DIY Lighting Hacks for Digital Photographers
Lighting can be the difference between a good shot and a great one.
Walk into most professional photographer’s studios and you’ll be confronted with truckloads of lighting equipment. To the average hobby photographer it’s enough to make your mind boggle – and for your stomach to turn as you think about the cost of it all.
Most of us can’t afford a full lighting rig – however what if there was a way to experiment with the type of lighting gear that pro photographers use without spending too much money? What if you could make it yourself.
In this post I’ve found 10 DIY Flash and Lighting Hacks that put some of these lighting techniques within the grasp of the rest of us. Some are more involved than others but all are fun and will provide you with some new lighting gear to experiment with.
1. Multi-Super-SB-Ring Light
What can you make with six speedlight flashes, a coffee can and a little spare time?
You get a multi-super-sb-ring-light! (pictured left).
You could probably also blind a small village if you’re not careful!
Find out what it is, how to make one and what the results are like here.
This one looks like a lot of fun to play with – even if it’s just for the challenge of it and the looks you’d get when you pull it out next time you do a shoot..
2. Poor Mans Ring Flash
All you need for this one (pictured left) is a used milk bottle/jug and some scissors.
The result is that you’ll have a Poor Mans Ring Flash.
A ring flash is one that fits around the lens – it creates a wonderfully unique lighting effect. They will usually lighten your wallet by a couple of hundred dollars.
It’s so simple that I whipped one up for myself today in 5 minutes.
It worked out pretty good too – not bad for the cost of a couple of liters of milk!
If you want to experiment with other methods of making DIY ring flashes you also might want to check out this post for another method. This one is a little more involved, but I think will probably get better results.
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3. Inexpensive Light Tent
Have you ever wanted to replicate the crisp clean product images that you see in catalogs with the products seemingly floating on a white background?
If you do – you need some kind of light tent/light box.
As usual, light boxes can cost you quite a bit – but thanks to DPS reader Jeffrey Bail you might be able to achieve the results without having to spend much at all.
In our Inexpensive Light Tent tutorial Jeffrey shows you how to turn a box, fabric, tape, glue board and light into a great little light tent.
4. Party Bouncer Card
Another cool DIY Hack is this Party Bouncer Card (pictured left) which is so simple yet promises to be so useful and effective.
This one is for those of you with a camera which doesn’t have the capability for an off camera flash.
It allows you to bounce some light off the ceiling while also diffusing the light going forward – this will enable you to get a less harsh flash effect that many flashes leave images with. I like this one as it pushes the light out from your flash in two directions which can lead to a more even light rather than just diffusing it – a little more sophisticated.
Another quick DIY on diffusing a flash is to put a little translucent magic tape over a flash (or a piece of white tissue paper can do it too).
Any of these methods will decrease the amount of light getting out from the flash onto your subject – hopefully resulting in a more subtle light and a less blown out image.
5. Turkey Pan Beauty Dish
Beauty dishes are wonderful pieces of photographic equipment to experiment with – but they can be very expensive.
Not any more (at lest if you use this DIY trick).
In this hack learn how to use a simple Turkey Pan to get some pretty amazing beauty dish results! The comparison examples in this tutorial between the turkey pan version and the real thing are pretty convincing.
I must remember to add Turkey Pans to this week’s shopping list.
6. DIY Ghetto Flash Extender
I’d not heard of this type of device before – but since I found this tutorial I’ve discovered a number of photographers who for one reason or another want to be able to extend the reach of their flash.
This is particularly useful for wildlife photographers who want to supplement natural light in tricky lighting with fill flash. Of course sometimes it’s difficult to get close to that animal and a normal flash would have no impact.
Enter the Flash Extender (one popular one is the ‘better beamer’).
Want to make one for yourself? This tutorial for the DIY Ghetto Flash Extender will tell you how.
7. Disposable Camera Flash Slave
Lately I’ve had more and more questions from readers about how to set up shots with multiple flash units to light a subject from more than one angle.
It’s not difficult to do if you have the budget to buy yourself an extra speedlight flash or two (or more) but if you don’t have the budget is there a way?
In this tutorial and author shows you how to use a disposable camera to act as a remote slave flash.
OK – this tutorial isn’t for anyone looking for a quick simple solution – but it is a challenge that I’m sure some of you will be up for!
