What Do You Need to Make a Do it Yourself Photobooth?

Photobooths are all the rage at weddings and parties these days. But, they can be pretty expensive - about $800 to $1000 and up in the New York metro area. For a large budget wedding, that's not bad; for a low budget wedding, or a simple birthday party, that's a considerable amount.

But do you have to pay all that money? Not necessarily. If you already own a dSLR and a laptop, and you have a bit of that DIY spirit, you might just be able to make your own portable photobooth. Search around, and you'll find plenty of examples of people working on this type of project - including this article in LifeHacker and this post on Digital Photography How To.

This article is not intended to be an exhaustive guide to building your own photobooth. Instead, I'm giving you a quick list of what you will need to make it, so you can decide for yourself if it's an idea worth pursuing or not.

List of Requirements

Photobooth Software. This is step one on the list, because it determines what else you'll need. If you want a legit photobooth that takes nice quality pictures, you'll want dSLR Remote Pro. This comes packed with some cool features for tethered shooting, among them a fully featured photobooth mode.

The price tag is steep ($175), but if this is a one time gig you can use the 15-day trial. If you're going to use this photobooth a few times (3-4), then I'd say that justifies the cost. There is some cheaper software out there, but it uses a webcam... and the picture quality will be decidedly lower.

Camera. Obviously, you're going to need a camera. To work with dSLR Remote Pro, you'll want at least a basic dSLR camera. You can look down the list of supported cameras to see if yours is there or to find one to buy. Obviously, this project will be much cheaper if you re-use an existing camera... but you can potentially find a used camera on the cheap to fill your needs. Canon xT's and 20D's would both be fine for this purpose, and used they cost about $2-300.

Printer. If the photobooth is portable, you'll want the printer to be compact and portable, too. It would be a good idea to get a compact photo printer that only does smaller prints (4x6, maybe 5x7) and use it just for photos instead of lugging around a full size printer.

The Canon Selphy CP800 is a great choice, with a price tag of $70-80 and the cheapest per-print supply cost for a non-professional printer ($0.26 to $0.28 per print). If you planned on using this a lot, you could invest in a professional model (like a HiTi P510 series), but most people will be fine with the Selphy.

Screen. You need a monitor for the live preview inside the booth. You could use an old CRT monitor, they're pretty much free these days if you look on a curb. Or, you could use a nice flat panel monitor... ~$100, or you could just use the one sitting on your desk for the short term.

Clicker/Button. This is a trickier part. You need some way to trigger the booth to start shooting. An expensive way would be to buy a touch-screen monitor. A cheaper, but more tech savvy way, would be to buy an arcade button and rig it to send a signal through your computer's USB port. The simplest way would be to buy a wireless pointer/clicker and map that button to start the photobooth.

The Structure. Finally, you'll need a structure. This is where the creative part comes in. If you want something ultra portable, build it out of PVC pipe. You'll be able to break it down into a few pipes and connections, and pack the whole thing up in a duffel bag. The materials should be fairly cheap - in the neighborhood of $25 to $50 probably.

The tougher part is to cover the structure with some kind of nice looking exterior. Fabric and/or acrylic panels would do the trick. The fabric could get expensive, and you may need some sewing experience to make it look nice. On the other hand, you could slice up some acrylic panels if you find a good way to mount it to the PVC structure.

How Much? Good question. The only way to know for sure is to price out exactly what you're going to build. But here's a quick run-down. If you buy everything you'll need the software ($175), a camera ($300), the printer ($80 + $30 in supplies for 100 prints), a screen ($100), a clicker ($15), and a structure ($1-150?). Somewhere in the neighborhood of $800 to $1000...

So is it worth it? Up to you. Consider, however, that if you already have a screen and a camera, and if you just use the (fully functional) trial of the software, you can knock the project cost down to a couple hundred bucks.