Hardware photography life hacks

I'd just had a cunning plan that I wanted to share somewhere, so this forum is the place. And since I've just read about Joe using foil to get bounce out of an integrated flash, that reminds me of another one. So...

 

First hack: I had a load of different camera bags (for various purposes) taking up floor space in my study, which I've been trying to tidy. "A load" means an old Lowepro, a different Lowepro with a camera space at the bottom and a generic space at the top, a Think Tank Airport Acceleration which is fairly large and holds most of my camera gear, a Think Tank Shape Shifter for when I'm travelling on a business trip and sometimes leave cameras in the hotel room (when there's a safe), and a recent Lowepro Protactic 450 that I've just collected because it's got more rigidity (my Airport Acceleration is getting a bit floppy with age, which worries me for protection in transit) and more side access ports allowing me to have multiple layers of stuff in my bag (an idea I proposed to Think Tank, so I have to support someone doing it). Plus three other backpacks and a load of smaller camera and lens cases. In a moment of cleverness, I thought "hat stand", which has hoiked them all off the floor.

 

What I'd failed to anticipate was that the cheap hat stand incorporates an umbrella stand (as in a ring about half way up)... which perfectly fits my tripods. So now, rather than leaning them all (yes, I hoard those too) precariously in the corner of the room, they're now stored with the bags. If I'm clever I'll remember to wrap my gorillapods around the central column.

 

So, hatstands, recommended photographic accessory. Who knew? Just thought I'd mention it in case it helps someone else.

 

Also... a while back I bought some large (A4, I think) fresnel sheets designed to make it easier to read things. The reason I bought them was that I was tired of having a bright spotlight in my eyes during public speaking, and thought a more diffuse light would be better. I've yet to experiment, but with a massive disclaimer that it's untried, I might suggest one as an alternative to a moderate diffuser - they'll let a lot of light through, but spread out the flash source to the size of the panel (if you line it up right), which should at least let you get rid of red eye and might let you do more interesting flash modifications. And they're very cheap and portable.

 

Other than the recent discussion in useless accessories and the various things you can use to insulate a tripod leg (there comes a point where you should just buy a carbon pod...), anyone feel like sharing any obscure DIY photography equipment hacks? Some are reasonably well-known (such as using a sheet of glass as a base for product photos, especially with a polariser, or putting a printed out-of-focus shot behind a subject to emulate a large aperture), but I'm sure there's plenty out there that I've never thought to try.

Sounds as if you have squandered all your fortune on camera bags.

 

Please write again when you have saved up and purchased a few cameras.

 

And no more bags... :(

I think I'm good for bags, for now. I can only think of eighteen cameras (four compacts, four SLRs, one rangefinder, five digital compacts, one mirrorless, three dSLRs) in the house (not counting phones or cameras in laptops) - I'll work on that. I don't even have anything large format! They don't take up quite so much floor space - although the same tidying of my study includes trying to free enough space in my glass-fronted bookcases that I can actually see which bit of kit I'm trying to access without dropping all the rest on the floor.

 

In my defence, I've been rationalising my lenses recently. By which I mean "selling two cheaper ones and buying one more expensive one". Although I do still have four 50mm lenses...

 

But everyone has at least three full-height tripods which they can store in an umbrella stand, right? (I assume everyone does what Thom Hogan says don't do, and ends up with several tripods kept mostly as lighting stands...)

The screw thread on a lampshade 'Harp" is the same thread as a tripod and can be used as a camera holder (I won't say tripod!) in an emergency. You have to be careful how deeply you screw into the tripod socket - a thick rubber washer or other spacer is helpful, even a few scraps of cardboard punched with a paper punch will work. You do need to use a remote or cable release, and massive cameras need not apply..

small levels

Wow! Looks as if you can check your horizontal, vertical and Z axis orientation in a multi-dimensional universe with that little cube JD.

 

(Or is it a hypercube with faces hidden in higher dimensions?)

I have some of the small levels, and I've used them on film cameras, but the digital levels in modern dSLRs are a lot more convenient - and I often use the viewfinder grid lines to help me level horizons (which sometimes need to look level when they're not); that seemed to make a massive difference when I first had a D700 that enabled them. Indeed, the Nikon viewfinder display gives you an electronic level or grid lines, not both at the same time, which makes me think they might have the same thought. For the right system, though, I agree that they're useful.

 

I'm now wondering whether you could balance a small bubble level below the aperture-direct readout hole (where you can physically see the aperture on the lens) on cameras like the F5, and get an in-viewfinder level. To be honest, this would have been a simple enough thing to build into the periphery of the viewfinder in a purely mechanical way that I'm surprised that I can't think of a camera that did so.

JD's small bubble level is available with a hot shoe fitting molded into the cube. Put in the hot shoe slot, getting a vintage folder "straight & plumbed" is a snap. Aloha, Bill

Again, I have some of these (they live in the small toploader which I tend to use with film bodies), but since I listed them in my "most useless accessory" thread post (as, admittedly, something I don't use but someone else might) I feel obliged to argue against them...

 

Assuming your hotshoe is level relative to the camera, the top of the camera is still a slightly awkward place. If you're hand held, you have to take your eye from the finder to look at it, which probably means you're shifting the horizon. If you're on a tripod, many tripod heads have their own bubble levels already (albeit sometimes obscured by the camera - something you can get extensions to solve, I believe).

 

So I find a digital level in the finder to be vastly superior - which brings me back to wondering if/why no film cameras contained a mechanical bubble level in the finder view. I have a nagging feeling that Rollei might have put a spirit level somewhere on a TLR, but then it's a bit easier to shift the view with a WLF.

 

But even then, I don't find the digital level to be massively useful at least some of the time (although I do find it handy enough to have assigned to a function button). I used to be terrible at keeping horizons straight, but a finder with grid lines made a huge difference to me - I use them for alignment, not for the rule of thirds. And I'm pretty sure those are available for a lot of film cameras - worth considering if you've been looking at the spirit level solution.

 

Hotshoe levels are definitely cheaper and easier to install than a new finder screen, admittedly. :-) And, to be fair, I used them quite a bit when shooting infrared film (RIP, HIE) - but I had only a vague idea what I was pointing at in those cases, so the finder wasn't very useful! (This was the only time I've ever taken a dSLR photo with the lens cap accidentally left on...)

Hello again. I live both in Hawaii & Washington state. On the mainland, several YashicaMats are used. Each has a 1inch, round, bubble level affixed (small amount of silicone caulking) to the sports finder push-out of the camera top. Again, fast, rough set up for level of the camera. The small size still allows the TLR to be used in the sports view mode. These small, round levels are available in most hardware stores. Aloha, Bill

Belatedly, I remembered that I wanted to have a moment's silence for the option of using the meter readout in the top LCD of the D700 as a digital level. That readout went missing in the D800 generation (IIRC) when the level became bidirectional. Apparently Nikon understood that the yaw axis was more important when only putting one readout into the D700, but decided that offering it was worse than nothing when it came to the D8x0 top LCD (although obviously the rear LCD still works). It was useful for levelling the camera at ground level from above - although at least with the D850 you can flip out the rear screen.

 

Or use a bubble level. :-)