8. Flash Mounted DIY Softbox
Another way that professional photographers diffuse the light that comes from a flash and gets a nice subtle and even light on their subject is to use a softbox
A softbox sits over a light (it’s a big box with white walls) which ensures the light is spread out evenly.
This DIY Softbox tutorial is great – it requires card, a white sheet (silk if you can), velcro, scissors, glue and the template that the tutorial provides you with.
The results look pretty good – but if you want more DIY softboxes the same site also has another tutorial for an alternative softbox.
Again – this one looks pretty good.
9. Flash Bouncers
There are a lot of DIY flash diffuser hacks and tutorials around but this one from our friend Chris at DSLRBlog is pretty cool.
It costs £1, takes 5 minutes, requires craft foam, a little elastic and some scissors.
The tutorial even includes a template for you to print out on your printer and then cut out – what more do you need?
Even the technologically challenge could make this one (speaking of myself of course).
Nice work from Chris with that one.
Another similar Flash Bouncer/Diffuser can be found over at DPReview here. This one is foam also.
Lastly – another card/paper version of the flash bouncer.
10. Full Budget DIY Lighting Studio
It’s time for one last DIY lighting hack – this one attempts to bring it all together with a full DIY Budget Studio setup.
The author of it takes up the challenge of creating a full studio lighting system for under $75.
It includes lights, reflectors, diffusers and flash diffusers – all using items that you could pick up at hardware and craft stores.
It also shows you a few test shots at the end of the tutorial that compare different lighting options.
You will need your own flash unit to use the flash diffusers on – but the rest is all included in the tutorial.
I particularly light the suggestions around globes for the lights. I know a couple of DPS forum members have had similar success with these sorts of lights.
11. UPDATE: The Fring – a DIY Flash Ring
I saw this one recently and I think it makes a worthy addition to this post.
It is a DIY Fibre-Optic flash extension for your DSLR’s popup flash!
It uses the light from your camera’s flash to light your subject using fibre optics arranged around your lens to give a more even light.
Of course it’s not the easiest to make (there are 37 steps) but it’s an ingenious idea and the example images taken with the setup are pretty cool considering it cost just a few dollars to make.
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Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
DIY Lighting Hacks for Digital Photographers
Epic Cosplay Shoot – Behind the Scenes
I have been photographing my friends in their anime and game inspired costumes (cosplay) for many years. Recently, I’ve wanted to ramp things up, and take more dramatic images that stand out from what I’ve done in the past. A couple of months ago my friend K, one of Australia’s foremost cosplayers, approached me to ask for help shooting a photo for a charity cosplay calendar she was invited to appear in. I took this opportunity to push my boundaries, and I was very happy with the results:
I’m going to do a brief description of how this photo was created, talk about the shoot and show you a couple of other images we took.
For this shoot I was joined by a second photographer, my good friend Elias Lopez. Typically at a cosplay photo meet, a bunch of cosplayers and photographers get together and everyone takes lots of casual photos. The idea with this shoot was to be a lot more focused, and to achieve just a handful of very specific image ideas. Before getting to the location, I had an image in my head of the photos I wanted to create, and an idea of how to execute them. Elias also had a couple of ideas for shots, and we took turns getting them just right. As such, the process was very deliberate and precise, and we took our time to get exactly the look we were after. I found this method of working highly rewarding and ultimately achieved a better result.
Here is a lighting diagram for the photo above:
Lighting diagram created with help from http://www.lightingdiagrams.com/Creator
One of the main elements that sets this shot apart from others is the glowing blue streaks the keyblades (the swords in the model’s hands) leave through the image. These were achieved by taping electroluminescent wire to the props, and the model sweeping them through the shot while the shutter was open.
- With the camera on the tripod, the shot was composed with the model standing in place. This allowed me to create a balanced composition that took into account the city behind.
- The aperture was set sufficiently wide to blur the city behind so that it wouldn’t distract from the foreground.
- The shutter speed was found through trial and error to be long enough to allow for the keyblades (the swords in the models hands) to ’streak’ through the shot.
- ISO was set to 400 to allow wiggle room either side if I needed to boost or suppress the exposure.
