DIYP reader Chaval Brasil came up with an ingenious way to create a ring flash. By routing the light from a hot shoe flash to a CD spindle, Chaval was able to surround his lens with light. Chaval joins a long tradition of readers projects that we had here on DIYP (see The Food Saver Omnibounce, Thomas Schwenger Complete Two Seconds Lighting Kit, and The Christmas Tree Ring Light for more readers projects).
I guess that by now everybody is familiar with the film can bare-bulb flash trick. If not, head over to photojojo and see hoe easily you can make one from an old film container.
I guess the Lomo Colorsplash is a little less known. If you've never heard of this one, head over to the Lomography realm and have a look.
deth2all from DIYP Instractables group came up with an ingenious way to combine the two. By using the famous Lee filters (They will ship them free to your door), deth2all was able to add the color transformation "feature" to the bare bulb film container flash. See the full tutorial here.
There are two nice things with this trick: The first is that you are not limited to the handful of colors the original Lomo had built in. The other niceness (can I say that ????) is that you do not need to buy a Colorsplash Lomo (though I highly recommend getting any Lomo you can put your hands on), you can use this on top of your DSLR.
A snoot is something you use to constrain the light coming from a flash, you can use it to tight a beam of light, or you can use it to flag light so it will not hit your lens and cause flare.
Scott Campbell came up with this 30 seconds, 2 Dollars snoot that will do just that - snoot your flash. In the process he nuked a catch all sack, but hey! It was worth it. (Kill me if I know how I missed it up till now)
Check out some of the older posts of Scott, he is deep into the realm of DIY.
Some More DIY:
- The Cheapest Ring Light Ever
- The Ghetto Studio
- Painting With Light
- The Best 6 Ways To Create Your Own Bokeh Click to continue ›
Not too long ago, I have posted an article about making a strobe from a disposable camera. I was soon after that I called out to the great community of DIY photographers to make a disposable ringlight from such disposable camera strobes. And why not - they are cheap, available and do not require too much power.
In my mind there were three main challenges in making this project work: 1. Chaining the camera flash units; 2. Triggering the ringflash remotely; and 3. Powering the individual flash units.
Dave Ajax (Divet) from the DIYP Instructables group has risen to the challenge. Dave was also kind enough to allow me to post the full tutorial on this site, keeping the great tradition on DIYP Instructable projects like the Time Lapse Photography project, the Ingenious Camera Stabilizer and the Muslin Backdrop project.
Build a disposable camera ring flash. Disposable cameras are discarded after the film has been removed. Photo labs often have boxes of them under the counter, waiting to be recycled. If you ask nicely, you can often get more than enough to experiment with. Try to get at least six for this project, all of the same type.
WizWow and Just Fab have done it again. In this nice fun little video Don Giannatti shares three lighting techniques.
In this short video, Don Giannatti really packs in some stuff. The first setup is shows how to do a single strobe glamour portrait.
The second setup is an upgrade to the Three Dollar Beauty Dish by Just Fab (you may remember her from the Ghetto Studio post). Just Fab has gone from one time aluminum pans to more sturdy IKEA pans. Don also uses foam core and window sun shield (My guess is five more dollars to the setup).
The last setup is has another mode from a lightshere, an old reflector and some tissue.
It is mighty kind of Don Giannatti to share his unique lighting in this video. You can see the picture and some more explanations on lighting essentials.
One of the things I like most on DIYP is the strong warm community that has build around it. It is more and more often that readers are sending ideas, hacks and modifications that far surpass any ideas that might be having on the late hours of the night.
Reader Joseph A. Sorrentino (flickr) gets the genius-of-the-week award for moding a cable-wrap into a pocket wizard mount device.
Joe has tested several options before going with the cheapest and easiest solution I have seen so far. Here are his thoughts and reasons for designing a whole new Pocket wizard mount from scratch. In my mind all the other alternatives are very good and offer some advantages, but Joe's mount is the best of class. (Check them all for great mounting ideas.)
After taking some shots with the Floor Lit Table Top Studio by Nick, It's time to take it up a notch.
The previous article showed how to take great liquid product shots, though the set up can work for both liquids and solids.
In this part of the tutorial Nick will show a modification of the setup that allows you to add some color effects to the shot. If you like it, stop by Nick's flickr stream and say "Hi". In addition to showing your appreciation, you'll get some great studio images and setup shots. Now for todays exiting twist:
I always keep my eye on the strobist flickr pool. It is one of the best places to get your lighting ideas. The other day, I saw a cool Corona shot there made by Nick Wheeler. Nick was so kind to share his lighting technique with DIYP readers. So, the following article is a guest post by Nick Wheeler, If you like this tutorial as much as I did stop by Nick's flickr stream and say "Hi" (You'll also get a nice dose of fine images).
Just recently, I became the proud owner of a new dining room table. Not a massively exciting announcement you might think (and you would be right), but what was getting me excited was the fact that it had a frosted glass top. While my significant other was wondering where to put it and what to do with the old table, I was thinking “I wonder what would happen if I stuck a flash underneath it?”
The answer at first was a little disappointing but after a while I was getting some pretty good results, particularly with bottles and containers of liquid. I was finding that with light coming from underneath it was helping light up the liquid and giving it a nice glow. The only problem I was having was the table top itself. The glass was dimpled, not smooth, and while that gave a nice effect, it was not ideal for every shot. The answer of course was a spot of DIY!
I should have seen this one coming. What can you do if you have a ton of SBs and a bit of duct tape? A multi-super-sb-ring-light.
The idea is very simple - take 6 super-duper Nikon SBs and mount them on a cut coffee can. You can use duct tape to hold them on.
Connect 3 pocket wizards with splitters to the flashes and fire away.
No doubt that Joshua Targownik (check out his cool site) has a great idea, here are some of my thoughts on this great ring flash.
Yet another small internal flash bouncer. I really like this one since it is the fastest one to make yet. I'll estimate about 15 seconds.
If you are a big executive and have your own business card, you can cut the time it takes you to get a business card and you are at 5 seconds. The results are not professional and there is some light lost, but when all else fails, it is a neat trick to have up your sleeve. It will defiantly work for Canon internal flashes. Other brands - you might need to adjust a bit.
I got this trick in the mail from Marko Helenius. He holds a nice gallery at markohelenius.fi. Pleae go over there and have a looksy. Judging by the (small number of) studio shots, this guy knows what he is doing. Now I give the floor to Marko.
