So, this article is for stylish-or-so (mostly wedding) photographers on a budget; if you were looking for a DIY honeycomb speedlight grid that is sleek, easy to mount and efficient, to use on your strobes during balls, parties and any low light dynamic situations that you might face during your events, you might be interested in this tutorial.
The Toilet Gridspot
While I’ve done some considerable efforts to disconnect the Gordian knot between bodily functions and lighting, my efforts are futile once and again.
Visit Tony‘s excellent picture tutorial for the quickest toilet gridspot ever.
Click image for larger version on flickr
Of course, you can always make your snoot in a more conventional way – with a cooling grid or coroplast (or heavens forbid, buy one).
Avoiding The Double Reflection
On my Ode to my Power Supply Unit post I got quite a few comments about that nasty double reflection. I just had to fix this. The reason for this reflection is that a glass board has some thickness so I got one reflection from the top surface of the glass and one dimmer reflection from the bottom surface of the glass.
I intended to go with the strobist solution of black granite tile when I realized that I would have a hard time explaining my wife why I just had to have a piece of junk I mean a black tile I mean a photography accessory to make my studio complete.
Using A Cooling Honeycomb As A DIY Gridspot
I just love gridspots. The amount of light control that a gridspot will give you is incredible. So, a while back I ordered some honeycomb grids from saxonpc. It is with two of those gridspots that I took the image on the left, but first thing first. In fact Saxon PC is specializing in making computer cooling solutions, little did they know that their honeycomb is just perfect for light control. OK, they knew, they made a site for it. Yet it was fun to say “little did they know”.
One of the first projects on DIYP was a coroplast made gridspot, which totally rocked, but getting those nice black honeycombs tickled so much and I caved in.
In fact this solution is very similar to HonlPhoto’s 1/4″ and 1/8″ gridspot solutions. If you are willing to settle a bit on the looks and spend a few minutes modding, you can save a few Dollars. Not that a few dollars will take you anywhere today.
Studio Lighting – Homemade Gridspot
Gridspot (or grid) is a studio accessory that you can attach to your flash. When the flash fires through the grid, the spread of the light rays is limited. The effect you get is very similar to the effect achieved by a snoot, but light more controlled and really hits a small surface. You often want to use a snoot or a grid for avoiding light spillage when you are setting up you back light.
The inspiration for this article came from a strobist article that shows how to make a cardboard gridspot. I thought I can improve it by making it out of plastic known as coroplast.[Read More…]