- The three flash units were all set to approximately the same power level, tweaked to balance the exposure of the subject with the background. The flashes froze the model, even though she was moving during the exposure to create the light trails. This created a problem that needed to be fixed in post; discussed below.
- The camera white balance was set to tungsten, to give it the blue look we wanted. This can be done in post, but I find it helpful to visualise the shot on the back of the camera with an approximate white balance that I will use for the final result.
The final exposure settings were: 0.6sec at f/5.0, ISO 400, 105mm.
You can see a short behind the scenes video taken while I was getting test shots to establish the right exposure for the city and e.l. wire here: Behind the Scenes on a Cosplay Photo Shoot
Many exposures were taken of this setup to get just the result we were looking for. Here’s an example of some of the rejects, as they came out of the camera:
As you can see from the above photos, the result out of the camera looks good, but needs work to polish it properly. I process all of my photos in Adobe Lightroom. Usually this is enough, but the artistic demands of this photo required some additional photo-manipulation work in Photoshop. Below is the sequence of the photo at the different stages of processing.
Stage one: This is how the photo looked straight out of camera.
Stage two: Processing in Lightroom increased the brightness, contrast and saturation and selectively brightened the face.
Stage 3: The final image after editing in Photoshop. Here the background was darkened slightly to make the subject stand more separate from the background. The weeds on the ground were deleted, I selectively enhanced the streaks to make them glow even more, and I deleted some background lights that were either two bright and distracting, or appeared to show through the model; the result of her moving after the flash had fired.
This photo, out of the several that we created on the night, was selected by K to be her submission to the calendar. The calendar is now available, and is raising funds for the Room to Read charity, promoting child literacy. It’s an amazing calendar with great photos of incredible cosplayers, and it’s raising money for a great cause. It’s available at a good price, so everyone should order one! You can read more and order your copy here: http://causeplay.org/2011-cosplay-calendar-for-charity/
Here are some of the other photos we made on that night. Click them to go through to a more detailed description of how they were made.
The following photo by Elias Lopez.
In conclusion, this shoot was immensely satisfying. Working with a very creative and motivated team of people, to create images with such great visual impact, which ended up in an internationally sold charity calendar was all very rewarding. I have become even more determined to spend more time working on photo shoots more like this: ones that are driven by a specific creative vision, rather than just the desire to take pretty photos as the opportunity is presented to me.
Post from: Digital Photography School
Entering the World of Wireless Flash Technology
If you are an avid reader of DPS, you have probably gleaned that many of the professional photographers that contribute are relying more and more on wireless flash technologies.
Wireless Flash Image by Pieter Baert
There is so much to be gained from getting the flash off your camera, losing that boring straight at you lighting, and moving it about the room or venue at which you are shooting. Well, if you have yet to venture into the realm of remote lighting, here is some good news. Being a somewhat early and rapidly advancing technology now might be the perfect time to jump in. When you decide to cut the cord, there are three popular choices for you to consider. Here we briefly introduce recent product releases from these big players and hopefully arm you with some additional information to help you decide where to go.
Choice #1: Nikon/Canon built-in wireless
Chances are you may already have a camera and a flash that has some wireless functionality built in. If you have never experimented with wireless and directional lighting this would be the place to start. Usually this is accomplished by having one flash be a controller attached to your camera hot-shoe. Other compatible unites would be placed around the room and would be triggered by the controller flash. Worried that you aren’t knowledgeable enough to dial in all your remote flashes to get a proper exposure?
Not to worry. These systems feature TTL metering. This is a method in which the camera intelligently measures the light in the scene based on the light coming through the lens. It’s the same flash metering system you’re used to with one on-camera flash. The camera is smart enough to meter the subject, do some quick calculations and then tell each remote flash how bright they should fire. This is great for dynamic situations where the lighting or the subject is changing and it makes for the easiest way to setup and start shooting quickly. Did I mention this is the most affordable way to get into off-camera lighting?
So you’re sold on this setup, right? Well there are some limitations to their proprietary systems. There are three. First is range. Because the Nikon/Canon flashes are communicating with infrared light, (as opposed to radio signals) you will need to have your remote flashes in line-of-sight of the controller flash. Secondly it means there will be a distance limitation since that infrared light will only travel so far before it becomes to weak to communicate with the remote flash. The final drawback is that, as these systems use TTL flash, they generally won’t be able to keep up with a sports shooter blazing along at 8fps. This is no different to the limitation you find using TTL flash on camera though, so it can’t be considered a problem with the wireless system per se. If you are a fellow nikon user, a new book was just released that covers the basics. In the end though, whether you are using Nikon or Canon, there are some very powerful options there.
