If you just want to “feel” the result of the ringflash and don’t have nor the budget to buy a real ringflash and don’t have the “talet” to drill and cut through the metal, here is a nice alternative for doing your own ringflash.I found this link on the web, here a guy named Chung Dha Lam explains how to create a ringflash out of carton!!!

Looks a very easy and affordable project,here is the carton diagram

Get to his website to read more about this project.

PEACE

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Somehow you don’t have to own an online ebay shop in order to be interested in product photography.It simply a common task to do when you start to explore your photography.You don’t have to ask a model to participate in a shootout, you can do it in your bedroom or living room, you can use studio strobes or a simple reading lamp.

So I can’t put the finger why, but every one will do that in one way or an other.

Surfing over flicker.com (which is a great site for photography inspiration) I found this simple setup which I thinks beats my simple product photography tutorial. All this guy uses is a couple of papers arranged in a simple “box” setup for white background and reflector. The only downside for this is that it will suit only small product as this setup is small. Shooting this lens that he did is already to big. So check it out and start learning and experimenting!

Credit for Josh Liba.

Here is a link to Josh’s Flickr gallery: Josh Liba

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There are a couple of advantages to that method –

• It is very cheap to make this diy grid, it will cost you less than a dollar  to make one.
• The materials are very handy, a piece of carton and some straws from the local store and you are of to go.

There are some disadvantages too –

• Its a hard task to get those straws pieces the same length and to glue them all in a fixed and aligned together in the same position/direction.
• You are very much fixed to narrow angle grids and if you want a wide one (40 degrees and more), you’ll find it extremely difficult to do, as you’ll need to cut the straws very short.

As I was looking through Ebay for some gel filter holder solution, I entered this store called the strobist corner (visit link at the bottom), among some good value gel filter kits, there was this diy grid material! simple and good stuff. I got the basic kit , it includes 3 different grid material pieces for different effects 15,25 and 45 degrees, it all costs about 10$ (Honl will cost about 30$ for just one piece…).  Thats all, you don’t have to cut straws any more. The basic kit comes without grid flash holders, so in the video below you’ll the most easy way to “connect” it to your flash head using handy sticky Velcro .

I’ll also post about my first impressions and photography examples using this kit, as I have an impression its a great way to use grids!!!

diy grid flash holder (youtube video)

strobist corner

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After doing a couple of  DIY grid projects in here,  its time to show something very nice I found on Ebay a couple of weeks ago, after searching for some gel filters I accidentally visited a store called “The strobist corner”. Well he sells some gel filters and very nice looking snoots, but what caught  my attention was this grid materials! No more cutting and gluing straws, you can get the real stuff there and for a reasonable price too!

You get for about 10$ three honeycombs pieces sized for the hot shoe flashes, each one in different size for different effect. The general idea about that honeycombs is that you’ll get a smaller circle of light depending on the size and length of the “straws”.

If you want a narrow/small circle of light you’ll have to choose a small straw diameter .

If you want to get a wide/big circle of light you’ll have to choose a big straw diameter.

I just wanted to share those “news” with my readers first. I promise to write more about it later as I’m a little tight on time (our little dog got run by a car and needs a lot of attention…)

So that’s a link for the strobist corner at ebay

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is a way to narrow and control the flash light beam by using the manual zoom angle control (this option is available with the Canon 550EX flash unit and in many other flashes) but with the DIY grid you’ll be able to really control its width and power to a maximum.

This project is an easy one and all you’ll need for it is:

• Piece of bristol paper ( you could use any type,I used a folder that I got in a Google convention).
• About 40-50 straws.
• Ruler.
• Canon 550EX…
• 20 minutes

Let start:

The first steps will be to take measurements of the Canon 550EX speedlite width and height:

measuring the 550EX width

measuring the 550EX height

Now you’ll have to mark your bristol shit with the dimensions you have just took.If you are doing the DIY grid for the Canon 550EX speedlite it should look something like that:

You’ll have a piece of bristol that will be marked like the image above.If we see there are 5 segments (from left to right) flash :height – width – height- width- spare to glue it up.

Make the last segment shorter than the first segment!

Now you will have to cut the straws .Take in mind that the longer you cut them, you’ll narrower beam and concentrated light source.try to cut them as equal as possible as you can.After you cut the straws you’ll get a pile of short straws.I tried to keep their length about 2cm-3cm:

The next part is the more “difficult” part and most “time consuming”, gluing it all together:

you’ll have to glue one line of glue,order the little straws ,add another glue line and place the straws again and again as you get to the height you need.

After gluing the straws to the height needed its time to glue it all together, glue the sides of the bristol piece and the sides of the straws, close it all together with some tape and let it dry.If you did it the right way you’ll have a simple and easy DIY grid for small flashes.

Keep in mind that you can adjust this tutorial for any flash model that you have, just change the widths and heights.

Enjoy and share your thoughts with us!

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The filter set that I got has maybe  100 of colored filter gels suited exactly to my Canon 5xx series.All I had to do was to build a gel filter holder.There are many DIY projects like that on the net and I actually started that with a piece of plastic that broke and then said hey why wouldn’t I try to make it of a transparency slide?!

Its easy and your 5 years child can do it for you too!

all you have to do is get a transparency slide (A4 size will get you about million gel filter holders…) measure your flash head X and Y and cut of the slide a piece like in the diagram below:

Now that you cut out your flash gel holder , all you need to finish it up is just to fold the slide in the middle and you’ll something like this:

And of you go you have your own quick and easy DIY flash gel filter holder.

This is how the flash gel holder looks on the flash,without the gel filter.

