if I find a decent set. The most notable change that I made was that I used 1"x6" T&G sliders for the camera openings. These are really versatile especially when used in conjunction with an adjustable shooting table.

What is left to do on the blind is to paint it and add landscape fabric to the camera windows. I'm also going to add an adjustable shooting table with a ball mount on it to both blinds. As promised I will be showing you that in one of my later blogs as it is next on my list of projects to complete for both blinds. I think it is the number one feature that all permanent and semi permanent blinds should have.

God's light and love to all

chris

Mike's blind can be seen at

http://www.ewildlifephotography.com/photo_blind.htm

DIY Winter Blind

2009-11-16T21:15:00.000-08:00

Greetings to all photographers new and old. Well winter for me is just around the corner. With it on the way I need to be prepared for heavy down pours and the occasional snow storm. Most of my blinds are fairly waterproof but they will only put up with so much water. That is why I decided to build a new winter blind. I already had one but it was in such disrepair after all these years that I decided to build a newer and better one. One that will keep me snug and dry and be exceptionally useful for photography. Lucky for me I spent a number of days over the last few winters shooting out of the blinds at the Sacramento national Wildlife Refuge Complex. I learned a few good tricks looking at how they built their blinds.

I started off by going to the lumber yard. There I picked up a free 4' x 4' pallette. Just asked nicely and they gave it to me as they get tons daily.

My materials list
(4) sheets 3/8" plywood 4' x 8'
(8) 1' x 2" x 8' fir
(8) 2" x 4" x 8'
(3) 1" x 6" tongue and groove pine
(3) hinges

For this project i would say that you need to have some carpentry skills. I'm not a skilled woodworker but I do know how to use basic tools. So if you aren't very confident with this sort of thing just get someone to help you who is. Give them some free beer, lunch or maybe a free portrait session. Just work out some sort of a trade.

The first step was to cover the pallette with plywood. Next I framed up the sides and the stood them up. Following that I added some framing and screwed the back on. The next and most complicated step is frame the roof. Then to keep it all nice and dry I screwed on the roof and then the sides of the top. One needs to get in and out of the thing so the next job was to frame up the door and put the hinges on. After that I cut in the opening in the door the camera window. Making the slider assembly wss next on the agenda as well as cutting a small piece of plywood for the slider itself. Whoo hoo!

The last part of the project was to cut the window openings in the sides and the back. I then cut one by twos to hold the sliders for three camera openings. The final step was to cut the tongue and groove into sliders.

Obviously that is a quick description for a couple of afternoons of work. In a following blog I'll cover how to build a shooting table.

Good luck and God bless,

chris

DIY Chair Blind

2009-06-14T00:19:00.000-07:00

Greetings to all you DIY Photographers,

It has been awhile since my last posting. I have ben really busy shooting images of birds, Round Ups, turtles, millipedes and a number of portraits among other things. You would think that somewhere in there I have a life.. Through all of this has been my burning desire to create a new chair blind. I have been using an Ameristep chair blind for a lot of my nature photography. It works really well but i have found after a lot of usage that it lacks a few things for photographers as it was designed as a hunting blind. The biggest problem with it is that the front of the blind is too far away from the seat. This is because it was designed with a rifle barrel in mind. The second thing is that the visibility out to the side is very limited. Last of all is that it is fairly heavy. With those thought in mind I set out on a quest to build a reasonably cheap chair blind.

Step 1 was to find a good chair. The best thing i found was a folding camping chair with a canopy sunshade at Rite Ade for 23 bucks.

Step 2 was to buy some camo fabric at Wally world for 23 bucks.

So now onto building the blind.

Step 3 I taped a piece of 3/4" PVC pipe and a slip coupling to the canopy frame

Step 4 I made a "U"shaped extension with 3 pieces of PVC pipe and a couple of 90 degree elbows. This slipped right into the slip couplings on the canopy. These were not glued so it would be easy to break down and transport.

Step 5 I set the chair up in my living room and measured from the ground on the right hand side oft he chair up over the top of the chair and down the left hand side of the chair to the ground. I cut a piece of fabric this long and draped it up over the chair. Be sure to add 1/2 inch all around for the seams.

Step 6 I measured the front and back of the chair and cut two panels adding 1/2' to all sides for the seams.

Step 7 I sewed the top of the front and back panels to the top of the blind.

Step 8 and 9 I sat in the blind with my camera,lens and tripod and i marked where the lens port opening and viewing ports should be with a marker.

Step 10 I cut the lens port and i sewed a flap to cover it.

Step 11 I cut the viewing ports and I covered them by sewing mesh over the openings.

Step 12 I sewed the corners of the blind together on right front and both back corners

Step 13 The final step was to use a snap tool and add black metal snaps to the front left corner of the blind for access to get in and out of the blind.

So there you have it. A DIY Chair Blind costing less than half what a commercial hunting blind would cost and being lighter and far more cameraa friendly to use.

God's blessings to all,

Chris

Newest Floating Blind

2009-02-21T21:27:00.000-08:00

Greetings to all,

I can always remember seeing the ultimate floating blind. I really do mean the ultimate. I was trying to get some beaver pictures in a pond alongside the American river in Sacramento, California with my float tube blind. As I was shooting I noticed a guy show up and launch the coolest floating blind I have ever seen. It looked exactly like a floating log with bark and all. There was a door that popped open in the top of the log like a cockpit of a fighter aircraft. The photographer laid down belly first into the log and shut the lid. There was a knothole shaped opening on the end of the log for the camera lens to poke out of. To top it off there was an electric motor to propel it slowly around the pond. It was really cool. Perfect for an agile, small person not older than twenty five years of age. Believe it or not I don't fit any of those qualifications anymore? In fact I don't think I was ever agile and small. Well.. maybe when I was under twelve years old.