Choice #2: RadioPopper
Until RadioPopper came along there was no good solution for using TTL with off-camera lights, unless you stuck with what was offered through the camera manufacturers. With some extremely clever engineering that we won’t get into, the folks at RadioPopper took TTL and married it to radio communication and created a new hybrid product. They didn’t sit still long and are now back with a completely redesigned offering called the PX. It boasts 1500 feet of range, sixteen unique channels and if you are using high speed capable flashes (called FP flash for Nikon) then you can sync at 1/8000th of a second. Wow! Rather than go through all of it’s features, check out the video below. As Radiopoppers are transmitting the TTL signals though, you will have the same limitation on frame rate as you do shooting with a TTL flash on camera.
Choice #3: PocketWizards
PocketWizards have been the choice of professionals for some time. They are extremely rugged and can communicate at huge distances and will support insanely fast sync speeds as well (if you use a medium format camera with a leaf shutter for example, then traditional PocketWizards will let you sync with manual flashes at effectively any speed). Used with flashes set manually (i.e. not using TTL) then radio triggers like PocketWizards will keep up with all but the fastest framerates too, making them great for photographers shooting action. What they have been missing however is that quick and dirty TTL metering that is nice to fall back on in a pinch. That is, until now. Tired of missing out on the TTL action they just released their new offering called the PW Flex and the PW Mini. They kept all their trusted reliable features and packed in a whole lot more including what they call ControlTL, effectively providing the same functionality as the RadioPoppers described above. These new offerings will be sure to keep this one of the top choices available. Again, check out the video below to get the full scope of what’s in store.
I know others have mentioned finding more affordable yet capable such as the Cactus Trigger which has a growing fan base and is much cheaper than the products above. I haven’t used any of these personally, and I’m sure we’d like to hear some user reviews. Hit us up in the comments and tell us what you use.
Updated for accuracy - Thanks to DPS reader Matt Cope for clarifying some of the info here. If you’d like a more hands on type of wireless article, let us know.
Tags: Flash, lighting, Wireless
An Explanation of 2nd Curtain Sync Flash (or Slow Sync Flash)
Let’s look at the sequence of events when combining flash with long exposures. When the flash fires during exposure, the normal sequence looks something like this (note there may be some slight variation among different camera brands or flash modes):
- Press shutter button.
- Curtain A opens.
- Flash fires.
- Frame is open for some period of time (as determined by your shutter speed).
- Curtain B closes the frame, ending the exposure.
This is the normal sequence and doesn’t really have a name, except to help differentiate it from our next scenario. With Second Curtain Synch (also sometimes called Slow Synch) the sequence goes like this:
- Press shutter button.
- Pre-flash fires so the camera can measure and adjust the intensity.
- Curtain A opens.
- Frame is open for some period of time (as determined by your shutter speed).
- Flash fires.
- Curtain B closes the frame and ends the exposure.
To understand the significance, imagine you are taking a picture at night in which moving lights will be visible during the exposure. During the exposure, the lights move across your frame and you are not panning.
During the first (normal) exposure, the flash illuminates the subject on one side of your frame. The lights then form streaks across the frame right over top of the subject, resulting in a weird looking image.
In the second scenario, the shutter opens and the lights record their streaks. Then the flash illuminates the subject. The streaks from the lights lead up to the subject, giving the illusion of speed and creating a generally cool effect.
Depending on the speed and direction of movement and the intensity of the lights, it doesn’t always work this way but one of the great things about digital is that you can review your results and try something different if you didn’t get what you were expecting.
It bears noting that you can’t precisely control exactly when the flash fires when using second curtain synch. So it’s possible in our example scenario that the subject could be out of the frame before the flash goes off. Second curtain synch requires some practice, a bit of finesse and sometimes luck to use well.
This post is an excerpt from Jeffrey’s book Photography Basics.
PS: Check out these Amazing Examples of Slow Sync Flash
Tags: 2nd Curtain Sync, Flash, lighting, Slow Sync