One thing that make Hollywood light what they are is the fact that they are huge. Huge light equals soft flattering glamorous light.
Sadly, huge lights have their price and getting a big pro kinoflo kit may set you back a good $3K or so.
But how about using cheap worklights bounced of a huge reflector and diffused by a bed sheet? This is exactly what Matthew Scott did for as little as $55.
I know that Flapjack sounds as far as possible from photography, but videographer Andy Bieber so cleverly made those into the most awesome grip ever!
Have you tried dong any project that requires 100W incandescent bulbs lately? Light a set maybe? or build a huge ring light perhaps?
If you went to home depot lately and looked for some 100W or even 75W bulbs you are probably out of luck. Those light were a huge hit as a cheap and very available light source. They had a pretty constant light temperature (incandescent, duh:) and they were cheap and available. Cheap enough that you never needed to carry them from place to place and could have just bought some on location. Click to continue ›
A while back I shared a post about three ways to skin a cat to bare bulb a strobe, one of which was Ryan Mangondaya's excellent mod for the quad-sync LumoPro 160. Since than those strobes have been discontinued and I am now eagerly awaiting the LP180 replacement. But still if you care for having a go on this with one of your units Ryan put up a guide on this mod. Of course, with the 160 being discontinued and the 180 not announced yet, don't come crying if you nuke your strobe dead. Or if you buzz your self to death handling a stripped strobe. Those capacitor inside can deliver an unhealthy a healthy jolt is handled incorrectly. There, this was our standard warning, consider yourself warned. It's all Ryan after the jump.
DIYP reader Florian Knorn just sent in this really rare footage of a Sony HVL-F58AM Flash gun shot with a super fast 500,000 frames per second Fastcam SA4.
The SA4 is usually used to study ballistics and explosions, but Florian turned it on a strobe, playing a 500,000 movie at 25 FPS - an X20,000 reduction in speed. Actually, he did it twice, once that shows the strobe firing at 1/32 power with HSS on, and one that shows the same power shot with HSS off. The videos and my thoughts after the jump. Click to continue ›
Octagonal softboxes (aka octa boxes) are great for when you want nice diffused light. They have a very distinct catch light which some photographers love (and some don't). In this tutorial, David Schöppe shows how to build a wooden octa.
Is it the cheapest way to get a big octa? At ~$30 it probably is. Assuming that you have way more time than money.
In today's tutorials Matus Zošák explains how to build a varying power LED Ring light.
While the concept of using LED angel lights to make a ring flash is not new. This design adds a few important tweaks to this hack - power control, on/off switch and a clever way to mount the ring to a lens.
Photographer Boon Vong shared an interesting tip with us today about using LED ceiling lighting panels to light portraits.
Boon told us that, The product is one of many led light fixtures that are manufactured in China. As far as I know they are sold wholesale in large quantities to resellers here in America that would want to outfit offices with these power saving lights Click to continue ›
We have had our share of DIY strip lights over the years, but I feel that we never got the right mixture of stability, great light and parts availability.
One was too cardbordy, another with rare rail and a third was a bit of a dare. I think I now finally found the build I like most.
David from Go Light Your World came up with a simple build based on White Vinyl Gutter Downspout and some 3M reflective tape.
The entire construction is held in place with a piece of ruler attaching to an off the shelf swivel. If you want to see how to build one yourself, head over to David's Light Saber post. Click to continue ›
A few days ago we shared a post about how to surgically open a strobe and bare-bulb its guts (and also explained why it should or should not be done).
Reader Janne Kaakinen shared an interesting device that will get as good results as any bare bulb, while minimizing the sacrificial light that the device actually absorbs as part of the diffusion action.
Best of all, it does not require you to open a strobe and perform a capacitor shocking operation.
It was made with 4 small plastic parts (scavenged from a broken umbrella, but I guess wooden skewers would work just as nicely - just watch for the sharp tips), and some mirror contact paper.
He named it The Reflect'O'Cone, and compared it to an Omnibounce. Click to continue ›
