Jordan and I were naughty this year and Santa put something in our stocking that was less useful than a lump of coal. Naturally, we decided to review our gifts and see if there was any merit to mass-produced photo gear on the cheap.
One extremely lucky photographer recently experienced the find of a lifetime at his local Goodwill thrift store. While looking through the home entertainment section, he was shocked to find a $1,399 professional camera lens priced at just $6.99.
Kenko Tokina is bringing back the affordable point-and-shoot with its new, $125, underwater KC-WP06 camera. It combines classic features like a 25.5mm equivalent lens and an 8-megapixel sensor with a more modern front-facing LCD.
Film is not making a comeback, it has come back. Photography students I teach are always so excited to start their journey in shooting, developing, and enlarging film, until they start.
As a product photographer, I use paper in various different ways as a background for still-life photos to keep costs down for creative shooting. In this article, I'll show you how I do it and how you can do it too.
Light shaping tools are very expensive. What if you could take any object and turn it into a modifier? That would save you a lot of money as well as give some unique results. In this article, I will share some everyday objects that you can turn into light modifiers to get different looks.
Chinese manufacturer Rockstar has released a set of incredibly affordable prime lenses that are both under $80. The manual focus 10mm f/8 Fisheye and 27mm f/2.8 pancake lenses are available for Sony, Nikon, Fujifilm, and Canon APS-C cameras as well as Micro Four Thirds.
Almost anything can be used as a light modifier. As long as it interacts with light in one way or another, it can be considered a light modifier. In this article, I will show you how to build a do-it-yourself (DIY) softbox with things you likely already have around at home.
According to his Facebook profile, 16-year-old Tyler B. of Detroit, Michigan is into BMX, snowboarding and tennis. Soon, he may be into photography also. And who wouldn't be, after scoring a complete Leica M outfit, that is considered a dream camera rig, for just $15?
Fashion photography is expensive. Even a small test shoot has some costs associated with it. What is more expensive is good fashion photography.
In this article, I'm going to tell you the story of my latest camera creation: a digital Polaroid camera that combines a receipt printer with a Raspberry Pi. To build it I took an old Polaroid Minute Maker camera, stripped out its guts, and replaced the innards with a digital camera, an E Ink display, a receipt printer, and an SNES controller to operate the camera.
Star trackers are important for capturing long exposures of star formations by slowly moving to compensate for the rotation of the Earth. Most modern star trackers use motors to do this, but in this 22.5-minute video, photographer Nico Carver shows how he built a hang-crank version for just $30.
I recently found a very practical solution for diffusing a camera flash. The solution is perhaps the most practical thing available during the COVID-19 pandemic: the spare medical mask that I kept on my bag.
If you're in the market for a full-frame DSLR, listen up, because one of the best cameras on the market is now cheaper than ever. The Nikon D850—once dubbed "the pinnacle of DSLR technology" by DPReview—just received a $500 price cut, making it more affordable than it's ever been since it was released in 2017.
A must-have tool when shooting a number of photography genres, including the night sky, is a remote release trigger for your camera. Triggers range from very simple cable releases over phone apps that connect to your camera’s Wi-Fi to very specialized intervalometers. I wanted to build something even better...
Photographer, YouTuber, and weird lens connoisseur Mathieu Stern recently made one of his coolest finds yet. It's the Carl Zeiss 105mm f/1.9 Kipronar T, a cinema projector lens he describes as "one of the most amazing swirly bokeh lenses I ever tested"... and yet it only cost him $25.
Atomos—the purveyor of HDMI monitor/recorders like the popular Ninja V—has just released a 4K HDMI-to-USB capture card that lets you turn your professional camera into an ultra-high quality webcam for streaming or video conferencing. The best part? It costs just $80.
Cinematographer Shane Hurlbut of the Hurlbut Academy recently shared a great DIY tutorial in which he shows you how to build a giant soft box using just some foam core and a few lengths of 1x3-inch wood. The result allows you to create a large, soft light source without breaking the bank.
Photographer and YouTuber George Muncey of Negative Feedback recently set out on an ill-fated adventure in film scanning. He went out and bought the cheapest 35mm film scanner he could find online—the DIGITNOW! 135, which costs a whopping $60 on Amazon—and tried it out so that you don't have to.
Over the past couple of years, the barrier to entry for full-frame has dropped significantly—starting with the $1,300 Canon EOS RP, and followed by the almost-as-cheap $1,400 Nikon Z5. But it seems Canon may be planning to release an even cheaper EOS R camera in 2021.
Over my past 7 years as a professional photographer, I have received many questions from startups and amateurs who are worried about the considerable investment they thought they had to make on cutting-edge equipment. Luckily, I am able to suggest more affordable alternatives while keeping quality as high as possible.
Putting the words "Leica" and "Cheap" in the same headline is usually an oxymoron, but the company has just announced that it will be selling "Made in Portugal" versions of nine popular M-mount lenses in order to bypass a controversial US tariff established last year, making these lenses more affordable for US buyers.
Meike is on a budget lens tear. After releasing a fully manual 50mm f/1.2 for under $400, and an autofocus 85mm f/1.8 for less than $200, they just today unveiled an even cheaper lens. The new Meike 25mm f/1.8 APS-C lens for the Nikon Z-Mount is just $75.
If you're looking for a cheap lens for capturing ultra-shallow depth of field, Hong Kong-based lens maker Meike has got you covered. They just unveiled a manual focus 50mm f/1.2 lens for Sony E, Nikon Z, Canon RF, and Canon EF mounts that will run you just $360.
Photographer and YouTuber Duncan Dimanche has posted a quick tutorial that'll show you how to create your own DIY wall charging station on the cheap. Depending on your needs this setup can cost as little as $60, and the results look almost as good and functional as some of the more serious builds we've featured.
If you've been thinking of trying your hand at vlogging or starting a YouTube channel, it might surprise you to learn that you can create a nice-looking "YouTube Studio" setup at home for less that $100. In this video, Boston-based videographer Kellan Reck takes you step-by-step through the whole process.
As promised back in March, Tokina has just the ATX-i 11-20mm f/2.8 CF: an ultra-wide angle zoom lens for crop-sensor DSLRs from Nikon and Canon. With a fixed f/2.8 aperture and affordable price tag, it should prove to be a very popular option for APS-C users.
Cinema lens and filter maker NiSi continues its expansion into strange product categories. This time, the company has released its first macro focusing rail: a competitively-priced addition to the market that gives macro enthusiasts a lot of control and some nice-to-have features for precise focus stacking.
Being an early adopter of any technology usually comes with a hefty price tag, and CFExpress is no exception. The cards themselves are up to 3x to 6x more expensive than comparable SD cards, and the card readers out there can get pretty pricey on the high end. Enter Lexar.
Cinema camera and software maker Blackmagic Design has announced a major price drop for the popular Pocket Cinema Camera 6K, knocking $500 off the MSRP and making one of the cheapest cinema cameras on the market even more affordable.