So with my buddy and lighting guy in the hospital with pneumonia i've been keeping myself busy trying to get things organized in my studio and on my computers.... I've become a fan of some DIY lighting modifiers and made a bunch of things that i would like to share with you guys! 1. DIY Diffusion Panel 1 First attempt at it and it wasn't as tight as i would have liked so i did fix it since this picture... 4 pieces of 1 and 1/2 inch PVC cut a little over 6 feet in height and 4 feet 6 inches in lenght... 4 elbow connectors and a sheet of white nylon ripstop for the panel itself 2. Second diffusion panel: Much tighter fit and this one and my other panel were altered to be the exact same dimensions so i plan on putting a small narrow one above them as a hair light! 3. DIY Softbox I had some extra nylon ripstop from the panels and an old styrofoam cooler and just figured i'd make a soft box out of it! It turned out really nice as i modified the back of the cooler like this to fit the speedlight: 4 DIY Strip Lights This was a lighting modifier i've wanted ever since i saw some of the strobist results of these with athletes and such... This was a bit more of a tricky build than the others so for a quick explanation I have about 20 microphone stands in my studio as when i was into music i had a ton of gear that needed to be mic'ed... i didn't use half of them but still had them in the case as i bought them bulk on ebay about 5 years ago... so i cracked two new ones out of the box and attached a simple umbrealla mount to the top of the boom arm... I then used 2 containers that are used for planting as the strips themselves... they are 36 inches in length so a decent size strip.... I traced out the heads of both SB-600's as those are the lights i plan to use in here and cut a hole in the middle for the flash head to come through... then covering the front of the panels with some more nylon ripstop and securing down the boxes to the stands with some zip ties for some extra stability sealed the deal! heres a view from the back: 5 DIY ring flash The only item on this list that i spent some money on was this ring flash idea... It took a lot of work and i'm not 100% pleased with this first build and will attempt to build another... it eats up a ton of light so when i use it i have to shoot at 1/2 to full power to get the flash to really look nice... but anyway I will try again on this one as i think the concept for a DIY ring flash is fun! lemme know whatcha guys think of my creations!
To be completely honest... The diffusion panels would be better served outdoors than in a studio setting... They'd be great for shading a model from direct sunlight. For studio, they do nothing that couldn't have been accomplished with a shoot through or even a bounce umbrella. They offer zero light control and although they may help diffuse the light and slightly soften it you're still going to have a central hot spot where the flash is firing through the fabric... Otherwise, enjoy your creations, those diffusion panels would be great on a sunny day...
I like the panels over a shoot thru and a softbox as the lighting is pretty even on the entire body of my models now! I only did a few test shots using two but with 1 I loved my results! The "hot spit" is not as bad as you think and it's nullified by my use of a beauty dish above the model! I had much more control using this and my flays than I did with any other modifier I've used in studio! To make it more controllable I am going to ditch my wooden flats and create my light triangle with two panels with black ripstop and be able to change my fabric as needed! If I fire the strobe to the back of the triangle I will reduce the hot spot even more! I think I can play around with ratio lighting much better this way!
I like the strip lights - using planters is smart. But being so shallow doesnt it have a pretty strong hot spot in the middle? I've seen in designs for beauty dishes they use a little mirror (actually I've seen one use a CD) on the inside right in front of the lens so it bounces it back onto the inside of the strip. Do you think you need a grid on the striplights also? I'd think you'd typically want good control from a strip light for most effects.
The planters are a few inches deep but yeah I have thought about adding a grid to it for more control! I was thinking of taking some grid wire they use for roofing under the nylon but I'll take some shots of the set up so you can see the results with out it! I also think that maybe some barn doors would be easier than adding the grid... I have a beauty dish already but if you wanna get together and make one I'm down! The hard part with that is the mount to get it on a stand I would think
Cool, I'd love to see the results - post em in this thread when you do - I'm sure others would like to see also. But what about the hot spot on the strips? I thought that'd be significant.
It's not that hot at least for my taste and the strobes are mounted in the center so the falloff from the hot spot is nice and even
after doing a bit of testing on this the other day at ISO 200 shutter speed of 1/250sec the hot spot is not noticable until F22 as the whole panel blows out white... at F22 you can see the outline of the snoot thing i created to get the flash head into the panel. I think when i use this lighting modifier i will use slightly higher ISO's if needed instead of making any further modifications to the panels as i am pretty happy with their results i'll post up some pictures when i have a model to shoot with them... or perhaps i'll shoot some interesting shots of my baby with them lol!
cool, cool.... i was thinking that if the hotspots WERE an issue - you could also maybe even put the flash at the bottom of the strip facing UP with the bounce card up (bouncing backwards).
my original design was to do something like that but i wasn't sure how i would mount it to a tripod that way as i didn't want the weight of the planters to be held up by the flash.... lemme know the next time you're free and you can come check out the setup!
Andrew ~ Thanks for sharing your DIY creations! My husband made me a background stand out of PVC pipe, the only problem with it is you can't lower the backdrop! I really have to replace my portable backdrop stands, I bought them when I first started in photography, but they didn't hold up!
Yeah my backround is just held up by a steel pole and two hooks drilled into the wall lol.... I only use a full length white backdrop tho. when i shoot on black i have a porable one I use.... perhaps getting a full length black one is in my future!
Andrew, do you have a link for whatever you followed for that ring flash? I've found lots - but I like the looks of that design.
I kinda looked at a few creations and made one that was a mix of a few... My results weren't perfect as the flash needs to be on 1/2 to full power for the light to fill the entire ring... Its good for a nice catch light but really that's about it... I wanna try building another more efficient one soon but still looking for the right material... On mine I used the base of a shop light that I cut open with a dremel, sanded down the edges then inserted a cd case top cut open so it's just a tube.... It fits any lens 77mm and possibly larger so that's nice! I then bought a eBay stofen diffuser and traces out the dimensions of it on the shop light case and cut it out and inserted the stofen. I wrapped the cd tube with reflective silvery tape then punched holes in the rim of the shop light... After I had holes all around the shop light I had a plasticy kinda see thru flexible cutting board that I cut to fit the outside of the ring (this material I got from one of the online builds, I think target had them for like 5 bucks) I attached it to the ring using zip ties and that's about it! If you wanna come over some time and take a look the design is there it just needs a bit of tweaking! Maybe if we put our heads together we can come up with a better design! On a side note I cut on of the diffusion panels in half and made stands for them and used them for a shoot today which when pretty well! The cheap stobes I got to whit out the background was perfect as the refresh time was nice and the power was great! I need to swoop my background just a bit more but since I gave myself an extra 6 feet of space that won't be an issue and I'll make those adjustments for future shoots! I can now shoot at 105mm for a full length shot with my 70-200 and headshots at the 200mm so the studio is coming along nicely! Two small improvements to come and I think I will get the 105 lens as now I have the room to shoot with it!
Thanks for the info, yeah I gotta find time to stop by some time and see it all. Off topic - but you brought it up...I'm curious - why are you looking at the 105mm? Any reason the 70-200 doesnt suffice that need?
I want a macro and I want a prime and I do t think the 85mm is really worth the money lol... At less than 500 bucks for a really sharp 105mm prime macro that is one of nikons best glass I think it's a steal! I think the lens could really help broaden my photography and such!
