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Studio DIY: Gel Holder for Flash
Craig Colvin (Flickr) came up with a great design for a gel holder on a flash. The design includes an L shaped plexiglass.
Now, if you ever followed the strobist way of mounting gels on your flash, you know the great value those little pieces of colored tape can provide.
You probably also know that it can very annoying to apply the gel strips on the flash or to remove them. Not to mention stacking them together - this becomes a Velcro hell.
The nice design by Craig solves this problem by providing a Velcro free gel chassis. Sometimes you need nothing more than some bended plexiglass. See Craig's full design and instructions here.
If you can not bend plexiglass yourself you may want to consider using an Acrylic stand. I could only find big ones but I know that there is a smaller version from my local coffee bar.
This got me thinking on alternatives to gel holders and the thing that popped to mind was name tag pockets. Those are pretty cheap and once you place on over your flash, you can freely insert and remove colorful gels.
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More Gels:
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- Painting With Light
- The Optimizer
- The DIY Speed Strap - Accessories And Samples
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Comments
Great idea. Unfortunately,
Great idea. Unfortunately, if you are not into acrylic and have a heat bender, the cost of making these are prohibative. The sign stand idea is ok, but the angle of the signs is usual not 90 degrees, thus making it a non-working or at minimum, a hackneyed solution. The nametags do have some possiblity though.
re: acrylic
Thanks Sean,
I guess that you do need some equipment. When ever I need something like this done, I go to the local workshop area next to my home and they can do pretty much everything - usually for exchange to a smile and coffee :) - if it is a two minutes job.
As for the small stands - the coffee close to my house has them in 90 degrees. how ever I could not find any on-line - if anybody knows where to get those, please ping the comments.
- udi
i am not a big fan of the plexiglass
there is no way for the gel to cool down.I have another method in mind I think I will built soon(very simple and cheap).
also the plexiglass will start to brown.
if your not going to take many shots/min it should be ok....
Do you lose any light
Do you lose any light shooting through a couple layers of clear plexi?
Rubber bands do the trick
Rubber bands hold my gels in place perfectly. Stacking them up is no problem (using a bit of blue tack helps them from sliding around) and the rubber band makes it very quick to put on and take of the gels.
Cheers/Peter
Shelf edge ticket holders
The acrylic option is a bit prohibitive if you don't have a heat bender but your name tag option got me thinking. I contacted a couple of point of sale suppliers here in the UK and requested some samples of supermarket shelf edge ticket holders (not sure of the US term for them). Perfect solution - right angled, slot for the gel, light weight and cost nothing :-)
Steve
This is a great idea
I'll bet the nice guys at the supermarket will be happy to provide one edge for the enthusiastic photographer.
I'm gonna ask tomorrow.
Thanks for this great idea, Steve.
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