Macro and microscopic photography open up a whole new world of possibilities, making even ordinary objects extraordinary. But what about shooting those objects that already are extraordinary? Well, Christian Stangl decided to give it a shot and he has created something truly wonderful. Teaming up with musician Max Cooper, Christian created a video to his song by playing with opal. He used a macro lens, some lights, and water, and created one of the trippiest and most beautiful macro videos I’ve seen....

DIY camera sliders come in all shapes and sizes… Well, sizes, anyway. They’re usually all a pretty similar shape. Long poles along which a platform moves. But this one, I thought, was particularly interesting. Not all of the information has been released on it yet, although it’s expected to be teased over the next day or two as the video gains more attention. It was posted to YouTube by MERT Arduino & Tech and like many DIY sliders, it’s powered by an Arduino....

When we think of “no Photoshop,” most of us imagine photos that haven’t been edited at all, with all their flaws and imperfections. But how about not using Photoshop at all, but still ending up with altered images? This is what artist Kensuke Koike does. So to say, he edits photos in real life: and the resulting images are brilliant. Instead of altering digital photos in the editing program, Koike uses physical, printed images....

Many of us use Google Maps before planning a trip. But a young Italian student Matteo Archondis used it in a way more creative way. He created a hyperlapse trip around the world using nothing but screenshots from Google Maps. It takes you from Rome to Kyoto; from the deepest ocean to the highest peak – in 3,305 Google Maps images composed in a smooth hyperlapse video. Matteo is a communication and graphic design student....

I’ve heard many parents saying that their kids grow up too fast. And it seems that 20-year-old Lotte Hofmeester has grown up in just five minutes. Well, in his father’s timelapse, that’s exactly what happened! Dutch artist and filmmaker Frans Hofmeester filmed his daughter Lotte every week over the course of 20 years. He turned the footage into a fascinating timelapse, in which Lotte transforms from a newborn into a young woman right before our eyes....

Located at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, the Library of Congress Packard Campus was originally built as a nuclear bunker. It stored $4 billion in gold, and would’ve been the location to which the President would have been taken had the need arisen during the Cold War. Now that this potential need no longer exists, it is home to 6.3 million pieces of the Library of Congress’ movie, TV and sound collection....

Light painting with drones has become quite popular over the last couple of years, but it’s still an extremely challenging thing to do. Achieving great results relies on a lot of factors. You need the right exposure for the ambient lit environment, you need the right brightness output on your drone’s lights and you need to fly your drones in just the right path relative to the camera (and at a consistent speed) to get nice clean lines of even colour....

I love seeing Hugo Cornellier’s annual updates to his very long term selfie project. Huge has been shooting a selfie a day from the age of 12. Recently he got married, and posted a new video for the project that has now been going on for nine and a half years. It takes an incredible amount of dedication and forethought, to stick with something for this long. It also takes some skill to be able to compile it all together into such a great video....

You know, it’s funny. The only people who seem to care what DSLR users look like are the people who no longer use DSLRs. Most users aren’t so publicly vocal about it as a particular user on Craigslist. This was spotted by our buddy Mitch over at Planet5D on Facebook. When looking a little deeper into things, he discovered the listing was on his own town’s Craigslist. It’s quite an amusing little rant to go on....

With film cameras, taking a photo used to be a process. But now, with smartphones and digital photography, all of us have a high-end camera in our pockets at all times. It’s estimated that people took a whopping 1.2 trillion of photos in 2018! But have you ever thought about an impact this has on us? How photography affects our mood and memories in the modern era? Peter Rubin of WIRED decided to explore it, and he brings some interesting findings in this 10-minute video....

Just like they announced earlier this year, Huawei has launched P20 Pro: the world’s first smartphone with three rear cameras co-developed with Leica. The triple-cam technology brings you 40 MP images and 5x hybrid (optical and digital) zoom. It has caused quite a hype among phone photographers and it has earned whopping 109 points at DxO. So let’s dive in and see what this new phone camera technology has to offer....

According to statistics, the equivalent of a truckload of plastic is dumped in the ocean every 60 seconds. Sounds kinda scary, right? Since the statistic may be difficult to visualize, Benjamin Von Wong has decided to demonstrate it with a series of photos, hoping to make a change. So, he gathered a team and a truckload of plastic, and created a set of impactful images, along with a project that aims to help decrease the pollution at the source....

For anybody working in the photography or video industries today, it’s difficult to escape from the behemoth that is Adobe. Whether you use their software or not, they’re still everywhere you look and if you don’t use their software yourself, you still often have to deal with people that do, and wanting to know how they can make their workflow fit with yours. But how did Adobe’s rise to fame happen?...

Proper color grading is something we often take for granted in movies. Sareesh Sudhakaran from Wolfcrow shares some thoughts about color grading and why colorists are an essential part of the industry. As a matter of fact, this video might make you wonder how come there’s no an Oscar category for colorists yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pGkT0Tnh3c According to Sareesh, a colorist has three major weapons, and all three have a significant influence on the story: continuity, separation and color....

A story I recently saw in one Facebook group is an example how NOT to treat your client, EVER. After a maternity shoot, photographer Desiree Genera publicly bashed on her client Katrina Ortiz. She recorded live Facebook videos, calling her out for her looks, among other things. And it all started with a simple message. After the shoot, Desiree gave Katrina the date when she was going to deliver the images....

You know that film cameras are perfect for storing memories. Now, this Leica M3 tin replica box will store, well, other stuff. This little tin box is made after the iconic Leica M3 and resembles the camera in size and looks (size-wise that means 138mm x 71mm x 77mm). Only instead of having optics and mechanics, it is completely hollow. That makes the box perfect for storing pencils, general desktop mess, and best of all, film canisters....

The beauty is in simplicity, but even simplicity takes a whole lot of effort and planning. Mark Duffy’s fantastic day-to-night image of a sundial is the perfect example of this. While it was composed from two photos only, it took Mark over 18 months to get it exactly as he imagined. So how did he do it? He shared a bit of the information about the photo with DIYP and revealed why it took so long to make it....

It almost looks like a Photoshop composite, but this is an uncommon but completely naturally occurring phenomenon. It’s known as a circumhorizontal arc, and this particular scene was spotted by photographer Cessna Kutz, who couldn’t help but photograph it – and who could blame her! While technically not a rainbow, as rain has nothing to do with it, the description of “horizontal rainbow” does seem to do it justice. It’s actually light refracting through ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere....

Light painting can give a sense of otherworldly to your images, and so can the levitation. But when you bring those two together – it can take you to another dimension. Pennsylvania-based photographer Swen Cubilette brought levitation and light painting together to create an image that captured my attention immediately. He kindly shared his image with DIYP and chatted with us about how he created this captivating photo. Gear and settings To start with the gear, Swen used a Canon 5D MKII paired with a Canon 16-35mm 2....

We’ve already met photographer Udi Mozni through his creative miniature images. He shoots everyday objects and turns them into something completely new. So, it’s no wonder that he reimagined an egg as a little planet. I asked Udi a bit about his process, and he kindly shared it with DIYP. Udi uses a Sony A7Riii for most of his miniature shots, pairing it with a 90mm Sony macro lens. The setup was the same this time as well....