Now more to the point. I have been looking for a small boat that could be used as a photo blind. It would be powered by an electric trolling motor. It would have to be small, stable, and light enough for one person to move around. I have used canoes and kayaks in the past and gotten good results but I didn't feel very comfortable in them. I also happen to own three kayaks and after paddling around for two or three hours I can hardly stand up and walk. At least my kids can still use them. Duck boats looked promising but they were pretty pricey and weren't as stable as I would have liked. I have met a few photographers that love them. They also wouldn't work as well for fishing when I wasn't shooting pictures.

After a lot of searching I finally settled on a very small pontoon boat. Pontoon boats can go into really shallow water. Most of them are lightweight weighing in at around a hundred pounds. They can hold two people and most are rated to carry around 500 pounds. They work for fishing and you can stand up in one without fear of it capsizing. They are a little big for car topping but it is doable.

There were quite a number of models to choose from. I chose the Bass Raider 8 from Pelican. It has a higher freeboard than most models and it had the flattest hull shape for stability. Size wise it is very small. Coming in at one inch less than eight feet. Price wise the Pelican was in the middle of the pack. I ended up buying it online from Wally Mart and they delivered it right to my front door. Prices were competitive from Dicks Sports, Fog Dog and a few other places.

Next on the agenda was to purchase an electric trolling motor for it. I didn't need a lot of power because you need to approach wildlife very,very slowly or they will disappear before your very eyes. So I bought a Minn Kota Endura with a short thirty-six inch shaft and thirty pounds of thrust. If you have the bucks and can spend it go for one of the pricey models that come with a foot controller so that you can shoot photos and steer with your feet! I then purchased a deep cycle 12 volt marine battery for it. With life jackets, a paddle and an air horn the boat was ready to go.

The next step was to build a light weight PVC frame for it. I made one that can be broken down flat into four parts for easy transport. The right and left sides are the first two panels they fit into the cup holders on the sides of the boat. Next the front is snapped to the two side panels with two large caribiner clips. Lastly the top and back drop onto the side panels with four wooden dowels that slip easily into place into PVC "T"s at the four corners on the top. I then took the frame out into the front yard and spray painted it.

After making the frames I covered the top sides and back in a heavy Dacron material that is waterproof. I just used short decking screws and screwed the material right into the PVC. Luckily for the sides I had some material for a blind i no longer use and it already has camera ports and zippers already sewn into them. For the front of the blind I used a a small three sided pop up blind. I added on a small piece of dacron and camo to the bottom of the pop up blind to cover the front hull of the boat.

Following that I bought some camo netting at an Army surplus store. I cut out pieces of camouflage to cover each panel. These i attached using an awl to punch holes in the Dacron and cinching the netting to the panel with black electrical ties. The last and final step was to add a little bit of 3D to break up the square shape of the blind. I did this by adding a variety of green silk plants I got at the Dollar Tree.( Hey, Dollar Tree when are you going to offer me that corporate sponsorship? )

The last step was to find a swiveling office chair on wheels. I put some plywood in the bottom of the boat. That way I can turn around to steer and I can also easily roll around the boat to shoot out of the different shooting portals.

Coming up at a later date I will post some images from my Photo Barge. I've got to come up with a better name than that.

God's blessings to all,

chris

Samples from DIY Back Drop

2009-01-21T17:53:00.000-08:00

I spent the last few days working with my DIY Back Drop. As with any project it took me awhile to dial in how to best use it. If you look back at my post regarding the back drop some of you may have noticed that I felt that the results I got from it were OK. Hence the need to futz around with it for a few days. My first attempts were done with a yellow plastic table cloth thumb tacked to the background. The results as shown were OK. The back ground was a little too plain for my taste. Too washed out even when I saturated it a bit in Photoshop. Next I tried a little green spray paint on the table cloth. It broke up the flat coloring but the green looked a little too contrived as the patterns were too distinct. The solution was pretty simple. I moved the back drop about five feet further back and I moved my camera position closer to the birds. The end result was it threw the green out of focus for a more pleasing image. I still didn't like the tint of green that I had used. The last and final step was I took off the table cloth and left the raw wood as a background. I got a little brown spray paint and sprayed it loosely all over the back drop. I then moved the back drop back another five feet or so to further throw it out of focus even more. Looking at the final image taken with this set up I finally had an image that I was pleased with. Take a look and see what you think.

God's blessings to all,

Chris

DIY Tripod Pads

2009-01-16T22:15:00.000-08:00

DIY Tripod Pads

For those of you that have been around photography a long time this won’t be new to you. This DIY project has been around for years and saved the shoulders of countless photographers from being abused by their tripods. Anyone reading this that has carried a heavy telephoto around all day shooting wildlife without pads can tell you that pads are a required piece of equipment.

The process of installation is very simple. Take your tripod with you to the nearest hardware store. Ask the clerk where the piping insulation is. Once you have located it find the closed cell insulation. It is slightly firm to the touch and not all soft and squishy. The soft and squishy kind will absorb water and that’s not what you want for a tripod that you will be carrying out of doors.

Look at the hole in the insulation and find the size that most closely matches diameter of the top section of your tripod. Buy enough insulation to cover all three top sections of the tripod. Price wise in US dollars it probably won’t be more than six to eight dollars probably a lot less.

