What Can You do With Six Speedlights and a Coffee Can

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.

– Fire Power: The fire power on this thing would probably blind a man on the moon. Four flashes connected will give you two stops more then a regular flash. The two extra flashes will give a total of about 2.5 stops more then a single flash (check out the calculation of exposure). This is some fire power. I think that used in full power though will almost remove the ringlight effect since the subject will have to be soooooo far away.

– Mounting System: Joshua used two light stands and a tripod, since the system is kinda heavy. I wonder if there is a solution that will both make it easier to mount and use, and will enable shooting from longer distances. I think that a mount like the one used in this ringlight can solve both issues.

– Coolness Factor: No doubt that this is one of the coolest solutions to the “ringlight problem”.

– Price: if you go out and buy it all new, you’ll in for a mortgage. Joshua got 4 of the flashes for 25$ each, and my guess is that the other flashes double as studio lights when not mounted on this ringlight. So the total price for this unit was 102$ dollars (4 sb28dx for 25$ each, 2 flashes from home, and 2 dollars for duct tape). All and all a nice price for this unit.

– Results: The results are great both for product shoot and for portraits. Look at the shads on this shoe- classic ring light “shaded halo”

The portrait sample shot is great as well, though you have to take it from up close and set the units down to1/64 or 1/32. (Check out the set up description on this shot – a total of 11 flashes).