Build your own Studio Gear

by Cyrill Harnischmacher

If you are just starting out experimenting with studio lighting and shooting techniques, expensive new gear can quickly break the bank. But never fear – with the help of easily available materials and a little manual skill you can build studio accessories that are just as effective as highend pro equipment. This article shows you not only how to go about building your own gear, but also how to use it to get great photographic results.

Even if you move on to using professional studio gear in the future, many of the DIY accessories we introduce here will continue to be part of your photographic life. To be successful, tabletop photography often requires spur-of-the-moment improvisation and unusual technical solutions to everyday photographic challenges. Building new tools is part of the routine in pro photo studios too: reflectors have to be tailored to a specific shot, light shapers need to be modified, backgrounds are painted in new colors and all sorts of ornaments are produced seemingly out of thin air. This is one of the skills all photographers have to master, and homemade accessories are just as much an investment in your photographic future as expensive, commercially produced equipment.

Is building your own gear really worth it? My immediate answer is a resounding “Yes!” – otherwise, I wouldn’t have taken the trouble to write this article or my book on the subject. But, aside from any financial or commercial considerations, getting to grips with light at this level is often a much more rewarding experience than simply buying and using ready-made tools.

You are sure to critically question the results of your DIY experiments, and this naturally leads to a deeper learning experience. Building your own gear also makes it possible to create tools that are simply not available anywhere else, and it’s always easier to modify your own equipment than it is to revamp things that you have bought. The following pages explain how to build a range of accessories that will simplify your photographic life in the studio and out-of-doors.

(...)

Order issue

« Back to overview

• 

• Highlights of this issue’s free DVD include a complete eBook, sample images from the articles and tests in the magazine and a special offer discount for a full license of the Helicon Focus software introduced in our focus stacking article. Our additional free software includes a series of FotoTV.com videos on black-and-white photography from the early 20th century right up to today.

• Order

Read the Editorial

Free DVD, including:

• The Art of Black and White Photography (eBook):
  This 272-page book by Torsten Andreas Hoffmann describes how to compose successful monochrome images
• Helicon Focus (Full Version):
  This powerful program creates one completely focused image from several partially focused images by combining the correctly focused areas from each.
• DeblurMyImage (Full version):
  A great little tool for adding that extra dose of sharpness to nearly perfect photos.
• Black-and-white Photography (Videos):
  This set of three videos complements this issue’s black-and-white workshop in a number of fascinating ways.
  

DVD Content and Highlights (PDF)