The next stop is the sporting goods department. Find some cloth camo tape. It is the kind that they use to cover bows with for hunting. If that is unavailable in your area try using camo duct tape. If all else fails use green or black. Now head on home.

Step one is to measure the top section of your tripod or you can put the insulation alongside it and mark the insulation where you want to cut it. Next step is pretty obvious you cut the insulation crosswise. Following that you cut the insulationlengthwise. A lot of insulation comes precut or partially cut for this purpose. Now spread the insulation open with your thumbs and slide it onto the top section of the tripod. Do this waith all three legs.

The last step is simple and can be done really slowly and carefully to produce a really professional looking job or it can be done functionally to just provide some usable pads. I think I’m kind of middle of the road on this one. If you have a center post on your tripod and it can be simply removed take it out. Choose one of the pads and starting at the bottom slowly wrap your way up ward with the camo tape. You go up on an angle like a barber pole as you wrap. Overlay each layer as little s possible to conserve tape. Do all three legs put back the center column and you have completed a masterpiece.

Now go out and shoot some great images of the world God has provided for us.

God’s blessings to all,

Chris

DIY Shutter Release

2009-01-15T09:20:00.000-08:00

Someone in my family stepped on the jack for the shutter release on my Rebel XT and broke it. I had been wanting to take bird pics with my 400 mm lens but I had no release. There are also no camera stores closer than an hour and a half to buy one. Some how or other I stumbled upon this site where you can make one from an old hands free mic for a cell phone. So I went down to Big Lots store and bought one for three dollars. I found one that had the switch separate from the mic and speaker. Because of this I didn't have to take anything apart like the one shown on the site. I just cut them off. I hooked it up to my camera and voila it works just fine. The only disadvantage i could find is that I can't lock the shutter of the camera when it's on bulb if I want to do night shots. You can however hold the button down and it will keep the shutter open. For hour long exposures this might be a little tiring on the fingers!

In any case I was able to use my three dollar shutter release until I was able to drive down and buy a new shutter release. Being the Cheapo guy that I am I was reluctant to part with the forty bucks for a new one but in the end I did. My DIY one is going to hang around as a back up for my new camera . On a sad note my old Canon10D has gone to camera heaven after five years of heavy usage. It was even rebuilt once by Canon during that time too.

God's blessings to all,

chris

DIY Fake Barn Siding/Wooden Table

2009-01-10T16:49:00.000-08:00

I am always looking for cheap back drops and props to use in my photography. Also I have always admired those photos of an old wooden table with a bible on it lit by a burning candle. Off to the side there is always a pair of reading glasses or an old fountain pen or some other treasure. In any case I always wanted to create my own version of this iconic image. The problem was I lacked an old wooden table.

While cleaning up the front yard I came across a couple of old wooden pallets that I had been using to keep my firewood off of the ground with. Pallets are fairly easy to get cheaply or even free. I get them free from the local lumber yard as they always seem to have too many of them from all the deliveries they get.

In any case I looked at the pallet and that weathered wood and bingo a table was born. I took a nail puller, a hammer and a crowbar and went to work taking those babies apart. In about ten minutes time I had a nice pile of weathered wood. The next step was simple I lined up all the flat pieces side by side. On top of that I placed two more of the flat pieces from the pallet. Then I took my screw gun. All photographers should have one. (recquired equipment you know) and a bunch of short decking screws and screwed the whole thing together.

Those worn pieces of wood are now perfect to act as an old table or it can be used to replicate the side of an old barn for portraits.

God’s precious light to all,

Chris

DIY Backdrop or Reflector

2008-12-21T08:05:00.000-08:00

This last summer I did a lot of hummingbird photography. To do hummers it takes a lot of set up time with backgrounds and reflectors. Most of the time I used colored sheets or fabric hung from my studio back drop. This was a major pain when the sun shifted or the wind came up. When that happens you have to take down the backdrop and then set it up again to keep the back drop out of the sun or wind. Studio back drops resemble sail boats. They can really move in the wind.They move right over into the ground or onto your spouses favorite rose! I did get some good hummer images but my mind got to thinking there has to be a better way.

The Dollar Tree comes through again! ( Hey, When are you corporate guys going to start paying me for plugging your store all the time?). I had better get to the point here huh? Well anyway I was in there yesterday and I noticed that they had plastic table cloths that were a perfect sky blue. To top it off they were 54 inches by 108 inches. A pretty good size. Then I saw that they had black,red and a couple of other shades of yellow and another blue and even a bright white. Wow, I thought to myself these will work pretty good for cheap, throw away back drops. The white can be used as both a reflector or a background.

I was still stuck with the same old problem though. What could I put it on that would stand up in the wind and be easy to move? The answer came to me this morning. I was excavating ‘er I mean cleaning out my garage. While cleaning I came across two 4'x8' sheets of quarter inch Masonite. It's similar to pegboard except there are no holes in it. Masonite is fairly light though a little to flexible to stand on its own. I immediately went down to the Dollar Tree and bought some thumb tacks and some of the table cloths. The next stop was the lumber yard where I bought eight 1" x 2" x 8' furring strips for a dollar thirty five a piece. I also grabbed a couple of handfuls of inch and a half wood deck screws and then some ¾” ones as well. The next step was really easy. My wife even remarked. "You sure did that fast."

Basically I made a four foot by eight foot rectangular frame out of the one by twos. I then put the Masonite on top of the frame and screwed it down tight. I then took three one by twos and used them to stiffen up the back. At present all that remains to be done is to tack the table cloth onto the framework with the thumbtacks and I have got a backdrop or in the case of the white tablecloth a great reflector. These are going to come in really handy for both backyard bird photography and studio work. I could even hinge two of them together and have a bookend reflector.

