DIY Ringflash
 

Today was a workshop day making various brackets for use with flash. Boring machining jobs gives time for the mind to wander.

Two things came to mind during this. Christine ( Saphires ) DIY flash diffuser - see her wedding thread, and Harry's ( Wolfie's ) wonderful macro images taken using flash. The problem for me is Harry uses lots more flash units than I have. The two things came together with the thought of a DIY equivalent of a ringflash. Therefore only one flash, well I could handle that one.

I have a salad bowl sized reflector for the Multiblitz ( see post 12 ) and this got me thinking. Casting around the workshop I found a 7 inch diameter plastic bowl that I use for acid bath. I cut a hole in the back sufficient size to allow 2 lens hoods to screw together, one each side. A few experiments later I cut a square hole in the side to hold the Stofen diffuser from the SB80-DX flash. I taped a second lens hood ( bit of plastic drain pipe would do ) to the inside hood. Wrapped the whole lot in kitchen foil, and hey presto a ringflash for less than £5.

The whole thing needs refining ( make a proper job of it ) but I have attatched the first pic taken using it and a couple of views. The Fuchsia is full frame so not far off the bowl. I might get a 12 inch bowl for an even bigger light. :rolleyes: :D

The flash is G/No 38 and was on 1/16th power. ISO100 aperture f16.

I'm impressed, so thanks Christine and Harry for the inspiration.

Don

Very clever Don, Did you used to watch Blue Peter?

Nice one Don just goes to show you don't need flash gear ( excuse the pun ) to get decent results.

I like the way it gives a nice modelling light. Some ring units only give a flat light.

Sorry Lello, I didn't, but in the UK most people know what that means. ( What can you make from a Cornflakes box ).
I did wonder at the time of making if this was worth a badge. :D :D :D

Don

Could never afford a ringlight Rob. So I have no experience. I just enjoy doing stuff for little or no cost and thought this may be useful to others of similar mind.

Don

Looks like I will be raiding Tina's kitchen cupboards whilst she's out shopping tomorrow, (don't worry I wont blame you Don) :)

Lello,

:D :D :D

If you do, then a tank cutter if you have one, is easiest for the centre hole. Mark the square hole for the flash and chain drill, it then sharp knife and cut between the holes.

I will do a full instructions post later when I get the 12 inch bowl as I can take pics as I go.

Don

Don,
Could you not try and attach some sort of material between the centre lens holder and the edge of the bowl to try and diffuse light more?

Lello,

Its all still a bit experimental. I will go with 12 inch bowl before slicing up one of my free diffusers. Perhaps an additional diffuser would give too flat a light as Rob mentioned. My thought was that the crinkley tin foil would send light in all directions rather than a straight beam.

Don

I can't wait to have a go at making one of these when you finish putting instructions.:D :D :D

Agreed, a 'behind the scenes' for ring light construction would be useful.

Find of the day, I went out today to find some sort of bowl to make my macro flash ring, I ended up in the shop (If you can call it a shop) Wilkinson's and came across an aluminium down light shade, It was on sale for £4.00, but as it was the only one left on the shelf and there was a small dent in the side so I got it for £2.00 yes £2.00. I have now cut the back (junior hacksaw)
to fit the FZ30, I now just need some sort of tube in the middle and need to cut a slot for the flash unit (I need to buy a hot shoe cable) so the flash unit will reach. There were 2 sizes of shades in Wilkinson's the bigger one was £6.00, I still think that is a good price, as it already reflective and does not need any silver foil inside. So people go out get your selfs a bargain:D
Don't take any notice of the material in front, That was me messing about.
The second photo shows a temporary tube (made from cardboard) the inside has black tape on the inside of it and the outside has foil wrapped round it. All I need now is the courage to cut a slot into the unit to take the flash. That a tomorrow job. As I'm feeling a lot better I'm out tonight to make up for all the drinking I missed out on while I was ill. Happy new year

Lello ' Wilkinsons ' Ring Flash
 

Nice one Lello, well done.

Your mention of the need for hotshoe cable led me to look in Jessops catalogue. I notice Sunpak ringflash for £269:99 :eek: so I feel even better now as I bet you do too.

Your FZ30 appears to have a non dedicated flash foot from diagram in the manual. If so and you are going with Nikon for SLR then it maybe a good bet to get the Nikon SC-17 or SC-28 unit as it will work with both cameras and allow for future purchase of flashy Nikon unit that can then operate on ITTL.

I hope you enjoyed your New Years Eve. :D :D

Don

Lello,

An early morning thought. In view of the sucess in deflecting flash beam by using a mirror it may be possible to use that principle here and so make use of the camera pop up for the flash. Trying to look at angles but the manual does not give a decent side on pic/sketch with the pop up raised. If this is of interest post a side on pic with pop up raised so we can give this some further thought.

