7 Simple Photography Hacks

I came across this video while looking at articles on http://fstoppers.com/. I love videos like this because there are no long winded explanations, simple little tricks to try out and each different hack only takes up a few seconds.

I think some of the hacks could be quite useful like the string tripod.... it's so much less space than a tripod and you can carry around the right amount of string in your camera bag so you can always have something to steady yourself.

I though the Vaseline hack was brilliant! Rather than adding in blurred effects afterwards you can just carry a pocket size tub of Vaseline, like you might anyway, and just slip a filter into the camera bag and you have a brilliant photo effect at hand with little fuss.

Trying out the hacks.....

The first one that I tried out was the Vaseline hack, I don't have a filter but I though I would try it with cling film, that way you don't have to spend a while trying to clean the filter because you can just throw away the cling film afterwards.

Cling filmed camera with a hair bobble holding the cling film in place.

Vaseline....

I wanted to make sure that even thought there was something over the camera lens the image would still be clear, when I took the image on the right it was slight misty so I tightened the cling film as much as I could and wiped it slightly and tried again.







Maybe it was the sunlight from the blind behind but when I took the photo on the left I found the image much clearer and knew that using cling film rather than a lens would be okay to do.

This is my before photo of my subject before I put Vaseline on...

This was the first photo that I took with the Vaseline one and I think it was the best, there isn't too much blur, the rabbit is framed well and overall its not a bad photo.

The rest of the photos are just me carrying on practising with the Vaseline, I think I would be able to use this as a technique in my photos at some point, I think in certain themed photos this technique would be really good but it is just getting used to how much blur you want in the photo and getting your subject framed properly. 

I don't really like this photo but I like the effect that the Vaseline has on the cats right ear.
I like the look of it fading/ being blurred away.

I used blue and purple pen to colour the cling film and then ripped it like in the video, yet again attaching it to the camera with a band.

Although these photos did not turn out how I wanted them or thought they would I still like the effect that the cling film has given, I think I will have the practice a lot more with this technique in order to get it to work properly. Maybe I didn't use bold enough colours on the cling film? It has a vignette effect like the Vaseline but not a smooth, this kind of looks like broken glass....or maybe just plastic....

One overall problem I found using the cling film was  that if I had too much excess, when the wind blew it would get into the shot so I had to hold it down, but to prevent that I would just have to cut off the excess and it would be fine. 

The next time that I test these methods I will use a person as my subject, the animals were difficult to work with and it was hard trying to get them to stand still while I changed the focus and moved the cling film out of shot.