I have finished my new home made ringflash. I had one before which I ordered from a store for $200 (!!! a joke!) but I wasn’t impressed by the cheap plastic quality, the image results and the price. So it has returned to the store.
Believe or not, my new DIY one feels much more professional. It is metal but still easy to remove from both the camera and the flash. In addition, it costs less than $20.
First the results:
My version is a modification of the ringflash you can find here: http://www.motleypixel.com/forum/index.php/topic,80.0.html
If you are not familiar with the ringflash concept, please watch the video above. It is great!
Materials needed:
- shop light (You can but it in every Home Depot store. It cost about $12. In home Depot, you will find it in the electric wire section. It comes with cord, etc. You don’t need these except the lamp frame. The one below has already been painted and the diffuser screen attached.)
- plastic food container (See the image below)
- a sharp knife
- duct tape (not on the picture)
- thin plastic cutting sheet (to diffuse the harsh light of the strobe)
- rubber ring (to hold the flash so you can use both of your hands)
That’s it.
This is the lamp:
This is the chopping mat set:
You don’t really need a drill or any welding machine. You can pierce through the lamp with a sharp knife easily. (If you are not sure whether you can do it, please get a drill. Guys, safety first!!!)
Total cost of materials was less than $20. Of course, you need a regular flashgun some way to trigger the off-camera flash. I use a Canon 550EX. You also need a hot shoe cord, which you can get from ebay shipped from China for only $30.
1. I used this particular type of plastic container for holding the lens inside the ring flash body. The reason is that it is dirt cheap and takes two minutes to cut the plastic container body. It perfectly fits into the shop lamp body. Once the container is cut, you can put it into the hole you have formed into the shop lamp and you just screw the container top onto the container. It holds firm. Also, because of the container’s shape, the lens is deeper in the lamp frame so you can use shorter lenses like my Canon 35mm 1.4L. What is great about it that you don’t need to glue it. You just screw it on. It is easy to remove it as well!
Here is the plastic container you need to get. It is called ZIPLOC. You can buy it anywhere; Walmart, Target. Also, you can see the original cup (blue) and the one I cut through and painted so I can put the lens through.
First you measure the container against the lamp body so the container can slide into the lamp body. You mark it with a pencil. Then you cut a hole in the lamp body so that the container can be pushed into the lamp body. Then you cat the container body itself in a way so it is doesn’t stick out from the lamp. Then you cut through the plastic cup so you can slide the camera lens through into the container later and you slide the container into the lamp so it sits firm. You screw the cup on the container and you are ready!!! You don’t need more than 20 minutes!
Finally, you have to cut an opening for the flash as well as seen above. You measure you flash light against the body. Again, you can the opening with a sharp knife.
The plastic container can also hold a Canon 85mmL 1.2L and Canon 28-70 2.8L easily. Canon users know that these are big lenses so I think most lenses will fit into the opening. Nikon users may want to check the size of these lenses to make sure that the Nikon lenses are compatible.
2. The other major difference is that I didn’t make a metal frame to hold the lamp body ( the flash ring itself). You can hold it with your left hand if you want or you can attach a rubber band to the lens and to the hot shoe of the flash so that the lens and the flash are connected like this. This gives you a lot of flexibility in a wedding! I mostly shoot weddings and engagements and I didn’t want to waste time to put the camera and the ringflash on the frame. Taking apart takes time as well. I needed more flexibility, meaning that I can put the ring flash together and disassemble in 4 seconds without unscrewing anything. With my ring flash the good thing is that you just take the hot shoe cord off and you can easily remove the flash and the ringflash body from the camera. You just put the ring flash away quickly and continue shooting.
You can not really zoom with the lens though because it is in the ring flash body. For me it is not a problem because I mainly use prime lenses.
I mainly use my ringflash with my canon 5D + Canon 85mm f/1.2L and or a Canon 35mm f/1.4L.
The result: you paid less than $20 and you have a killing flash!
Enjoy and please feel free to make comments and share your ideas!!!
by Otto Haring
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