Don

Hi Don,You do like a project don't you:)
I wonder if you're thinking what I'm thinking, Cutting the reflector on three sides to lift it from the bottom, attaching a mirror to the flap that will be angled down to reflect light down into the bowl? If so how much light do you think I will lose before it hits the mirror?
see attached for pop up flash

Following my post earlier today re using the camera pop-up flash with the ringflash setup I decided to check out that it would work.

I have attached a pic to show the card cowl required to deflect the flash into the ring. I found it essential to have the Stofen diffuser in position to spread the light in the ring. I did not have a small mirror to deflect the light so lined the box cowl with kitchen foil.

I have attached an image of the light at the front end of the bowl when flash fires. The double image is the result of using the double glazed workshop door for this.

Also attatched is a Fuchsia shot to show how soft the light is. Another test sample is in my gallery.

I will do a graphics job tomorrow as I am now at my daily image download limit, for today.

The Fuchsia was taken at 1/160 sec f11 ISO200 in near total darkness. The gallery pic, because of the lens/ringflash extension through using 2x converter, was 1/160 sec at f10 ISO400 again in darkness.

Don

Lello,

Thanks for the pic as I can now get my head round your FZ30 setup. The great thing about using the pop up is not adding the weight of the flashgun to the front. I will do a flash TTL metering test tomorrow as that could be another benefit.

Test today show you do need eqivalent of stofen diffuser to help spread the light inside the bowl. Mine only sticks down about 1/4 inch but that is enough. If you do not have one we will have to think of a substitute. Perhaps Christine has tried out various things that may do the trick.

Don

Not yet Don, I am still searching for a bowl, but I am following what you are doing to see if I can come up with some way of lighting up the bottom half of the reflector. I picked a roll of aluminum tape from the £1 shop I may use that instead of tinfoil. its very shiny but will give that ago.
To make the equivalent of a stofen diffuser you could use a plastic milk bottle and cut it to shape its roughly about the same density.

Well As you can see from 1st photo, I cut a window in the shade, but that was giving me to much flash just at the top, so I put on the deffuser I was playing around with yesterday and added a bit more foil just inside the window so the light travelled round (see 2nd photo) and as you can see in the 3rd photo it worked, (the room I took the shot of the Lilly is quite dark)
I'm happy with the result

Great work, Lello.

The flash firing through was why I used the stofen but you have found an alternative solution. Very good pic of the Lilly as those petals will easily show glare. You seem to have a more even ring of light than me. Guess thats down to using a diffuser on the front. All round very impressive for a couple of quid, and not many others that can do that using just the camera flash.

I am impressed. :cool:

Don

Christine,

I will take a pic of my new, ( have not cut any holes in it yet ), bowl, and do a graphic tomorrow. £1 for the tape sounds good. If you have a stofen then you will be able to do it for no more than another pound. :D :D

Don

Thanks don, Getting us to think outside the box, Keeps us busy is fun and above all It's cheap :D
I now need to and find some bugs to really try out this macro ring.

Hey great avater Lello, just noticed it.

Trust me when you find a bug no probs at all. My sample in the gallery. This is lots easier than multiple flash set ups. :D :D Did I just say that !! :rolleyes:

Don

Perhaps when we have got the finished thing sorted out we should go into production
At this rate the manufacturing costs will be under £3.00:) we could sell for at least £25.00, who knows maybe in 15 years we could have made our first million :D :D

:D :D :D

Love it.

Don

I have now finished doing my blue Peter bit.
I had a go at trying to refine what Lello has done. I made the center hole much bigger to allow the lens to go in a lot further, this allowed the af to work without having to constantly re-align the diffuser and plus I don't need the lens hood.. The first two photo are with the 50mm lens and a plant taken with the finished result. The second two were with my 300mm lens set at max 300mm and I stood 6 feet away.. The last photo is the result of this, its soft but I am quite pleased.
Thanks Don and Lello I now have my very own ring flash.
I will be trying the setup with the ext tubes to give me macro and see how that goes.
What is tomorrows project:D :D

Very good Christine, Did you use a plastic bowl? and what material have you used for the front diffuser? Since last night I have modified mine, I have folded the door in wards to try and cut out the light at the top, I will take a few shots later to show you.

DIY Ringflash Part 1
 

I will catch up with your post in a sec Christine. :)

This will be a 2 part post to stay within image download limits.

2 pics attatched here.

Pic 1 deals with selection of the bowl. First row shows my prototype bowl on the X to show relative position of standard hotshoe mounted flash, and on D100 to show relative position of pop-up flash. Rows 2 and 3 are my Sunday purchases from Morrisons. Centre bowl is a 220mm mixing bowl cost £0:68, and right hand is a food storage container for £0:99.

