Tuesday, September 25, 2007

DIY Ringflash

Here is a short tutorial on how to make your own ringflash...

Preparation:

What do I need?
- one big plastic bowl
- plastic pipe ( the lens should fit in/trough so it must be pretty big)
- tin foil or a reflective material of any kind
- duct tape
- glue (the strongest one you can get)
- something sharp to cut the holes in the bowl
- a soda can
- diffusing material (foam foil, print paper, paper towel...)

Putting it all together

I will be rally short here, because it`s not a big deal putting it together.

We cut two big holes in the bowl. One in the side and one in the bottom of the bowl. The first one is for a flash mount and the second is for the lens to go through. The hole in the side should be shaped like the head of the flash, and the soda can should fit in perfectly. (we mount the flash in soda can, it fits amazingly!) Than we glue the tin foil on the inside of the bowl so the inner surface is reflective (to loose as little light as possible).


We cut the top and the bottom of the soda can off. Than we must put the can through the side hole in the bowl and glue it good so it will hold the bowl on the flash firmly. We must tape the sharp edges of the can with duct tape, so we don`t cut ourselves.


Than we glue the reflective material on the outside of the pipe.


We make a round shaped diffuser out of the diffusing material. It must be the same diameter as the bowl. We must cut out a hole in the middle, so the pipe fits in.


Than we put everything together.

DONE!!

I used a ring flash for this one:


Have fun!!!

4 comments:

cabbey said...

Wow, now that's an ingenious hack! I've been highly annoyed by the quality of some jewelry macro shots I've done recently and been thinking a ring flash was the solution, but wasn't willing to spend that much money on one. This should solve that! :)

Hi-DOF Photography said...

Very nice! I love the result especially! I will try your setup!

Unknown said...

why is there a shadow at the right site of her nose?

Unknown said...

I believe the shadow is due to the ring flash not being mounted on the camera body... but positioned to her side. That is my guess anyhow.