I built one for a friends bar. I used a laptop, inkjet printer, webcam, and a big red button to start the whole process. Some scripting in linux and i was done. My cost was around 300$. I warned him that the cost of the consumables would be quite high. I guess Redbull has one they cart around and their costs were several thousand dollars every month, so he abandoned the idea.

http://hotfile.com/dl/67556289/98014d9/DSLR.Remote.Pro.v2.0.rar.html

I looked everywhere for free software (mostly out of principal, since the $85 I paid for the software was a tiny fraction of the event costs and ended up being well worth it). I couldn’t find any–if you could point to the scripting you did in Linux that would be much appreciated.

BTW, if you steal the DSLR Remote Pro software using that link above, you’re stealing from a real programmer, a one-man shop run by a guy named Chris Breeze. His product is very fairly priced for pro-quality software and there is a free trial version if you just want to mess around with it. Ripping off M$oft is one thing, ripping off a genuinely nice guy and very hard-working programmer is pretty sleazy. If you want it free, build your own and open source it, no need to mess with Chris.

Inkjets aren’t the way to go. They’re slow, unreliable, and prone to smudges as well as bleeding when they get wet (from wet hands from holding a drink with condensation or spilling a drink on it).

To do it right, you need a solid dye-sublimation printer. You can get cheap canon dye-sub printers that are slow but good for a single event. If you want to use this for multiple events, a Sony UPCX1 is the preferred option for photobooths. High-quality prints, they sell a perforated paper specially designed for photobooths, and the consumables cost is pretty low, about $100 for a 3-hour event with heavy use.

Red Bull would have to be putting out a LOT of prints to go through thousands of dollars a month.

@fast50

You could do this with $85 software and a cheap point-and-shoot from eBay (or your existing digital camera might work) to keep costs down, which is what I did. I think the original guy was looking for an excuse to buy a nice camera. You certainly don’t need a $600 camera.

If you have a newer laptop or nettop with a webcam built-in with resolution above 1 mp, you might even be able to use that camera for something like this. You’d just have lower quality prints.

There’s really no way around a lot of the costs for some of this, though–if you want high-quality prints, you’re going to have to use decent equipment for printer and camera (and lighting). How much it costs depends on what you have and what compromises you’re willing to make.

http://breezesys.com/Photobooth/index.htm

He sells different versions for different cameras. PSRemote works with older Canon Powershots. Since they stopped putting out the SDK for new powershots, you have to buy a used one from his list of supported models. Used = keeps the price down!

I know that a year or so ago a kid made a cheaper hack to work with a Mac, too, but it wasn’t as automated as this.

There’s also photoboof.com. Another one-man shop, but squarely aimed at professional photobooths with a $600 price tag. Nicer set of features, but there’s no way to justify the extra $500.

If I knew anything about linux I’d love to put something together in that, but I expect the driver issues alone might drive one to drink…

I used a Canon S2: http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m570.l1313&_nkw=canon+s2+&_sacat=See-All-Categories

You can usually get one right around the $100 point on ebay. I’m sure there are other Canon PS models that will work with PSRemote for even less if you dig around.

Why not one of those polaroid printes that don’t use ink? It is the paper PoGo I think they are called. the local evil empire here is closing them out cheap and the paper is as cheap as photo paper.granted you are limited to wallet sized photos or stickers but who cares they are bigger than you get from most photo booths

I was talking about the printing.

I set one of these up for my 30th. I tried a couple of freeware/trial options and decided that I’d pay for an out of the box solution (Party Booth). Grabbed a Keyboard and took off all the keys except the ones I needed (spacebar, return and esc I think). Got a 2mp webcam and two clip on spotlights which I mounted on a monitor displaying into the booth.

You don’t need massively specc’d cam’s for this because the shots are so small but good lighting is essential. Clip on halogens with a diffuser worked for me. The other trick is making sure you set your focal point about 1-1.5m away from the camera (unless you’re using something that can auto-adjust)

Experimented with putting the whole thing in a tent (to give some intimacy/privacy to the shots) but it was more hassle than it was worth so I dumped the tent idea and just had it sitting at eye-height near the bar.

Got about 300 shots out of 100 or so people. Also had a box of silly hats on hand, the frequency of use scaling with the amount of beverage consumed.
Used a Canon pixma photo printer for printing out the shots then and there, which gave everyone something to take home with them (plus I got to keep the electronic copies)

Anyway, here’s an example of what they looked like: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42204433@N00/5035368650/

If anyone wants further details, feel free to hit me up on Flickr

I do this as a side-business. It can be fairly lucrative if you have a good setup and get good word of mouth. You need a more industrial setup, though, than just PVC and a few curtains. I use a Canon G-9 and PSRemote, works like a charm.

Adobe Lightroom 3 has a built in remote function now that will control most if not all newer DSLRs, including Nikon and Canon. I’ve used it for something similar but without the printing function. More for the Bride and Groom to go back and look at their friends later on.

Having a photo booth at our wedding was the best decision we made! See the video I made below. What a great way to remember the perfect day.