So how do you stand one of these up? At present I'm only using one as a backdrop for my bird photos. I'm just tying it to a step ladder and sometimes to a tree (depending upon the sun) with a short piece of rope. For indoor use I'm thinking of making a a plywood base with some small angle braces made of either plywood or one by two. For those of you with standard eight foot ceilings you may have to cut down your frame a few inches to be able to use it indoors.

I have taken a few sample pictures with one and they came out OK. But what was fantastic is that the back drop didn't move an inch in the wind. It was also very easy to move and reset up in a new location. I sprayed a little green spray paint on the plastic tablecloth to break it up a bit for a couple of the images.

My next step is going to be to paint one side black and the other side white and check out how well they will work in a studio setting. One side will act as a gobo and the other as a reflector. If I hinge two of them together it will make a really sturdy bookend reflector.

God's precious light to you and your loved ones,

Chris

DIY Provide a Perch

2008-08-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

One of the best tools a bird photographer can have in her or his possesion is a pair of pruning shears. For what you may ask? Well for providing perches for the birds you photograph to land on. For those of you that are old hands at backyard bird photography there probably is no need to read on. For those of you new to photographing birds this is one of the best tricks of the trade in photographing birds in your backyard and sometimes in other places too.

So what do you need? Not much really. Just a pair of pruning shears or a limbing saw and access to your own yard or someone elses with permission to cut some twigs, limbs or even whole small dead trees. Just wander around the property and look for plant material that you can cut off that would make a nice perch for the birds you want to photograph. Don't limit yourself to just dead parts of plants either. Look for plants with blosoms, leaves or fruit. Just be sure what you cut off isn't going to damage the plant you are pruning. One other thing to take into account is that some of the smaller birds sometimes don't always photograph well on really large limbs or branches. There are exceptions to this of course for example the banch may be covered in moss or have an incredible wood grain pattern.

So now that you have gathered a bunch of perches what's next? Well a lot depends upon what type of bird feeders you have. You can tape, tie, wire or drill your perch to the feeder. Start with just one perch. (You can use the others later) Just make sure that it sticks out from the feeder in a natural sort of way for the birds to land on. Keep in mind that the whole idea here is to provide a perching place for the birds to use that are coming to your feeder. Some people even place it on a pole a few feet away from the feeder.

Remember that birds don't weigh a lot so you don't have to have a major construction project here.Most birds like to use a feeder that is close to cover they can dive into if they sense a predator. So you need to place your feeders about ten to fifteen feet away from suitable cover such as a hedge or bush. Take care here to place the feeder in a position where you have a good background back behind it. A good back ground should be uniform in color and uncluttered. Often times the same hedge or bush will do.

With regards to feedrs the best kinds are ones that can be moved easily from place to place so that you can change the background or position the feeder for better light. Also check with your local birding store. There are different types of feeders for different birds. In my yard my primary feeder is on a cart so I can move it from place to place. Sometimes it will take the birds a few days to locate its new position however.

The perches you provide don't always have to be small tree parts either. In the past I have used lichen and moss covered rocks and even tree stumps. Another photographer I know that photographs raptors (birds of prey hawks etc.) dug up a large dead tree on a friends property. He had it hauled on a flat bed trailer to a large field where hawks hunt a lot. He then used a backhoe stand the tree back up into a hole to shoot pictures of hawks using the tree as a perch. So be creative.

Once you have your feeder and perch situated find a hidden spot to photograph your birds from. You can shoot from behind the curtains from a window in your house or set up a blind nearby. Whatever the case enjoy taking some shots of your favorite perching birds.

All of the sample pictures were taken using perches that I have placed next to my bird feeders. Most of them were attached to the feeder using wood screws or bailing wire.

God's light and love to all,

Chris

DIY Large Water Feature Results

2008-07-25T02:11:00.000-07:00

Well Ladies and Gentlemen today I finally got to spend some time creating a few images from the new large water feature. I am sorry that the picture order from the last blog was a bit mixed up. No matter how I tried to arrange it it seemed to get published in the wrong order. The pond has been up for three days and the local birds and squirrels have discovered that it a great place to stop in for a quick bite to eat and a bath. So here are a few samples for you to peruse.
god's light and love to you all,

Chris

DIY Large Water Feature

2008-07-25T02:02:00.000-07:00

Well I have been busy. I am slowly sorting out my vacation images a little bit each day. I'm fitting in taking pictures wherever i can amidst doing work around the house. We just completed an archeological dig of one of our closets. It ended up being carbon dated clear back to 1989 when i first moved into this house. I will admit it looks a lot cleaner. The senior center thrift store got some nice stuff out of it too.

Well I wasn't satisfied with my last water feature. It was drawing in the birds but I didn't like its location and the fact that I couldn't always get a full reflection of a bird in it. It got me to thinking it's time to build another big pond like I used to have a couple of years ago. I had it on my neighbors property across the road for several years. When the property sold I had to take it down. They can be taken apart and moved and set up again but I never got around to it so the wood just rotted away.

This water feature is for someone with a yard with plenty of room as it is four feet by eight feet in size. The birds absolutely love it. Once they start using it you will have birds using it through out the day.
Basically the pond is a four by eight sheet of plywood set on top of an old table. An old picnic table will do as will a table picked up cheap from a garage sale.

