Cut One Light Off, Three More Grow Back

Macro shooters take note: For not a lot of money and a little DIY work, you might not have to buy a second flash to do some cool, multi-light photos.

Marcell Nikolausz, of Leipzig, Germany has been experimenting with fiber optics and the same Loc-line channels that are the staple of Gorillapods and the like.

The result? The octopus-like contraption you see above...

I start to get all kinds of ideas in my head looking at this, as well as a few hurdles that would have to be overcome.

On the hurdles, the biggest would be the fact that there is one, homogenous light source powering the whole thing. I'd tackle that with ND gels over the appropriate tentacles to vary the intensity.

But still, possibilities abound for light-walleted macro photographers everywhere. Marcell's "fiberstrobe" is a work in progress. You can see more images from the contraption in this Flickr set, or follow his exploits in his blog.