Camera Hacks to add magic to your images
Prism: The reason why I love the prism is because it can grab the reflection of something behind you and reflect it into the lens. It also redirects a ton of light into the lens, so sometimes this can cause haze on your image, so be careful.
What is kind of crazy about using the prism is that when I’ve used it, you’re looking through your viewfinder and lens and you think you’re getting one picture but the picture that shows up on your display is actually a lot different. It is because of the way that the light is reflecting. So when you shoot, you have to experiment a lot to kind of predict the types of photos you’re going to get.
Plastic bag: The plastic bag is really fun. What you do is slice open the bottom of a Ziploc bag and you put it around the lens. It is almost like a lens hood, and you can be really lazy about how wide open it is and how much of the plastic is in your frame. You’ll find that you get really cool dream-like effect. Shout out to my girl Michelle from Coffee N Lace for this hack.
Cell phone: and the way that I use my cell phone is to put the reflective side of the phone perpendicular to the lens and tilted a little bit more, so that I can start to see some reflection on my camera. It’s similar to the prism, but it will reflect more of an image in your picture.
Piece of glass: depending on the time of day is just using a small piece of clear glass that is either broken or unbroken, can create a really cool effects in your image. It’s just like having a prism, but depending on the size and thickness, it will sometimes create different effects. Sometimes it’s like a solar flare in your image, and other times it’s a reflection of your couple in the image itself.
Star filter: This one is really unique, and only typically works when you have some light source in your frame, kind of like candles or sunlight behind a subject, or even twinkle lights. What the filter does is it will turn the light into for pointed stars in the place of your light source. Special note: Make sure you get a filter that fits your lens. They come in different sizes.
Multi-Image Lens: These are really unique and almost have a kaleidescope effect. Not always super predictable, but can create some fun images as a result.
Free lensing: This imitates a tilt shift lens to a degree. It’s a bit more time consuming, and frustrating to get the full effect, but you can really see the magic of this on an 85 mm lens. What you do is you focus on your subject, and set the lens to manual. Then you actually take the lens off of the camera body. But not all the way. Just turn the lens so its about to come off and then ever so slightly tilt the lens off of the camera body. The only way you can focus on your subject is by getting closer to them physically.
Small Mirrors: You can use small circular or rectangular mirror to put by your lens and reflect something like an arch over your couple or tree branches. I recommend something that is in the negative space above your couple to create a really symmetric look to the image.
Twinkle lights: Some people call them very fairy or string lights. I like you on them in front of my camera lens and hold them at different lengths away from the lens for different effects. It is like little floating lights in front of my lens.
Flash light: You can use these to create fake solar flares and haze to your image if you’re trying to get that India earl look.
Copper tube: You can buy a small copper tube on Amazon or at your hardware store. The shorter the tube, the larger the ring of fire. You’ll want to backlight your subject so that some light is coming directly into your lens. You place it directly in front of your lens and turn your body to change the amount of light hitting the inside the tube.
Iridescent tinsel or plastic: The iridescent quality adds color to what would normally be boring plastic. I hold this in front of my lens for a fun party effect.
There are so many more things I want to try to get interesting effects with my images. For now, these are all of the ones that I personally use! If you have any ideas or have tried anything, let me know what you love!
XO,
Casi
