SB800 Internals

As you may know, I am involved with a secret project. For this secret project I needed dots, plenty of dots.

My first thought was to punch some holes in a black Bristol and cover the flash up. Then (I naively thought) I’d get a nice projection of spots on the adjacent wall. Right? Wrong!

What I did get was an effect you may recognize from another DIY photography project: the pinhole camera. 

Bummed out due to lack of dots, I decided to record the event and make a shot explanation. 

Here is the setup shot

On the left corner (in black pants) we have my beloved snooted SB800. On the right corner, we have our challenger, a pinhole. And I tell you this guy’s small – 1.5mm.

The light from the flash tube go through the pinhole and hit the wall creating a pattern exactly opposite to the shape of the flashtube internals. AS with a pinhole camera, the small hole acts as a lens. (And considering the amount of light the SB800 pours, it does not have to work hard.

Is the image blurry? yes. Can we see all the details? no. But you can clearly see the internal reflectors. It was a fun experiment though and I wonder how much more details one can get by making a smaller hole. Click here to see the pattern supersized.

As a nice side effect we see the Honl strap and snoot in action. The snoot is actually rolled with the black side into control light spillage as much as we can.