How to Make a Cheap Video Camera

Time to confess a personal bias: I love Gmail. I think it's the best thing since sliced bread. I try to be impartial when I write about software and online services, but seriously -- of all the free email services out there, why would you use anything else? A quick point of o ...more

Ever wonder what you look like to someone else as you walk, talk? How it looks from above, behind, or to the side? Seeing yourself in a video flattens the experience into two dimensions, but this wireless camera rig experiment from Instructables member BigRedRocket brings it i ...more

While it's been rumored for a few months, Apple finally unveiled its new 4-inch iPhone SE at the Apple Special Event on March 21st. Apple sold 30 million 4-inch iPhones in 2015, many of which by first-time Apple buyers. With Apple's flagships getting bigger and bigger, the co ...more

The future of TikTok in the U.S. is all but certain. Microsoft, Walmart, or Oracle could save the day by buying the company, TikTok may win its lawsuit, or China's new restrictions could halt everything — but all could fail. Just like Vine before it, TikTok could be on its way ...more

One of the best uses for an old Android device is to turn it into a security webcam that can be accessed over the internet. But most of the time, this is a rather difficult process, because existing apps usually require you to mess around with network settings and configure a ...more

Cases and stickers are always great, but they aren't the only way to customize an iPhone. The software on your device is full of customization options, from a better-looking home screen and cooler lock screen wallpapers to app icon changes and a system-wide dark mode. There's ...more

Surveillance is always a useful tool in a hacker's arsenal, whether deployed offensively or defensively. Watching targets yourself isn't always practical, and traditional surveillance camera systems can be costly, lacking in capabilities, or both. Today, we will use motionEyeO ...more

Equipment list for the low budget crowd Let's assume you have a script (not just an idea) and have gotten your pre production out of the way. These are both incredibly important and should not be taken lightly, especially when you have no budget. So you have an awesome film a ...more

Last week I talked about the video / image side of things, and as promised here is the audio side. Sound is integral to all studio productions, but for most student and low budget production, it's the last thing filmmakers seem to think about, and one of the most noticeable p ...more

When you're capturing video with a DSLR, not having some type of stabilization system can lead to some pretty awful and shaky scenes. Camera instability is not only painful to watch, but breaks the fourth wall. Once that the invisible barrier between filmmaker and audience is ...more

Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out, according to director Martin Scorsese, who asserted that when describing his life's work. Getting the perfect shot can turn an otherwise ordinary scene into something great, both on and off screen. One of the most reco ...more

You can do a lot with water guns. Have trouble waking up? Make a water gun alarm clock that (almost) no one could sleep through. Prefer real ammo? Turn your water gun into an airsoft BB gun. And if you don't have one, you can even make your own. One of the best things about w ...more

WonderHowTo is made up of niche communities called Worlds. If you've yet to join one (or create your own), get a taste below of what's going on in the community. Check in every Wednesday for a roundup of new activities and projects. This week has been an exciting one. The com ...more

This is the cheapest device to gather interviews as a small, easy-to-carry recorder. I started to use it for preproduction and film documentation after I bought it in a Polish discount shop for about 100 Euro. The only problem was very poor sound quality. I decided to mod the ...more

Our hacked Kinect series has demonstrated amply how the Kinect is changing the worlds of business, art, medicine and robotics. But where does it go from here? That will be determined by the thousands of dedicated DIYers out there doing work like you've seen here over the last ...more

Hobby rockets are tons of fun. Vicarious astronaut adventures abound with every launch. What if you want to be closer to the action though? What if you want to feel what it's like to be in a rocket at takeoff? With the discovery of tiny keychain cameras, we have technology sma ...more

Starting with the Priv, BlackBerry's become an Android manufacturer. This move gives BlackBerry's phones access to Google's sizable app store, but it also presents several hurdles to keeping the security brand they've built intact. For example, Android encryption still lags b ...more

Remember what life was like before your iPhone? Before there were palm-sized smartphones with seemingly endless features, there were phones like Motorola's RAZR that peaked with its embedded camera. Before that, there were simple flip phones with texting capabilities, bulky tw ...more

It's gigantic! It can handle over 100 simultaneous touch points! It has a curvature of 135 degrees! And best of all, it is not the newest, insanely expensive gadget to hit the market. Instead, this touchscreen was hacked together with a bunch of PCs, video cameras, projectors ...more

WonderHowTo is a how-to website made up of niche communities called Worlds, with topics ranging from Minecraft to science experiments to Scrabble and everything in-between. Check in every Wednesday evening for a roundup of user-run activities and how-to projects from the most ...more

If you take your camera equipment with you on a pretty frequent basis, having a camera bag can help protect it and makes it much easier to keep everything in one place. A good camera bag can be pretty expensive, but with this tutorial by photographer Allen Mowery, you can turn ...more

In order to take the perfect picture of your handmade wooden project, it's helpful to have a lightbox that's similar to what professionals use but definitely cheaper to make yourself. I was thinking about what project I was going to work on today. I decided to flip through so ...more

If you're lucky, your digital camera has a built-in intervalometer that lets you operate the shutter regularly at set intervals over a period of time. Why would you be lucky? Because you can create some very awesome time-lapse videos, like the horribly beautiful eruption of a ...more

Mira Reality unveiled the Mira Prism yesterday and people immediately got excited about it. The Mira Prism uses no electronics besides your iPhone and it works pretty simply. You have a semi-transparent screen in front of your face. Once you open the Mira app on your phone, y ...more

Planning a vacation overseas can sometimes feel overwhelming with the number of things you need to remember before heading out. Since smartphones keep us connected at all times, it's essential that you have everything you need here as well. Unexpected events can arise while on ...more

Not many people use film cameras anymore, so it can be hard to find the materials to develop your own photos at home since most local camera stores are closing. But it's actually relatively easy to make homemade developer, and you can make it with a few relatively common ingre ...more

During Mobile World Congress 2018, OEMs started to introduce the world to Android Oreo (Go edition). Android Go offers smooth performance on entry-level specs, allowing for genuinely good cheap phones. At first, the US only had one Android Go device, but it looks like a second ...more

WonderHowTo is made up of niche communities called Worlds. If you've yet to join one (or create your own), get a taste below of what's going on in the community. Check in every Wednesday for a roundup of new activities and projects. Thanks to all of our active moderators and ...more

With an ordinary birthday card, we can introduce a physical device which contains malicious files into someone's home and deceive them into inserting the device into a computer. In my last series, we used a Post-it note to trick a neighbor into visiting a website that we cont ...more

This article will show you how to make a shutter release cable for a Canon camera. It took me about half an hour once all of my materials were gathered. I came in at a total of about eight dollars. It has three switches and buttons. The black button on mine triggers the auto f ...more

After years of false rumors and abandoned hopes, the day has finally come. Verizon Wireless is finally getting the Apple iPhone! No longer does AT&T monopolize the iPhone market. Three weeks ago, Verizon Wireless and Apple announced the iPhone 4's arrival to the nation's most ...more

The Google Nexus S smartphone is finally here! Well… almost. Nexus S is the first smartphone based on the Gingerbread OS (Android 2.3) and will be available for purchase online and at Best Buy store locations everywhere, come December 16th, with T-Mobile service. Aah… just ...more