We all know that LEGO bricks are the best toy ever. They’re so versatile that you can even build all sorts of photography gear with them. And now, Leica has launched a pair of LEGO Leica M camera sets that you can assemble just like any other LEGO toy. The LEGO version of Leica M comes in two varieties: Black/Gray and Brown/Gray. Both versions have all the bits and pieces as the real thing: a lens, buttons and dials, a viewfinder, a shutter, a rear display and camera strap mounts....

If someone had ever told me that I would go “awww” at photos of insects, I would have called them crazy. But what about photos of fluffy, pollen-covered bees sleeping inside of flowers? Well, I gotta admit that’s something else, and it’s as cute as it sounds. Photographer Joe Neely recently captured two bees sleeping in a flower, and it’s definitely not something you see every day. He was kind enough to share his images with DIYP, so take a look and prepare to get all mushy....

Most of us would think that creating images that look like they’re out of this world would take a lot of Photoshop magic. However, John Dykstra is an artist and surrealist photographer from Michigan who does it all in-camera. He uses his garage as a studio and adds simple props to create optical illusions and capture them in mind-boggling images. I chatted with John a little about his work, as I was astounded by the images he creates....

Portuguese photographer André Boto has won the title of overall winner of the 2022 edition of the Creative Photo Awards, the competition dedicated to artistic and creative photography at the Siena Awards. The image shines the spotlight on pollution in a clever and thought-provoking way. “Pollution is a real problem that affects us all,” says Boto about his image titled ‘The False illusion’. “There are often attempts to camouflage or minimize this problem,” he continues, “the big manufacturing companies and the powers that be try to hide an issue that is real and brings sequels, creating the illusion that it is a distant problem, but in fact, we are already facing it today and leave with a great disadvantage to solve it at this moment....

Many people call photo manipulation “fake” because it’s not photography. Indeed, it’s more of digital art, but it still relies on photography and turns it into something completely new. But artist Monica Carvalho is here to make peace between these two art types. She takes some beautiful photos – and then he takes them and turns them into composites that are weird, surreal, and absolutely amazing! Monica is a Swiss-born photographer currently living in Berlin, Germany....

A week ago, we posted a 52 challenge for 2017, basically it’s a photographic task a week to help you evolve as a photographer. If you want to take it to the next level Photoblog are offering a similar concept. A printable calendar with a-task-a-day for the entire year of 2017. The idea is simple, each day has a task and as you complete the task you cross the day of the calendar....

Retouching hair in Photoshop requires a lot of patience and skill. Thankfully, there are amazing tutorials out there to help you master it, and this one comes from Pratik Naik. In his latest video, he’ll guide you through his hair retouching process and show you all the tips, tricks and secrets to help you nail it. With almost an hour length, this tutorial is quite comprehensive and detailed. Pratik uses a beautiful image by Kate Strucka, showing you step by step of how he retouched the model’s hair....

Designed by portrait photographer Joel Grimes, the new 24″ Rapid Box Beauty Dish from Westcott seems to tick all of the boxes when it comes to location photography. It’s small, lightweight, and can also double up as a regular 24″ round softbox by adding the diffuser panel on the front. Having lightweight and portable kit is important when you’re working on location, especially if you don’t have assistants or other crew with you to help you lug it around....

Originally founded in 1325, Greater Mexico City has since become one of the largest metropolitan areas on earth, and the largest in the Western Hemisphere, housing more than 21 million people. Amongst those 21 million people who call Mexico City their home is Tarsicio Sañudo. As an aerial filmmaker, he decided to shoot a drone timelapse of the city to document its iconic landmarks and beautiful surroundings. And boy does it look amazing....

A post shared by Rasmus Heise (@rasmus_heise) Rasmus was the director of photography on season 1 of the show. He recently shared a BTS shot on his Instagram, and we were curious to hear how he got the idea. As he tells DIYP, the idea simply came to him on set when he saw a yellow salad bowl lying around. He also found “some kind of round metal thing,” as he describes it, in the garden of the shooting location....

