Convex Mirror for my Strobist DIY Beauty Dish!

My Convex Mirror for my Strobist DIY Beauty Dish arrived at Midas in Centurion today, so I went and picked it up! It was a grand total of R25 (US$3.27), so not too bad.

Here it is by itself:

And here it is mounted inside the CD spindle cover:

The idea is that the convex mirror will throw more of the light from my SB600 flash into the white bowl of my Strobist DIY Beauty Dish and distribute it more effectively towards my victims willing volunteer models. More light is always a good thing in photography.

The ugly mug hiding behind the camera is me.
;-)

Sample photos to follow soon, watch this space!

Come take a peek…

At a tiny church

Housed at the corner of a busy street in the city of Cape Town, South Africa

this old church still retains its original charm with its beautiful arched windows. The white building has lost none of its solemnity.

and now becomes a home…

Thanks to architect Perry Harrison-Hyde

Old worn wood

mingled with white washed arched windows

Yet…with a modern edge and mixture of styles…

Sleeping loft.

Monastic. Simple

um… and a tad dangerous

Breathing space.

Divine conversion?

all images: Marie Claire Maison

Happy Halloween

On a work trip but wishing you all a very happy Halloween.

(

View from my deck

Viking Cooking School - At Work???

I have a great workplace, really. We work hard but we do some amazing and fun things too.  For instance, last week's Chili Cook-off.  Twelve competitors were vying for the top spot - The Chef''s Choice Award.  The chef making the choice just happened to be one of the chefs from the Viking Cooking School.  Not only was Chef Shea selecting the prize winning chili, he gave cooking classes during the lunch hour! BTW-the most popular chili just happened to be Shrimp Chili.  People went crazy over it!  Unfortunately, none of the competitors wanted to share their recipies.

 The first class was a session on knives and the second class was on making a simple fall dessert.  

After the session I got on the VCS website to look at the fall schedule and found a class on making Macarons and Whoopie Pies. 

 I'm all signed up and ready for class!

First Strobist DIY Beauty Dish Portraits!

I think it works!

Reach For The Stars

O IS FOR?

AGAINST THE ODDS!

Isn't it amazing how plants grow in all sorts of weird and wonderful places? On a recent outing to Liverpool we observed these specimens on a city centre roof top. Do click on the photo to see how much is growing up there.

Why not go over to ABC Wednesday now for more opportune observations on the letter O.

Looking for a Christmas gift?

Some people…some people have a higher calling. Some just do.

Sarah does.

I had the privilege of learning about Sarah’s cause…her life work… this weekend.

It’s not a pretty cause….but it has saved many a life. Empowered sooo many.

It is a beautiful cause.

Sarah helps survivors of human trafficking… women and children,and men…

become self sufficient.

She founded the Emancipation Network

Abolitionists of the highest order.

The survivors make beautiful goods…which are bought at fair prices…100% goes back to them.

yep. Who knew…

Human trafficking…right under our nose.

Unicef grimly reminds us there are more than 1.2 million children trafficked into sex slavery and human labor… each year.

That is a lot of bright lights squelched. Unheard. Without voice.

Our fair state of Florida is right up there with trafficking slaves for labor.

Maybe picking in the groves. Maybe prostitution.

Sarah and her organization partner to save them

and give them hope…and give them skills…to earn money.

I bought this beautiful felted wool purse, handmade by a survivor.

It has soul, and color

and life.

It makes me happy.

and sad.

Look at their Bags and Jewelry and rugs.

Think about helping to make a difference.

Giving a chance.

Lighting a light of hope.

Owning happy.

Image from The Emancipation Network

The Great White Shirt

Yes, you read the title correctly and frankly ever since I attended the AF event featuring the white shirt, I've been considering the white shirts I have in my wardrobe.  The three that I have are very similar in design - a classic button up.  The Anne Fontaine blouses that were featured for the event were so beautiful and one in particular caught my eye but at a price tag of nearly $300, it was more that I would ever pay for a blouse.  

So I did a lot of looking around online and found a VERY affordable blouse that is not nearly as fluffy as the blouse featured in the Anne Fontaine fall collection, and I'm sure the fabric is much less the quality but who can complain about a blouse for less than $20!!! 