This is how it looks with a gel filter called Primary Red (106 in my pack) gel effect filter.

Flash shooting with the flash filter holder on snooted with a narrow beem (manual 105mm) :

Flash shooting with the flash filter holder on  a wide beem (manual 24mm) :

Well this is it! Thats how I like it simple easy not expensive DIY project!

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When I took the box from the self I said to myself ,”hey that’s a great photo on the box I want to do that too!”

Here  is one of the first  pics that I took:

Get In and read the rest of the story (I bet you’ll want those chocolate cookies too)!

So The first thing I’ll like to show you guys is the setup:

As you can see the cookie photograph was token at home in my back office.The camera on tripod,the cookies on a white table plate,the plate is on white plastic perspex panel that I love so much and use in many of my product photographs.As for the lighting ,there was an opened door on the left side of the plate and the is a semi opened window that you can see in the picture behind the computer screen.That simple and that easy!By the way the golden reflector has no influence on the picture…

After I thought about how to shoot the set,I started to test the lighting for the cookies photographs.If I use chocolate or some melting objects on the set I test the light on some object with about the same size as the cookies I’m going to shoot.This is the the testing shot:

Take in mind that the cookie photographs taken in this set is under regular in home light,natural light I set the camera to a high 1000ISO and started with shallow depth of field of f/2.8 and 1/80th sec.This will get me the nice dramatic look as in the picture that is shown in the post header.Here are some other examples with those settings f/2.8:

In the next cookies photographs I changed the depth of field of  f/5.6, this lets me more details from the cookie and the props I used to give the picture more interest.Please take in mind that that I slowed down the shutter speed to 1/25th sec.I used a tripod which you’ll must use unless you have more light in the scene.I also used a timer to reduce camera shake.This is what we got out from the cookies shoot:

Here it is for  this set,I really hope you enjoyed reading.Please share your thoughts and pictures with us.

PEACE

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But after all I told her , there will be something good out of it:I’ll do some softboxes for small flashes from the shoe boxes!!!So here how it goes:

What you need:

• All you need is some shoe boxes,if you don’t have any ,ask your wife as they usually don’t throw away  anything that is related to their shoe/boots…
• An utility knife
• Some gaffer tape
• A ruler.
• White bristol or any white panel that can diffuse the light (I don’t want to offer,but I believe you can use some printer paper sheet too…. ).
• A marker.

And lets go on!

I marked the front panel of shoe box softbox,by putting a sign at every corner of the box about 2cm .

putting a line between them will make the softbox’s front panel diffusion area.

This is the rectangle that you’ll need to cut.

At the back of the shoe box ,make a rectangle that will be cut and hold the flash in spot.Don’t cut a rectangle out,but just mark it .What you’ll have to cut is the two short side of the flash place and one long cut in the middle of the long part.The back of the softbox will have to look like this (take a good look at it in order not to make mistakes!!!):

Now the only thing you’ll have to do is to put the front diffusion panel for you new softbox.Cut the white panel to the size of you’re shoe box front panel and glue it to the inner side  of the box:

This was a very easy project to do.It will take you about 15 minutes for each softbox (not including the time you’ll argue with your wife about why to ruin the shoe box she successfully saved for the past 10 years)

PS :

For better flash hold I put some Velcro scotch on the back of the softbox,that will stick to the flash heads.

In the next post I’ll show you some cool photos that where made with that simple equipment

(There might be some not attractive pictures of myself…)

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Lets get going with our sort shopping list:

• 1 50cm*70cm foam white bord.
• 1 silver 50cm*70cm silver bristol panel.(this is sold as packages with 3 silver 3 gold bristol panels).
• 1 gold  50cm*70cm silver bristol panel.(this is sold as packages with 3 silver 3 gold bristol panels).
• Double sided sticky velcro.
• Scissors

Lets go:

That the before picture

For each corner of the colored bristol panel cut a piece of two sided sticky velcro for you studio DIY reflector.You could cut more pieces of the velcro or bigger pieces,I cut a small piece about 1/2 cm wide.

Stick one side of the velcro on each corner of the  foam board and the other side  of the velcro stick to the colored bristol reflector for the studio reflector.

After finishing the silver reflector side (you could start with the golden side either)  you should have this,an easy diy silver studio reflector:

Repeat this process for with the other side and the golden bristol panel.

Now you have your first and easiest 3 in 1 studio reflector.

Go on and do it!Share your photos and thoughts with us!

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This is what you need:

• A marker pen.
• Good pair of scissors (not those in the picture bellow,you should have a better one).
• Flash diffuser (got this one to get the exact measure of the flash,but can measure you flash width and that will do).
• 1$ Office Depot 12 tab divider (it has to sets of six different colored dividers).

Open the pack and thats what you’ll get.

From this point you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know what to do,but what the heck I’ll write it down.

Mark on the dividers pack the height of your flash head.I’m lazy some times so I used the hot shoe flash diffuser to mark it height,but you don’t have to do it with the diffuser,just measure it and mark it.Generally it will be stripes 4cm-5cm height.

This is what you get after cutting the stripes.I cut it twice and got 24 stripes what means 6 sets of 4 stripes with the same color.

Just testing it with a yellow gel.

Tips for using those colored gel stripes:

• Simply attach them to you hot shoe flash head with a rubber band if you don’t have a more professional strap.
• To control the color you could explore the differences while shooting with 2 or more stripes of the same color or different colors.
• Explore the color differences just by adjust the power of you flash.

Got any other ideas,share with as.

PLEASE COMMENT BELLOW!!!

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