Step one is to seal a sheet of plywood with varathane, polyurethane or some other type of wood sealer.
Step two is to cut two 1'x4'x8' diagonally lengthwise. One set will be used to make the sides for the pond. the other set will be placed lengthwise on the table to provide some slope for the pond to have a deep end.
The third step is to use some 1" woodscrews to fasten the sides and the deep end piece of 1"x4" to the plywood. This is a little tricky because you have to screw them down from the backside of the plywood. Be careful when you get to the shallow end that you don't go all the way through with the wood screws.
Step number four is to place the other set of diagonal 1"x4"s lengthwise on the table. The thick or fat end will be the shallow end.Now put the plywood on top of the wood pieces. Carefully cover it with black visquen plastic and fill it with water. If your table isn't level here you may have to add some small wedges or pieces of wood to help level it up. You want the water to hit right on the brim of the deep end of the pond. You can get better reflections this way.
Step number five is to place rocks all around the edges of the pond. Place two of your biggest rocks at the front corners to hide the sides of the pond. Place the rest of the bigger rocks across the back to provide a backdrop.
The last and final step is step six. Fill in between the rocks with what rocks and gravel you have left over. Then place a thin layer of the smallest gravel and sand across the center to cover up the bottom of the pond.
From here you can add plants, sticks,moss and any other natural looking thing you can think of. I attach a platform feeder to the side and fill it with black sunflower seed. On the other side I put a bowl of henscratch. I keep this away from the water as they tend to kick it around and knock corn into the water.
I set up my blind about six feet away from the deep end of the pond and i set my tripod height so that it is about two inches above water level. you can go lower but the water will sometimes look milky when you get that low.
This is a fun project. what's nice about it is that you can move it if you have to. First pick of all the big rocks. then get a flat shovel and just shovel he gravel and smaller rocks into five gallon buckets. with someones help you can easily move the plywood and the table to a new location and et it up again.
One final tidbit. I keep a hose with a small valve and a clear plastic line going from my blind to the pond. That way when I'm shooting if the ponds water level goes down too much I can add water without disturbing the birds.

God's blessings and love to all,

Chris

DIY The Most Comfortable Blind Ever

2008-07-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

Greetings from smoke filled Northern California,

Yes, it's true. I have a blind that has a TV, fridge and a computer w/ internet. It's also heated. On top of that it has the most comfortable chair I have ever used in a blind. So before you think I'm nuts. (I know many of you do) Let me state simply that the most comfortable blind in the world is the office inside my house. Quite simply I do a good percentage of my bird photography right out the back window of my house. I place my rolling feeder in appropriate lighting with a good background right next to my office window. There are holes drilled in the rolling feeder in which to place branches of different types for perches for the birds to land on.

To create a blind out of one of your windows can be as simple as tacking up a piece of fabric over the window with a hole in it for your camera. I like something a little more secure so I use a piece of 1/8" masonite that is cut to the window size.
To create it I first measure the window and then cut the board to size. I then tape pieces of strips of towel around the outside perimeter of the masonite to keep the windowsill from geting scratched up. Following that I sit down in front of the board with my tripod set up with me sitting in the chair I intend to use for shooting out of. This gives me a really good idea of where to mark the opening that I need to cut in the masonite for shooting. I then cut the opening and then place it back in the window to see if it works ok. Sometimes i may need to modify the opening with further cuts. The last and final step is to tape a piece of netting or batting hanging from the top just above the hole to cover the hole up. I like to cut it in about 2" wide strips.

The flat board fits easily behind the door or it can be stored in the garage or basement ready for use. You can also cut extras for different windows in your house to shoot from.

God's blessings to all,

Chris

DIY Dragonfly Pond

2008-07-07T22:00:00.000-07:00

Hi to all,
Just returned from a well needed vacation. Now I have more photo work than I know what to do with. I have well over two thousand images to sort through. Luckily a lot of them are family vacation pictures some of which will be good enough to add to my stock files. Thanks to willing family nonprofessional models. They're cheap. Well, maybe not now that I think about how much the vacation cost my wife and I.

I hope everyone out there is being creative and taking fantastic images. Yesterday i hit upon a cheap dragonfly pond that has been sitting under my nose for over two years. My children have a kiddie pool that they have long outgrown. They have been using it to save pollywogs from our real backyaed pond that has a small waterfall. The pollywogs get caught in the pump. So my son and daughter have been tranfering them to the kiddie pool for the last two springs. They keep it full and we have a lot of tree frogs hatch out. Now lo and behold this cheap pond has been attracting dragonflies like crazy. I could never figure out how to photograph them. The flew all around the pond and would never land. When they did land it was always in some difficult place to shoot. High up in the trees or on the ground.

My brain finally hit upon a solution. Give the dragonflys a place to land! I found a small tree branch and a few bricks. I put the bricks in the water to prop up the stick. I went over to the patio table sat down and waited. Within a few minutes a dragonfly circled the little branch a few times and then settled down and landed. He began to shoot out now and then to grab an insect out of the air. But he always came back and settled down onto the stick again.

I was in business. I took a chair and taped a colored piece of tagboard to it as a backdrop. I then set it behind the pond and sat down in a chair and waited. I shot a wide variety of images in less than an hour. As it turns out the dark siding on our house works well as a background pretty well too.

So those of you out there that might want to photograph dragonflys in your back yard an old kiddie pool might just do the trick. If you live on a ranch or a farm maybe prop up a stick in your livestocktank. A word of safety here. Plastic wading pools could be a hazard for toddlers and young children. Please keep them in a locked fenced area away from children. Another point to consider is mosquitos. We put mosquito fish in ours to keep the little buggers from breeding in it. The last thing you want to do is create a mosquito hatchery for your neighborhood.