It's more tailored but I loved it the minute I saw it, especially for the office.  I just love ruffles though they don't always look good on me but this blouse works. 

A Little Stress Relief

So this week a friend from work talked me into going with her to one of those neighborhood painting classes and though I ran late and was stressed just trying to get to the class - I had so much fun!!!

I was about 15 minutes late for class so when I got there, I started slapping paint on the canvas.  There were about 25 people in the class and most had brought wine and appetizers in order to relax and enjoy the evening.

 My friend Heather went straight to work.  She's a pro.  Even brought her own paint brushes!

It was fun to watch each of us follow the instructor but take our own creative path.  After I caught up with the class, I began to relax and have fun.  It made me laugh when the instructor had to remind those with wine glasses to be sure to put their paint brushes in the water, not the wine!

In the end everyone was able to bring home a canvas.

Heather and I both said we are going to keep working on ours - we decided we need a snack on the table with the cappuccino. 

But not bad for a relaxing activity at the end of a very crazy week!

Strobist DIY Beauty Dish, on the cheap!

Some of you may remember that a while back I made my own flash diffuser. The original post is here. Well, I am sad to say that it was a dismal failure! In fact I couldn't tell the difference between photos taken with or without my diffusion disaster... at least it didn't cost me anything!

But for some time now I have wanted to build something more effective, a Strobist DIY Beauty Dish! Woohoo! But would it work?

Stuff I used:

1. Old flower pot
2. CD spindle case
3. White and black spray paint
4. Plain white piece of plastic
5. 4mm rivets and washers
6. White silicon
7. Stanley knife



I first cut a hole with the Stanley knife the right size to fit my SB600 flash jammed into the bottom of the flower pot.

Then I cut a corresponding hole into the bottom of the CD spindle case. It was quite tough as the plastic was harder than the flower pot and a slip would have meant a trip to the hospital for stitches. Be very careful!

I then mounted the CD spindle bottom onto the inside of the pot lining up the holes correctly so that the flash unit could be easily inserted. I drilled 4mm holes through both the pot and the CD spindle bottom and pop riveted both together making sure I used washers front and back to strengthen the joints. I want this baby to last.

Then I took the whole lot outside and spray painted the back of the pot black and the inside white. I tried to do as good a job as I could because I want the end result to look as presentable as possible.

Then I riveted an appropriately cut to size plastic circle to the outside of the CD case spindle lid just to make it all look nice. Then I glued a CD with the shiny side down (towards the flash hole) into the inside of the CD spindle cover with the white silicon.

It then all looked like this:

Above is the CD spindle cover with CD glued to the inside.
(Edit: I found the convex mirror I was looking for!)

This is the dish with the CD spindle mounted into the dish.

And this is what it looks like from behind. Note the CD shining through the hole. This is what will bounce the flash back and hopefully into the white dish. (Compare this with the same pic at the bottom of this post that has high density foam mounted to the flash entry hole)

This whole process was actually quite quick, maybe 30 minutes (with quick dry spray paint) and was very easy, even for a non DIY guy like me!

Here is the whole setup mounted onto my flash and firing via Nikon's clever wireless flash system: 

Just to show how the Strobist Beauty Dish spreads the light, below is the same flash, sans Dish closer to the wall and still not getting as much light onto the wall! Most of the light is just going straight forward, which is why we want to diffuse it to start off with:

And with Dish from the front:

The big question of course is whether this would be more successful than my last attempt at DIY flash diffusion. So I took it to my specially prepared test range and tried it out. Guess what? It worked!

First with direct flash. Check out the harsh shadows on the wall behind the subject!

But oh, how those shadows have just melted into glorious diffusion with the Strobist DIY Beauty Dish mounted! Also, I am not quite sure why, but this photo just seems to have better colour and contrast than the direct flash. Maybe it's just me...

NB: To see DIY Beauty Dish photos with real people CLICK HERE

So, I'll chalk this one up as a success!

There are a few improvements I would like to make however, after all this is just my "prototype". First off I would like to get a small convex mirror and mount it into the CD case spindle lid where the CD is now and see if that reflects the flash a little better. And secondly I want to improve the flash mount on the back of the dish for both practicalities sake and to make it look better.

So there you have it, a Strobist DIY Beauty Dish in less than an hour from common goods that most people have just lying around the house or in the garage.

I can't take all the credit to myself however, here are some sites I referenced during my research into how to make it:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/discuss/72157604541039854/
http://www.imageguy.com/make-your-own-beauty-dish/
http://davidtejada.blogspot.com/2008/04/beauty-dish-for-sb-800.html

Happy flashing!


Edit: (23-10-2010)
To satisfy the curiosity of my friend Olesku.pl, who asked a question below, I shot the same scene with my shoot through umbrella. For the sake of science I kept the same position, same distance from subject and same camera settings (I shot this in manual), and the results were quite interesting. While the diffusion of the umbrella is really good, the amount of light getting through to the subject is a few stops less! Therefore the photograph is underexposed.

While I could change my settings and get a better result, I decided to post the original pic here just to show that the Strobist DIY Beauty Dish has one clear advantage, it lets through much more light, and more light in photography is always a good thing. Oh, it has two more advantages over the umbrella, it cost nothing to make and it was fun making it too! So a few pluses for the Beauty Dish. ;-)

That's not to say the umbrella is bad, it isn't, because as you could see it diffuses the light really well, (better than the dish in fact) it just needs to be used a little differently. I think the point that Olesku.pl wanted to make is that the umbrella is better at diffusion, and he was quite right!

Thanks for the question Olesku.pl, I just learnt something new!

Edit 2: (25-10-2010)
One of the two last things I wanted to do I managed to get done today! I mounted some high density foam at the flash hole in the rear of my Strobist DIY Beauty Dish to provide an easy mount for the flash like so:

The Strobist DIY Beauty Dish is light enough that this is sufficient to keep it attached to the flash without falling off. The friction of the tight fit of the high density foam against the skin of the flash is more than enough to keep it on. (Compare this with the pic further up of the dish without the high density foam mounted.)

Now for that convex mirror... anybody know where I can get one in South Africa? (Edit: Got one!)

Edit 3: (26-10-2010)
Ok, I found out that Midas (a motor spares retail chain in South Africa) stocks the convex mirror I need! Yeehaw! Should be here by Thursday! Will post a pic as soon as it is glued in and ready to use. (Edit: Got one!)

A Hilltop Garden In North Wales

Himself and I spent the last week in September on holiday ~ we were victims of a cancellation so made some last minute plans which worked out well. We headed off for not so far away North Wales where we stayed in a most comfortable log cabin just outside Bala. Of course we just had to fit in some garden visiting and our first trip was to Caerau Uchaf Gardens in Sarnau, which is four miles east of Bala. This is the highest private garden open to the public in North Wales at over 1000 feet. The gardens are owned by Toby and Stephanie Hickish, who have built award winning show gardens at Royal Horticultural Society Shows at Hampton Court Palace and Tatton Park.

In our camper van we gingerly made our way up a rather narrow ascending track before tackling a cattle grid which had seen better days. A most friendly welcome from the owners ensued. They had seen and heard us coming and thought that that we might need a drink to calm our nerves. We decided though that we would see the garden first before seeking refreshments. From wherever you were in the garden, there were glimpses of breathtaking scenery ~

I think that I was so distracted by the scenery that I paid less attention that normal to the garden and the planting. However although it was late in the season there was still colour ~

Places for contemplation ~

A greenhouse that made me positively tingle with envy ~

As well as fine accomodation for visitors both insects  ~

and human ~

including the delightful Pig - Sty Cottage, which you can see above with its most attractive windows . I think I could quite happily stay there for a week but himself thought that it might be too far off the beaten track, to stride out to a local hostelry come the evenings! Caerau Ichaf opens regularly throughout the season including under the National Garden Scheme. We had an enjoyable lunch and a mooch round the plant sales area before taking our leave. A garden now discovered that I hope to return to soon. More on the other Welsh gardens we visited before long.