Looking at these the thingst work out are : Potential subject choice, and therefore lens to subject distance and then pop-up or main flash gun. If pop-up then 220mm becomes a minimum diameter unless a cowl, as in my yesterdays post is also made, to deflect the flash beam downwards. Bowl style will be affected by lens to subject distance.

Pic 2 is to show two other considerations. 1) Lens hood. A lenshood that protrudes beyond the light source inside the bowl is an absolute essential. I taped two together for mine, but I could have used a bit of drain pipe. For use the outside of the hood needs to be wrapped in kitchen foil to assist light spread in the bowl. 2) Mounting. Consider how you will mount the bowl to the lens. I have a number of 52mm screw fit hoods, so for the inside I taped 2 hoods together and then screwed another from the outside of the bowl, allowing me to mount using the filter thread. If you have a Cokin filter holder then the adator ring can be used for the bowl to lens mount. These are available as an accessory but cost about £4:50. If the pop-up route is chosen then this can be taped to the outside of the bowl ( electrical tape or gaffer tape, NOT masking tape ). If a seperate flash unit is to be used the mounting of this would need to be more secure to carry the weight of the flashgun. So possibly drilled and held by screws.

Part 2 tomorrow

Don

Cool, Christine.

Three of us, and we have all taken a slightly different route. :D
Your pop-up even closer to the bowl than mine. ............................. MORE POWER :D :D

Looking forward to a shot taken with the tubes.

Don

Lello the bowl is 15.5cm, the inside I lined with the aluminum tape as it stays put being sticky backed.
The diffuser was a bit more difficult to find. I had a clear piece of plastic, which I cut slightly bigger than the bowl so I could score and bend it over the edges, I then cut the center circle out, I also found one of those opaque plastic sleeves you keep documents in. I split the sleeve and sprayed a clear adhesive to the clear plastic on both sides and stuck the sleeve on to it. Then I just cut around the shapes. On the outside I used black duck tape to hold the edges down of the diffuser and also covered the complete outside.
The center hole had to be much bigger to allow the lens to come further forward or come through it to stop flare. When its all put together you can't get your hand inside to put a lens hood on so it has to able to slide down the lens barrel and poke out if possible.
I will be having another play tomorrow to see whether it will work with my ext tubes and my macro rails. It will be great if it does work.

Reading this thread has made me wonder how many other photographers are there out there trying to come up with something like this. I wonder if there is a market out there for these things.

I will hold off on Part 2, in case futher mods required. I have not tried tubes yet and need to check out lens to subject distances. Too close and the subject may well fall into a central shadow area caused by the hood. The test image I put in the gallery is full frame and subject 1 inch long, but without further mods I may have reached the limit.

Don

Don, I have set up and used the ext tubes on the 50mm lens, I used all three to give a good close up. Both photos' were taken at F14, I thought I had set it at f16 but never mind its close.
The first photo the diffuser was set halfway down, Like in the photo with the 300mm lens so the lens was sticking out about 4". You can see how much light has been lost in the bottom half. The 2nd Photo I put it just so as the lens poked out about a 1/4" at the same f stop and it lit up the subject much better, it has still lost a little light underneath but not much.

Both photo are un-retouched, they are straight out of the camera only cropped.

I will carry on playing to see if I can get a more even lighting but I think if it done to much it will lose any modeling effect.

Christine,

Good result, and f14 from a pop-up and with that much extension is pretty impressive.

When I have done my jobs I will also have a go. Afraid I do not have any flowers other than the still flowering fuchsia, so may do a trip to town and buy some. I'll put it down to development costs. :D :D

Don

I have just had a thought taken from one of your earlier post of using some sort of tube inside the the diffuser, it would have to be much bigger to allow the lens to slide in and not be obstructed, I will wrap the outside of the tube in foil or the alluminion tape and see if that gives a more even light and help it to continue bouncing the light around. It is going to mean I have to remove the front filter though :(

Christine,

Can you post a pic 3/4 view so I can see your current set up.

In my earlier experiments the tube bouncing light round increased the amount reaching round the bowl. You can test for yourself if you can aim the set up at a reflective surface. I used the glass of the workshop door to take pics of the light flow round the bowl. That was how I came up with the idea.

Don

To late Don I have already took it apart and added the tube in the middle..:D

Now that should work Christine.

don

While waiting for Christine's pic I have Googled ' ringflash ' and we are not alone. Link http://www.dennisonbertram.com/hackm...ring-flash.htm.

So taking the DIYers out of the equation, I would guess market becomes quite limited. If you have the cash, you can buy an all singing and dancing unit, so what we are doing here will be of little interest.

Don

Just read through the link, and from the pic at the bottom it does work. Not sure I want to cut up one of my polystyrene reflectors though. :)

Just goes to show Ollie, that with a bit of imagination you can survive cash limitation.

Don