Frugal Photography

I’ve was thinking aobut putting up a blog devoted to DIY/cheap photographic equipment. It would link to the large number of DIY projects already on the web, and I’d add my own personal thoughts and ideas. I’m not positive it would be much of a resource though. If anyone’s interested in reading such a blog, leave me a comment and I’ll keep considering it.

In the mean time here’s some links to free/DIY type photographic stuff that I’ve found so far:

Free Photo Software:

Adobe Lightroom Beta

Adobe has made a public beta of their soon-to-be released photo workflow program available for free. The Mac version is available now, the Windows version will be available soon.

Picasa

A free image editting program brought to you by the fine folks at Google. Currently available for Windows and Linux. Downloading Picasa from the following button, earns this site $1 and it costs you nada.

GIMP

An open-source editting program that mimics the functionality of Adobe Photoshop. GIMP is available for: Linux/Unix, Mac, and Windows, but can be a unwieldy since it uses other open-source tools for display (noteably XFree86).

DIY Projects:

Paper Camera

What could be more DIY than making your own camera out of paper. These guys have put together their own version of the czechoslovakian Dirkon paper camera of the 1970’s

Strobist SSO-CLK

Instructions for putting together a quality, portable flash rig on a budget.

Darkroom

Process your own film and save. DIY and cheaper to boot!

LED Ringlight

There are a lot of ringlight projects out there, this one is more complicated, but the results are pretty professional looking.

Macro Extension Tube

Make macro photos with the lens you already have and $10 in easy to find parts.

Softlight Panel

A light diffusion panel and stand made from PVC

Lightbox

An economical lightbox for product photos

Mini-Studio

Everything you need for a small DIY photo studio. I like the SSO-CLK from above better, but this might suit some people more.