My next plan of attack is to try putting a stick out at one of my favorite dragonfly shooting spots at a nearby lake. I'll let you know how that goes.

God's blessings to all,

Chris

DIY Moth Photography

2008-06-16T01:29:00.000-07:00

Today's post isn't very complicated. In fact it's pretty darn straight forward and simple. I'm sure you can figure out any details I may have left out on yer own.
Macro photography of insects is an addictive habit. I love chasing after butterflys,dragonflys,grasshoppers you name it. For some reason early this spring I got hooked on moth madness. Turn the light on and they will come. I noticed that there were a lot of moths this year compared to last. In fact last years spring was so drawn out there was a major die off of many species of moths and butterflys in my area. This resulted in bats struggling to find food sources. Well I'm off topic here.

The basic premise is to leave an outdoor light on all night. In the morning you go out and photograph the accumulated moth species that have gathered on the outside of your house. In researching some moth sites. Yes, there are moth sites. I found that many scientists collect moths by putting a light behind a large white sheet draped between two poles or even stepladders. They sometimes use black or ultraviolet light sources.

In the morning if it is a cool one I have found that you can sometimes, I repeat, sometimes move moths to a more natural setting by slipping a dark piece of construction paper slowly under them and carefully carrying them to a new spot and slowly sliding them off.

I use natural light, a tripod and a gold metalic reflector to fill the shadows. The lens I use is a 100mm flat field focus lens made by Phoenix. This lens is identical to theVivitar and probably made for a few other companies as well. I use it with a set of Kenko extension tubes.

So turn on the lights sweet darlin' tonight we're gonna play.

God's light and love to all,

Chris

DIY Floating Blinds

2008-06-14T04:05:00.000-07:00

When spring and early summer come aroundsometimes I get the urge to go jump in the water. Not to swim mind you. But to shoot pictures of waterfowl and other small critters that live in ponds and other shallow water. I use a floating blind and I will tell you that with patience you can sometimes get really, really close to birds in the water. I have been shooting out of various floating blinds for a number of years now. I use two types of blinds. One designed for really shallow water 6 inches to two feet and one for deeper water 2 feet or more. A word of warning. Most floating blinds (Human powered type) should not be used in rivers or large bodies of water where you can get blown away or swept away by the current or possibly run over by a boat.

Well I'm a bit off track here so.... On my deeper water blind I use a float tube covered with a muskrat sort of looking blind. It is essentially a 1 inch diameter piece of tubing formed into a circle set on top of the float tube. I drilled (6) evenly spaced 1/4 in. holes into this ring of tubing. Into the holes I stick (3) fiberglass bike flags. Each one is bent into a "U" shape to make sort of a tentlike support (just like a dome tent). Over the fiberglass poles I use a lightweight cotton camo material that is attached to the ring of tubing. Over that is some surplus camo netting. . The surplus camo gives it that 3d appearence. The netting is also longer so that it hangs down off the tubing so that it covers the float tube. The primary advantage of this blind set up is that it is very lightweight and it can be broken down flat by taking the bike flags out. I don't use any added natural vegitation on this blind but it probably wouldn't hurt.

My shallow water blind is called the Fred Flinstone blind. It is a 4ft x8ft sheet of styrofoam that is 6 inches thick. There is a large hole cut into it amidships so you can sit on top of it and propel yourself through the hole with your feet like Fred and Barney. It has a 1/2 inch sheet of plywood covering the styrofoam. The blind on top is made out of 3/4 inch PVC Made into a box shape about 4x4x4 I covered the blind with 1/2 brown nylon netting. Then I cut cattails and tied them up into bundles and covered the blind. Then I covered the whole styrafoam base and plywood with burlap. For the final touch I drilled 1 inch holes all over the base and stuck cattails in it. The finished blind is very 3D. It looks like a floating island. This blind is very effective in flooded fields and shallow marshes. It is comfortable and very mobile. It is not however easily transported. You need a full isze pick up. I generally leave it wherever I'm using it for the season. It takes two people to load and launch. It also has to be recovered with cattails periodically. I just tie the bundles on with natural jute fiber. It matches the dried cattails pretty well. Well how is that for a tome.

God's light and blessings to all,

Chris

DIY Creepy Crawly Set Up

2008-06-13T19:17:00.000-07:00

Todays Blog will be nothing special for some viewers for they already have created things like these for themselves. Photographing bugs and other crawling things can be addictive. Don't get me started on Hummingbird photography as I'm even more addicted to that. But there are already plenty of tutorials out there on that. What we're talkin' bout today is bugs. Yes bugs and other small creepy crawly things.

Bugs are fun to photograph in their natural environment stalked like a big game hunter. There are times however when taking them into the studio (my house) can produce some images that are superb with little effort. Care should be taken to not injure or stress the little buggers. Keep your shoot short and don't expose your captives to extreme heat or cold.

My basic set up consists of a large, flat plastic container placed on top of a TV tray. I place this into indirect lighting near a window. I almost always use a small gold reflector to bounce light in to fill the shadows. You can make one really easily by covering a piece of cardboard with gold mylar gift wrapping paper. I place a rock or piece of wood and some leaves into a container. I then place the insect onto that and shoot away. It helps here to have an insect/critter wrangler. In my case this usually happens to be whomever in my family I can wrangle into doing the job. Usually that's my daughter because she likes to move critters around. I use a plastic container because 'er well it contains them. The sides are slippery enough that most critters can't climb it.

