This Instructable is about:
building an automated photo booth. The total build cost was around $150 as I re-used a lot of the components and materials I already had in my garage - in addition to what I could salvage from scrap yards.
Why? - I decided to build my own photo booth after trying to rent one from local photography studios. The going rate for a rented photo booth is around $600 in addition to the hourly rate of the attendent to watch over the equipment. As this was not in my wedding budget, and I did not want to deal with an additional vendor, I decided to build my own for under $200.
My Goal - Build an automated photo booth for under $200 - that could be easily operated by anyone at a party - and is durable and compact enough to fit into a compact car.
(Note* this photo booth does not print pictures. I have been working on a script that automatically uploaded the photo to flickr, but I did not finish it in time for the wedding. I'll try and include that in a future post )
building an automated photo booth. The total build cost was around $150 as I re-used a lot of the components and materials I already had in my garage - in addition to what I could salvage from scrap yards.
Why? - I decided to build my own photo booth after trying to rent one from local photography studios. The going rate for a rented photo booth is around $600 in addition to the hourly rate of the attendent to watch over the equipment. As this was not in my wedding budget, and I did not want to deal with an additional vendor, I decided to build my own for under $200.
My Goal - Build an automated photo booth for under $200 - that could be easily operated by anyone at a party - and is durable and compact enough to fit into a compact car.
(Note* this photo booth does not print pictures. I have been working on a script that automatically uploaded the photo to flickr, but I did not finish it in time for the wedding. I'll try and include that in a future post )
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Signing UpStep 1: How it works
The photo booth operation is simple. Users walk up to the back side of the camera - See themselves on the screen - Press a button and strike a pose.
The mechanics of the photo booth are a little bit more complicated, but ideally, the user never has to know what is going on under the hood.
The guts behind this photo booth are based on OSX lion. With Lion, the photobooth application can be extended to full screen and it can be set to use an external camera. So I connect a logitech web cam and an external monitor to a laptop running OSX Lion. The only thing i needed to build in addition to this hardware setup was an array of lights and a button (mapped to the enter key) to trigger the photobooth application to take a picture.
The "business end" of the photo booth can be seen in this step.
The mechanics of the photo booth are a little bit more complicated, but ideally, the user never has to know what is going on under the hood.
The guts behind this photo booth are based on OSX lion. With Lion, the photobooth application can be extended to full screen and it can be set to use an external camera. So I connect a logitech web cam and an external monitor to a laptop running OSX Lion. The only thing i needed to build in addition to this hardware setup was an array of lights and a button (mapped to the enter key) to trigger the photobooth application to take a picture.
The "business end" of the photo booth can be seen in this step.
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It was a big hit at my wedding and I look forward to using it at other people's weddings and events.
Would you think this could be built using aluminum or another lightweight material? Or do you have any suggestions?
Acrylic is a good option, and it's not expensive. A 48x96 sheet (1/8" clear cast acrylic), cut into more manageable sizes, is less than $100 at the plastics place near our house. Opaque colors aren't much more (like a few dollars or so per sheet). Just watch for sharp edges when transporting this!
At the expensive end of the spectrum are composites, such as carbon fiber-resin composites. You can build them yourself (not cheap), or use sheets and have them cut for your use (also not cheap). Marine plywood clad in fiberglass is light and durable, and not as expensive as you might think (Pygmy Boats uses this construction for their nice, light kayaks).
It all depends on how much work you want to do, and how much you're willing to spend!
Since I don;t have arduino, I would rather hack an old USB keypad. They are pretty cheap.
Also there are a couple of cooling fans designed for notebooks and laptop in some computer stores.
you can replace the lights into colored ones for another special effects.
My only problem now is how to add a flash into it that sync with shooting...
That being said, if you ARE familiar with Arduino, the possibilities here are endless. You could use the button to simultaneously trigger a flash, for example.
Remember, the further you can separate the flash from the camera, the better the lighting will be, and the less red eye problems you'll have. The pre-flash helps, too, by causing the subject's pupils to contract. A bright red LED can have the same effect, as well, with the added benefit of being less painful to look at.
If you were to add a mobile photo printer to the device, with a slot, you could send a print command with a second button (after displaying a preview). Have the thing full of photo paper, choose the layout you want (can all be done programmatically using AppleScript, which I'm sure you can run with a command from the Arduino), and print! While this does add some cost to the project, it's another option, and shouldn't be that expensive. It might even still come in under $350, plus the computer you're using. Pick up an old (a couple years old) macbook, and it can stay dedicated to the photo booth!
Add some pipe and drape, a backlit green screen (LED lit white panel, with Arduino color sensors to switch to blue if subjects are wearing green), choose a custom background, and go nuts!
Now I should probably build something like this, since I've been commenting with a stream of consciousness.
lights: were they synced with flash or on constantly?
button: is the an easy usb button mod that will activate photobooth shot?
The lights were always on. It really helped with the guests walking around in the dark part of our venu.
I'm not sure of a usb mod, but i'd be willing to bet you can find one on instructables. I have since gotten rid of the arduino - and taken apart an old keyboard, and modified it so that the easy button triggers the enter key [the key currently reserved in iphoto for taking pictures].
Inspired by you, we were able to make our own giant camera photo booth for PROMdemonium and it was a huge success.
Ours doesn't look as polished as your version, but we were able to throw it together at the last minute with materials that we had on hand or found in the trash.
We are replacing the Easy button with a "Stick N Click" push button light. The button is very simple to modify. I replaced the constant button inside the light with a momentary button and put a piece of velum over the light to diffuse it. It now acts an indicator when someone presses the button.
const int buttonPin = 10;
// Variables that will change
int buttonState = 0;
int previousState = 0;
void setup() {
// Initialize the button pin as an input
pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT);
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop() {
// read the state of the pushbutton variable
buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);
// If the button is being pressed
if(buttonState == HIGH) {
// If the button is being held down then the previous state
// will be checked and only if the previous state was LOW would it
// display the character
if(!previousState) {
Serial.print('g');
}
}
previousState = buttonState;
}
I love my Arduino.
Great job!
How did the webcam work out with regard to image quality and blur? Interested in this for my wedding, but tried my Logitech webcam last night and the blur was really bad so don't think it would work very well. Also the colors and image quality was pretty terrible. Will the better lighting fix it?
Going with my SLR involves batteries etc so extra hassle, but might be my only option. Unless there is a webcam out there with significantly better IQ...
If anyone identifies the ideal PC based software, please share.
Great Job on the Instructable!
Thank you!
Cheers!
here is a link to the tripod site - i borrowed a friends.. and you can also rent them from audio / party stores for pretty cheap. This one can hold 160 lbs.
http://www.fullcompass.com/product/326884.html?utm_source=googleps&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=googleps&gclid=CJvc5-earawCFYQm3god0XnvHQ
I didn't set up a printer because I didn't want to manage all of the ink and paper. Lucky for me this worked out in my favor - the guests took over 800 photos, so there would have been a lot of expense and time spent keeping the printer alive.
Instead, I included some business cards that had a flickr address on them. All of the photos were uploaded to flickr the next day (manually of course). I have been working on a script that would automatically upload the photos to flickr, but i didn't get it done in time for the event.
If your interested in this, here is a link to a free program that will do the same thing
- http://www.technixupdate.com/automatic-background-upload-to-flickr-from-a-folder/
Hopefully it will save you the time and resources of printing all of the pictures out.
Good luck!