How To Build A DIY Light Blaster™ And Create Photographic Projections

A while back I saw the Light Blaster in a online shopping site, I liked the effect and that Inspire me to build a Light Blaster on my own.

My first order of business was to look for something that would serve as the body of the unit. I needed a material that is strong enough to carry a lens and light enough to not overwhelm a light stand. I decided to a use a small plastic food container from the dollar store as my Light Blaster body.

I actually used two of those boxes to build my light blaster – one box will operate as the slide chamber and the other box will be used to mount the lens. I used a manual NEX to Canon EF convertor as means to mount to the lens.

The next thing was to calculate the location of the slide. The distance from the lens to the slide needs to be the same distance as ‘regular cameras’ would have from the lens to the sensor. This measurement is called flange distance and for Canon EF LENS it is 44.14mm. If you are using another mount, you would have to look up that system flange distance.

Come to think about it, this is my DIY Light Blaster MKII, mark 1 has the wrong flange distance as you can see below:

Here is a test from mark 1, the wrong focal length made it impossible to focus:

OK, we got that out of the way, back to mark II

This is how the build looks like when it is assembled. As for the actual assembly instructions – let me share a hint – USE TONS OF GLUE.

Now some gaff take and we are done. Here is how the assembled unit looks like

top view

bottom view

At this point you should be very excited and do a test shot, just to make sure everything works. Here are the first shots I made with my DIY project and while they are not very artistic, I am quite proud of them.

How To Change Slides and Projection Patterns

I am using standard empty slide mounts for that, you know….. those:

Since preparing a slide may take quite a bit of time, I am printing them on a transparency. This is the pattern I am using and I am printing them on the highest resolution I can. If you need slides, you can download this layout I made.

Here is how the slide mounts into its designated slot: