Snooting a Snoot is very snooty indeed!

Had to snoot my snoot today to get the shaft of light exiting the front a little more tight and controlled to highlight a label on a wine bottle. Here is the snooted snoot:

Piece of cardboard from a recent tent purchase (not a light tent, the camping kind) with a round hole cut in and a toilet paper roll cardboard tube stuck in the hole tightly. All taped on with some masking tape. Worked. No more to say.

And here is the result, well two of them really, one with a white background and one with a black background:

And the compulsory "set up" shot just to give you an idea of what was going down:

Portraits in small places

So you don't have a studio, and the wife won't let you convert the spare room either, and the garage is full of junk, so what to do to be able to use that shiny dslr and the speedlights you got for Christmas last year and you've been itching to put to good use? Well you make some compromises and improvise. I have been living in a small apartment for the past year and don't have much space, but I can still setup my lights for a two light pic like the one below:

Here is how I set it up:

By using the curtains as a backdrop and squeezing the lights in between couches and side tables I managed to get a fairly good two light portrait set-up. Behind the model is my Strobist DIY Beauty Dish on a tripod. To the right and high is a shoot through umbrella on my junky tripod converted to super cool light stand. Nikon sb600 in the beauty dish and sb700 in the umbrella, both triggered via Nikons very cool CLS system. Easy peasy!

More on the junky tripod to super cool light stand conversion...

Ok, so maybe the light stand from a tripod is not super cool, but it was fun and more importantly it worked! So maybe fairly cool then.

Basically I had an old cheapy tripod that came with my Nikon F65 when I bought it for next to nothing. During November I needed a light stand to get my flash and shoot-through umbrella higher than an average cheapy tripod can manage, so I looked to the tripod that was too light to hold an SLR camera steady.

First I detached the head from the aluminium pipe it was mounted to and got this:

The black and white bits top and middle of the pipe will be explained soon.

I then took a piece of chromed curtain rod of the right diameter to fit the head mount and stuck the business end of the head mount into the pipe, drilled a small hole and screwed it in both sides like so:

See the screw? Easy, with only basic DIY skills needed... and a drill... with a suitable sized drill bit. If you don't know what a drill bit is just ask your friends and the first one that knows has earned the privilege of assisting you with this little project! ;-)

Next up I had to drill a hole into the head somewhere, without destroying the heads usefulness, for the umbrella shaft to be pushed in to. Time to ask the DIY savvy friend for help again... Here is where I put my hole, yours may be in a different spot. (You will have to use some common sense on this step.)

I chose that particular position because the drill bit could go all the way through without damaging any important bits inside. Make sure you get this right otherwise you may render you old tripod head quite unable to mount the flash. Also make sure that the diameter of the drill bit is the same as the umbrella shaft, too small and it won't mount, too big and it will fall out.

While it looks oh so neat from the outside, I'm afraid the same cannot be said of the inside, but heck, nobody looks in there anyway... except all of the readers of this blog. Darn!

This is what it looks like with the umbrella inserted into the hole. NICE!

Finally, in order for the curtain rod to fit snugly over the original aluminium pipe that the head used to be mounted to I simply wrapped some electrical tape top and middle and by simple trial and error got it just right:

So that's what those black and white things were! I wanted it to be easily portable, so that's why I didn't screw the curtain rod to the tripod. Now it simply pulls off!

Here's the whole lot together:

The dangly bit hanging from the umbrella shaft is a long balloon that I tie onto the shaft to stop it from sliding in when it is pointed up to use as a bounce umbrella, or I tie it on the other side to stop it from falling out when I am shooting through and it is pointed down. Simple is good.

Here is a pic of the set-up using this rig while shooting Santa in December:

It worked flawlessly!

Here is another shot taken with the same:

This last one was bounced to cover more area while the Santa shots were all shot through the umbrella.

I should probably have just gone and bought a light stand but hey it would not have been half as much fun!
(This was also free since I had all the bits...) (No, not drill bits... ask your friend.)

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!

First Strobist DIY Beauty Dish Portraits!

I think it works!

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!)