I generally like to take two kinds of shots. I shoot one overhead view (SetUp #1) and one side view (Set Up #2), The side view shots are the most challenging to take due to depth of field issues. But they are usually the most interesting as they get down to the insect/critters level. They seem more intimate than our usual human perspective of looking downward.

When shooting a side view I place a back drop (a piece of colored cloth) on a convenient chair about three feet behind the set up. I block or flag off the back drop with a piece of cardboard if I am using a black backdrop. In looking back on todays "Great Potato Bug Shoot" I can see that i probably should have used a dark green or even a burnt orange color. I think that would have complimented "Spud" a bit better.

So go out there into the garden or backyard and find some critters to shoot.

Gear used today
Canon 10D
Phoenix 100 mm Macro Flat Field lens
Tokina Extension tube
Old beat up Bogen 3021 Tripod
Bogen 3055 Ballhead
Remote Switch Canon RS 80 N3

God's blessings to all,

Chris

DIY Water Pond Part Two Sample Images

2008-06-10T00:05:00.000-07:00

Things have been hectic with family life and I haven't had any time to shoot any images with my new pond that I created. Sooo rather than keeping anyone that may read this and wonder where the sample images are I decided to look through my files and pick some from some prior ponds I have built over the years. I usually make one or two pond set ups each summer and as the summer progresses I change them around a bit with partial or complete redesigns. Wild Bandtail Pigeons like bigger deeper pools they can almost float in while Chickadees and Juncos seem to prefer smaller shallow ponds with a lot of small rocks to perch on. Quail seem to prefer secluded hidden spots. I'm still playing around with ideas and finding out what works and what doesn't seem to. In any case it is a lot of fun to sit in my blind and watch the birds come in to feed and bathe. What a real privilege to have some time to myself to sit and ponder. I'm lucky to have a wife and family that both supports and enjoys my endeavors. Well enjoy the images and go out and create some of your own.

God's light and love to all of you,

Chris

DIY Knothole Feeder

2008-06-09T22:43:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen those cool pictures of birds and squirrels poking there heads out of knotholes in trees? The photographer must have spent days following birds around trying to find their nests. Well I actually have done that and gotten some neat shots of birds bringing in food to their young. But what do you do about the times when its not nesting season? Well one day when I was getting some wood from the wood pile I came up with a great idea. I picked up a piece of firewood that had a knothole in it and the bark came right off of the wood with the knothole in it. I got to thinking... Some of you out there are already ahead of me here. Why not add a feeder to the backside of the bark? After a number of tries of using wood, wire and string I finally settled upon using some wood screws, a coffee can and some Plaster of Paris. Basically its a simple messy process. Put the can on a stick. Spray paint the inside of the can black. Put the can opening on the back of the piece of bark centered over the knothole. After that you drill a circle of wood screws into the bark around the can. Be carefull here not to go through the bark with the wood screws. Next you mix up a batch of Plaster of Paris and build up a wedge or ramp around the can onto the bark. Making sure to cover the wood screws to hold it all together. Let it set for a couple of hours and your done. All you need to do now is find a convenient fence or pole to mount your feeder on. It is best to place it near other feeders to help critters discover the feed that you put inside of it. Be sure to take into consideration what kind of light you want to fall on it. It also helps with birds to place feeders of any kind near bushes for cover. They are a lot more comfortable feeding in places they know they can dive off into safety if a predator comes near like some photog with a giant lens of some kind. As usual I have attached some directions and some samples of what can be accomplished using this type of cool cheapo feeder.

God's light and love to all,

Chris

DIY Photo Blind (Hide)

2008-06-06T21:15:00.000-07:00

The main idea behind blinds is to prevent movement from being seen by whatever creature you are photographing. Because of this there are literally hundreds of different ways that you can go about making blinds. One of the cheapest things I have discovered to use over the years is a large cardboard box. The best kind to use are large appliance boxes that washers and dryers etc. are delivered in. Just walk into most any appliance store and politely ask for a box and they usually will give you one. After getting the box its a simple matter of cutting an opening for your camera lens to stick through. A utility knife or a serrated blade knife will do nicely for this. Just be sure to cut the opening at a comfortable height for your tripod. Next cover up the opening with some gauze,batting or netting. After that it is a good idea to cut an opening slot for your front tripod leg down at the base of the box below the window. This allows the tripod to sit closer to the opening and it is more comfortable for you. I always drive a few wooden stakes down at the corners to hold the blind in place if the wind comes up. Where I live there is a lot of fog so I throw a tarp over the blind at night so i don't return to a soggy pile of cardboard. It helps to throw a little native cover over the blind to break up its outline. Brush, leaves etc. work well for this purpose.

The most comfortable blind I have ever used is my office window. I just cut a piece of cardboard the same size as the widow opening and taped it over the window opening. I then cut a hole for my lens just above the window sill. I set my ground pod on the window sill and shot away at the birds, squirrels and chipmunks that came to my backyard feeders. In wintertime when it is snowing it is great to be able to stay nice and warm while shooting.

Attached today are some quick pictures of a blind I made with a large cardboard box and some pictures of a commercial "Dog House" blind I use. When they are on sale they can be purchased for less than fifty dollars. They can be purchased online from a variety of sources.Cabelas, Bass Pro etc.

