Well, I have been looking into all the different options for stuff I need to include in my kit and trying to work out where to spend what little money I have. For the time being, we are in desperate need of a couple more lenses (specifically the 35mm and 85mm f/1.8 lenses) and so can’t afford to experiment in terms of lighting mods which are becoming more and more important to us for our non-wedding style stuff.

One thing I have wanted to play with for a while to see how it would fit into our shooting style is a Ring Flash. They are not cheap by any means and I don’t have any friends who have one that I could play with so I had to look elsewhere. I found a heap of resources on Strobist which is true about almost anything to do with flash, and so I took all the info from the different DIY versions and came up with my own version of it:

This was before I started and was so sure of how to do it. Little did I know how tricky this one would be! What you see is two Tesco’s Microwave splatter protection things to put on plates in the microwave and a mixing jug. That cost a total of about £4 and I could do it for £2 now I know how to do it. The trickiest bit was cutting a hole in the microwave thingy as it was very brittle. Also ignore the Pritt PVA glue there... you need something that will actually dry between the foil and the plastic.
Basically, cut both ends off the mixing jug, ensuring it will fit over your lenses. Stick a cardboard disc to the thicker end of this. To the microwave thingy you cut a corresponding hole in the middle and one on the edge to snugly take your flash.
Paint the outside black for looks and once that is dry, use glue (in my case 3M spray mounting glue) to put the foil on shiny side out. Use a cloth to smooth it down and buff it up. Then you can put the two pieces together and try and glue some smaller bits over the seam.
You can see the finished product here:

I have yet to manage much in the way of amazing photography with it, I am waiting for some decent sunshine (perhaps by about June?) to try using it for fill as I think that is where it will end up most used. One I was particularly happy with though was this one I grabbed at a party, but I don’t know how much of that is down to me and how much down to her being cute:

I can’t see myself buying one of these anytime soon, but I know I have not yet put it through its paces and can’t pass judgement on it yet. I will let you know if I come to any conclusion on it at some point.

If you look back at the photos from the Boudoir shoot I did with my wife a few weeks ago, you might be forgiven for thinking that the back wall is lit by some kind of room light, i.e. the main ceiling light. In fact the room was pretty dark throughout the shoot and the light you see on the back wall is the spill coming from the shoot through umbrella. With the kit I currently have, that is going to cause me problems every time I work in a confined space, which is most of the Winter... So the solution? Strip Boxes! So armed with more Google acquired knowledge I set to work on my own version and came up with the following:

This took a single A1 sheet of Black Mount Board I picked up for £1.99. Basically, it measured 15cm up each side and along each end and the overall length was determined by the size of the board. The inside is covered in foil halfway up sides, which being a total of 30cm width means you can do that with a single sheet of foil straight off the roll!. This 14cm leftover strip made the 3.5cm strips along the edge and I use an offcut to double up the thickness where the flash is mounted (again just with a snug fit). The diffusion material is common wax paper (baking sheet) which conveniently also comes in 30cm rolls so it is taped under the front flaps (for aesthetic reasons only) making it easy to replace should it get ripped:

To start with I wanted to see if it would work without he diffusion material the trouble being (as you can see below) that a lot of the light goes out the far end (particularly the other end to the flash) as below:

However with the diffusion material added, you get the light thrown forward much better with the wall off to the left being much less lit which is ideal:

Although I did try it out on the wife, she doesn’t want me putting shots of her in an old sweatshirt with no make-up on the net, so you will have to make do with this curvy figure:

Again, this is without the diffusion material, and the below is with the diffusion material which makes a much better photo (same settings on both):

I have made two of these and am looking forward to giving them a go on a model soon... as I mentioned in my previous post, I have some great people lined up and we are still looking for more!

Take care...