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View Full Version : Are there more like this.



martycon
02-08-2013, 10:21pm
How much DIY photographic gear is around. Whatever you have, DIY or other, I am interested. Please share images of what you find interesting with me. regards martycon.

Dug
03-08-2013, 12:13am
That's pretty cool.
It does not look very user friendly though, but I really like the ingenuity.

I did not photograph or keep anything that I made.

There was the box brownie I took the front off and made a substitute front face from thin MDF then mounted a Nikkor enlarger lens to it.
Focus was by measurement and the shutter was the lens cover.

There was a camera support I fashioned from alum extrusion that hooked over my shoulder at one end, had a camera mounting plate mid point and a handle at the end.
It steadied and supported the weight of a med format SLR with a tele while I did pan shots at motorcycle races and track days.

Last was a glass rectangular box like a fish tank on end, so it was tall with an open top. Rocks went in the bottom so it sank in water, there was a false floor above that with the camera mounted to it, cable release to the top so I could work the shutter.
I used it to underwater photograph Salmon in their spawning grounds, the water was about gumboot depth so I just waded out to them and dipped it in the water. Focus was a bit of guess work with the camera prefocused to the working distance I wanted.
Salmon by this stage have given everything they have to get there and are like the living dead. They don't have the energy to be easily spooked and you can get quite close, trying not to do anything sudden that would stress them.
It worked ok, I never got a really sharp image, but it was an interesting exercise.

martycon
04-08-2013, 11:11pm
G'day DUG, I like your method of underwater photography. Sure, the results may not have been quite as good as a $200 submersible Nikon Digital, but you obviously got much satisfaction in the process, and great memories. Your description of the gear and its use is excellent and I can see it in my minds eye. Thanks, marty.