Good luck shooting. God's light and love to you,

Chris

DIY Water Pond for Bird Photography

2008-06-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

With the arrival of spring I love to do bird photography. That's not to say I don't like doing it at other times of the year, but in the spring birds are in their breeding colors. Also, because I live in Northern California all the water sources start drying up. You know the song "it never rains in California..." This means that birds start looking for places to drink and bathe. This is where the Dollar Tree comes in handy. Believe it or not I finally noticed the sign. It's a Dollar Tree not a Dollar store. Oh what ever it's cheap! They have all these wonderful flat platters and shallow bowls that work perfectly for cheapo bird baths. Add some rock, sand and gravel around them and even some plants and you have a perfect water set up to photograph birds drinking and bathing. I start with scrap plywood and cut a hole bigger than the base of the platter with a jigsaw. Next I set the platter in the hole and spray paint it with flat black spray paint. Following that I find something level to support the plywood on. I have used saw horses, cinder blocks and bricks in the past. This time I'm puting the plywood across a raised bed in my garden. The last and most creative step is to decorate around the outside of the platter on the plywood with rocks and stuff to make it look natural. You can put in mossy rocks, branches, plants and leaves etc. Add some water dripping into it overhead from a hose and wait for the birds. Most of the time I also place a few seed feeders close by. This seems to attract more birds. It's kind of like. Well, we've had dinner might as well go have a drink while were here. The last thng you will need to do is set up some sort of blind (or hide as the other English say.) Mornings are usually best both for lighting and the birds. On hot days mid afternoon seems to work best.

God's blessings to all,

Chris

To be continued

DIY Ground Pod

2008-06-02T12:26:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Over the years I have struggled with macro photography. One of my main difficulties is getting down lowwwww. I have reversed the centerpost, layed the tripod on its side and used a bean bag or a jacket. Probably the best thing is a Benbo tripod. My friend Joe Benoit has one and it is superb for getting down to the ground. By the way he is an excellent photographer. So if you are Joe Dough go out and buy one. My wife would kill me if I bought another tripod. Bean bags get wet and aren't very adjustable. The commercial ones come with a 1/4 '' mounting screw on top and you have to spin the bag to attach it to your camera. They are also hard to get into position and maintain good focus. So what is a Cheapo solution that works well. To be honest this solution isn't the cheapest but it was for me. I happened to have an old Bogen ballhead lying around from a long dead tripod. I drilled and mounted it to a piece of scrap 1" x 12" with a carriage bolt and then epoxied the bolt in place. Voila! A new Ground Pod is born. It is light and easy to carry with a camera mounted on it. I can easily switch from horizontals to verticals. (try that with a commercial bean bag pod) It is easy to slide back and forth for critical focus.
Overall I am very pleased with how manueverable the ballhead makes it work. The only modification I possibly might make to it would be to add a focusing rail to it for doing below 1:1 macro work. The sample photos are all taken with this Ground Pod.

Keep shooting and God bless all of you,

Chris

DIY Product Photography

2008-06-01T21:04:00.000-07:00

Hi all.

Recently I had to photograph a number of products for my wife to use in her speech therapy practice. As usual I began looking for a cheap way to do it that would yield professional results. I saw a lot of the products being offered on that auction site but I wasn't all that impressed. What if I wanted to shoot something bigger? Prowling around the Dollar Store. My favorite place. Maybe they should pay me to do this blog!!! I ran across some foam core board. I held a piece up to the light. That Immediately that got my mind to clicking. The DIY foamcore product photography lightbox is the result. Total cost was about eight dollars. It could be done cheaper than that if you make a smaller one or you have some tape and tagboard on hand. From the attached images you can see that the lightbox is just a box constructed out of foamcore with clear packing tape used to hold the seams together. A great Cheapo Depot DIY project.

God's light and love to all,

Chris

DIY Beauty Dish

2008-06-01T20:42:00.000-07:00

Frustrated by the high cost of beauty dishes I began a quest for something cheap but professional. I made a number of trips to the Dollar Tree and the hardware store for reflective gold and silver paint. I created some really nice dish reflectors for my Canon 550 EX flash using plastic mixing bowls, shish kabob sticks and reflective paint. The portraits of my daughter that I took with them looked great. While I was pleased with the results I was not impressed with their appearance. The next step I felt would be to make some beauty dishes for my Alien Bees Studio Lights. Immediately a problem occurred. The modeling lights got too hot and began melting the plastic. Hmmmnnnn. Possible fire danger here! They also didn't look very professional. The solution came to me while browsing at the hardware store. They had stainless steel mixing bowls on sale. Nice big ones too. So I bought two bowls, some 1/8' allthread rod (36"), a steel bit, a steel cutting jigsaw blade (fine cut) and finally some nuts and washers for the allthread rod.
The total cost of the beauty dish was around sixteen dollars. That was the cost of the bowls, some allthread, a saw blade and a drill bit. Compare that to a commercial beauty dish for 400 to 600 dollars and you can see why I go the Cheapo route

God's light and love to all,

Chris

DIY Cheap Models

2008-06-01T20:26:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
Sorry for the misleading title. I was just looking for a creative way to introduce my underpaid models.

Last week part of the woodpile fell over. In the process of restacking it I was startled to find some old friends under the pile. When you are not wearing gloves they can speed up your heart rate a little bit. They became willing photo models when I got finished with the job. The scorpion was quite cooperative. She just gave me dirty looks once in awhile. Lizards as you probably know make lousy models. He was very uncooperative, very fidgety and sullen at times.He would seldom look at the camera and he also kept trying to walk off out of the shoot. With grim determination I was able to finish the shoot up and set them free for all their hard work.

God's light and love to all,

Chris