Mobile DIY Photo Booth

For the wedding of our friends we wanted to bring a photo booth to capture some special moments on their party and give them a small edition of the box with all the pictures to have a special picturebox to remember their special day.

Then we started thinking that we would love to have a mobile box with everything in it to easily bring it to every party from then on.

So we started planning on our first version of our Mobile Photo Booth.

First we checked what we could use to provide the technical function of the photobooth. We thought about Arduinos, Raspberry Pi's, CHDK Firmware for the Canon Camera, .... but all was quite complicated for the week time we had left to build it.

Luckily we figured out that we could just attach an external screen via HDMI and an remote Trigger, disable the preview screen at the camera and voila!

When the picture is taken, the camera displays the picture for a couple of seconds on the external screen and is ready for the next picture.

So we didn't need to build anything on the electronic or software side for our first version. \o/

All we needed was the mini HDMI to DVI cable, an old TFT Screen with DVI input and a remote trigger for the camera. easy!

Browsing through the local hardware shop we picked up a simple wooden box, a hinge, a wooden board as cover and separator to put the camera on.

Besides that we used some parts we had laying around at home.

Now we had to measure the different sizes:

• How big is the screen
• How thick is the screen
• How high is the lens of the camera from its bottom
• How big is the diameter of the lens
• How deep is the lens from the camera mount at the bottom of the camera
• ...

With that we started drawing our drafts to start working on the pieces.

The first piece to work on it the cover. So from the draft we made we picked the numbers and drew the parts on the board. After that we drilled some holes in the parts that we needed to cut out.

With our jig saw we followed the lines we drew before. After coarsely cutting out the parts we used a rasp and some sandpaper to smoothen everything.

After that we attach the Cover already to the body with the hinge, so that position of the holes don't shift anymore for the next steps.

Now we needed to place the separator ob the box at the right height and drill a hole for the camera stand to fix the screw on the other side ob the board.

The reason why we cut the cover first was because on the inside of the box making errors is less visible :-)

We had to adjust the position of the separator twice to get it right :-)

That is also the "hardest" part to get everything right here. But in the end you have a perfectly aligned camera lens in the hole of the cover and there still needs to be enough room for the screen as well!

As you can see as well on the picture, to adjust the angle of the camera we just used some paper in the front of the stand. Then you fix it with some screws from the other side and we are almost done.

To mount the monitor we used some small pieces of wood that had almost the same thickness as the screen. That was kind of the frame where the monitor sits in.

Keep in mind that you have to spare out the part where the buttons of the screen are, otherwise it is a bit hard to change settings afterwards.

To fix it at it's position we used some low angle metal pieces, bend them a bit an put some tape around the side where the monitor will be. We bend it to put a little more pressure on the screen, but you don't have to bend it that far as shown on the picture, that was just to make it obvious.

We used four of them, on each corner one.

The last step is to wire everything together. So we put a multiple socket-outlet in the box to power the screen and a battery charger for the camera, connected the screen to the HDMI port of the camera, drilled a hole in the back of the box for the cables and fixed the camera on its stand.

when everything is put together we just needed to put some tape on the buttons, that shouldn't be pushed and we are ready to go.

All you need now is a huge pile of funny accessories for your funny pictures. And because it is a mobile photo booth, all the stuff you see (and some more that was on another table) easily fits in the Box!

And there it is, our mobile fun in a box photo booth! Thanks for reading!