Vlogging is a whole lot of fun, but it can be difficult, especially if you’re out with other people. If you want to capture them on camera, or just record the scene in front of you, then capturing audio of yourself becomes tricky. You either just have to deal with being behind the microphone and hope it gets it, pull the microphone off the flash shoe and rotate it 180°, or just record a voiceover at another time....

Almost everybody who’s into video dreams of one day shooting on an ARRI Alexa. But actually owning one is pure fantasy for most of us. Not for Adam Harig, though, who spotted an eBay auction for five ARRI Alexa cameras on eBay one day and put in an offer. There was only one snag, these ARRI Alexa cameras weren’t working and were in various states of… deconstruction, with a part missing here and there....

Regular DIYP readers will know that I’ve been researching 3D printing recently. My goal is to see how one might be able to help me with my photography and video tasks. Primarily to keep things organised. There’s SD card cases, battery covers, lens cap clips, charging station doohickies and all kinds of goodies on sites like Thingiverse. But I also want to have some fun, too. One photographic collection over on Thingiverse that’s particularly cool belongs to user Schlem....

Now, we’re not making any claims or suggestions about the average intelligence of Canon users here, but this is pretty hilarious. A photographer who shall remain nameless received a text from a friend of his who’d recently acquired a Canon DSLR, but somehow was struggling to remove the lens cap from the front of the lens. We all have friends that are new to photography coming to us with the same simple questions, but this one is quite unusual....

We have talked a lot about light pollution and how it affects the view of the night skies. But have you ever considered how much air pollution affects us as photographers? Of course, it’s above all terrible for our health, but its bad impact stretches way beyond that. It even affects how we see the world around us – if we even manage to see anything through the smog. Wanting to draw attention to the quality of the air you breathe, HouseFresh wanted to show you how ten famous views could look if local human-made air pollution levels increase....

Yesterday, we shared a fairly basic tip of how to properly put up a light stand. Today, we’re back with another basic tutorial. This time, it’s how to properly attach a camera strap.Advertisements While this might seem up to personal preference or insignificant, it’s important to realize that more often than not, a camera strap is the only line of defense between a camera being safely wrapped around ones neck and crashing face first into the ground....

Speaking to a camera is rarely an easy thing. Even for seasoned professionals, it can take several takes to get all the words out without screwing something up. Most YouTubers understand this problem intimately. But there is an easy tool to help you stop flubbing your lines, shoot in fewer takes and ultimately take less time to shoot your videos. In this behind the scenes look at how he shoots his videos, YouTuber Manny Ortiz walks us through the gear he uses to create his videos, including his favourite tool to stop him messing up his lines, the Parrot Teleprompter 2....

We common mortals are probably not very likely to walk in space anytime soon. But astronauts on the International Space Station have made this 360-degree video to get us as close to spacewalks as we can get at the moment. Two Russian cosmonauts, Sergey Ryazansky and Fyodor Yurchikhin, filed the launching of five nano-satellites outside the ISS with a 360-degree camera. As The Verge writes, it’s not clear what camera they were using....

The first photo of the upcoming Canon EOS R5 in the wild has been posted by Newswitch, with the Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8L IS USM lens attached. As you can see, it looks very similar in design to the EOS R, although perhaps a little bigger. No more specs have been released yet, although Newswitch reports that the camera ist o be released “as soon as possible”, and should start shipping before the Tokyo Olympics begin in July....

A lot of us fall into two camps when it comes to photography. Nope, I’m not talking about Nikon versus Canon or any such silliness. I’m talking about whether you’re predominantly a zoom lens shooter or a prime lens aficionado. Personally, I love a good prime lens. I don’t know if it’s because I shoot video or because I love to photograph people, but my camera kit seems to be full of mostly prime lenses....