Home Depot Week: Backgrounds

This week we are working our way through the aisles of the Big Orange Store, but this stuff is not necessarily specific to Home Depot. Many of these things can be found at just about any big hardware store, and the idea is to think frugally and creatively when scrounging for lighting and photo gear.
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I could spend all day wandering around a Home Depot or a Lowes store. So many possibilities: Hardware, lighting, backdrops, DIY supplies -- I get tingly just thinking about it.

Today, however, we are beginning in the paint aisle, looking for backdrops. HD has 'em in just about any size you want, only they call them drop cloths. These are washable canvas and they are dirt cheap.

How cheap? How 'bout under $10 for a 6x9-foot canvas?

More, including a link to a discussion on how to paint it and another way cool backdrop idea after the jump.

My photo "to-do" list is long, and growing. And one of the things on it is to paint a studio backdrop. I did one in college, and used it a lot. In fact, I got so much use out of it I had to pawn it off on another shooter, lest I become a 5'6" walking cliché of myself.

If you have the time and inclination, a roll-up painted backdrop is a no-brainer. $10 for canvas, $10 for paint and a coupla bucks for 2x2's at each end to form a roll-up structure. I'll be going into more detail on the process when I get a round tuit and make one, but no trip to Home Depot would be complete without passing by the bargain basement canvas backdrop aisle.

There is discussion on how to paint it here and more to be had if you do a little Googling. If you find a really good tutorial, throw us a bone in the comments.
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Counter Culture

And here's another idea that's a little off the wall: What about counter-top laminate as a backdrop? I was looking at the selection in Big Orange and there were some very nice portrait backdrops if you think of those counters vertically.

They come in 4x8-foot sheets for about $50. I would mount them to a sheet of 1/2" MDF board and collect them, if I had a permanent studio space. Two holes drilled through at the top, and on one side, would make them very easy to temporarily mount via pegs in a wall.

Vertical for single portraits, and horizontal for group head-and-shoulders shots. (The 4x8' thing would be your limiting factor.)

Very durable, and pretty cheap. And the dark, shiny colors are great for those specular background shots.

And just to show you my sophisticated studio for shooting this kind of stuff, here's a setup shot:

My "light stand" came from the rag drawer, the soft box came from the printer (with a minimal amount of origami) and the flash is a 20-year-old SB-26. It was triggered using the slave mode from the on-board flash, which was gobo'd with my hand so it would not contribute to the lighting.

Amp Your Backlight with a Cheapo, Disposable Fog Machine

Yesterday, I spent most of the afternoon cruising my local big orange store for an upcoming "Home Depot" week here on Strobist. Yep, a whole week of cheapskate, hardware-themed DIY fun.

The goal is to have the posts pre-written for late October, so I will not have to spend my entire week in Paris attached to a laptop. I have long since considered HD as tightwad photo gear heaven. Given that, I walked in with notebook and pen in hand, ready to scrounge. Two hours later I walked out with a cool list and more new ideas than I could shake a stick at.

But this particular find was too perishable to hold until late October. Get the full details on the dirt-cheap fog machine after the jump.

(Cool, fogged-up backlit photo by mwreeve)
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1983 Called. They'd Like Their Lighting Back.

Nothing makes hard, strobed backlight look cooler than a bunch of smoky fog wafting around, making those cool beams and layered tones. A little '80's if done too over-the-top. But lotsa possibilities, all the same. Sadly, the professional model fog machines are mid-three digits to start.

Fortunately, America's insatiable appetite for tacky, over-the-top Halloween decor is your temporary ticket to a fog machine for just $29.95. But as you might imagine, at that price there are catches.

Number one, they won't be around long. HD has them in the pagan holiday tacky decor section. And that opportunity is fleeting, for obvious reasons. You can also apparently get them at Wal*Mart, Michaels, and a few other companies I have never heard of. Ditto the Halloween-themed, fly-by-night stores at your local mall.

Number two, at $29.95 it does not come with the water-based fog fluid. So that'll set you back a few more bucks.

Finally, (and this is why I refer to it as "disposable,") the fluid can reportedly sometimes get too thick and gum up the machine. But it is water based, so my game plan is to dilute it a little with water and thicken it back up juuuust until I get decent fog. (I like to tinker.)

In fact, your local Home Depot may or may not carry the fog fluid just for that reason. So call around to find out who has the whole set before you waste the gas.

UPDATE: Check out the anti-clogging solution by RootyB in the comments.

Hey, it's $29.95. If it holds up for one good shoot it's worth it for a chance to play with smoky backlight. (I'll bet Keith Taylor would have liked to have it for that fireman shot.)
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(Fog Machine Product Page, at Gemmy.com.)

Home Depot Week: More Backgrounds

Ever wish your commanding officer significant other would let you have a section of the wall to paint as a backdrop in any style you choose whenever you want?

You can, if you are willing to spend seven bucks. That's what a sheet of 4x8', 1/2" drywall goes for these days. If you are doing the home studio thing, or shooting in your garage, it's a no brainer. And at $7 plus the cost of paint, you can do one any time you want a visual theme to tie together a series of portraits or product shots.

(More after the jump.)
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For the portraits, you would just lean the painted sheet against a wall very carefully. ("I promise won't mess it up, honey!") Then pull out your speedlights and you are in business.

FWIW, I am lobbying for a permanent section of the basement as "paintable backdrop space" in our next house. (It's not looking great at this point, but I am very early in the process. I'll keep you posted.)

Granted, drywall looks like crap until you paint it. But no worries, as HD can help you there, too. They have people in the paint section just dying to tell you how to sponge, rag, roll, splatter, exfoliate -- whatever you want.

There are brochures in the color palette areas of the paint display that will get you thinking. Or you can go with a solid color if you want.

Wanna get one of those cool specular background shots, for instance? Just paint with a semi-gloss and choose a dark color. Bingo.

One particularly good book that they offer is "Decorative Painting: Expert Advice from Home Depot" ($14.95.) It contains more ideas for painted backdrops than you can shake a stirring stick at.

The drywall thing is not just for portraits, either. You can cut the stuff easily and make a corner out of two 4x4 pieces. Presto, instant alcove for still-life shots.

Here's a trick: To cut the drywall, you score one side with a utility knife (using a straight edge as a guide) and gently snap it. Do this carefully, and you can preserve the paper on the opposite side to make a nice, joined temporary corner for a shoot.

As for location, if you have no place inside that is suitable for shooting just lean your custom drywall backdrop against the side of a building on the shade side (or in the evening) and shoot away.

Home Depot Homebrew of $643 Profoto Globe Saves You Enough to Buy a Paul Buff Einstein to Put it On

For the second time in a week, a Paul Buff mod that is so simple I wonder why I hadn't thought of it earlier. This one is via Houston-based photographer Stephen Hébert.

This Home Depot version of the famed Profoto Globe will set you back all of $10. I have seen people hacking these for Profoto lights using SP-systems mounts and/or gaffer's tape. But the fact that they mount right to an AB or Einstein is, like, poetic justice or something.

If you are really slick (and handy) you might want to try to drill some holes around the base for heat venting. And I am guessing the color temp is, er, "close enough."

But having enough money left over from the savings to buy the actual flash (and an additional $130 in other accessories) is icing on the cake.

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Ray Flash vs. Orbis vs. AlienBees ABR800 Review, Pt. 2

Last week, we looked at the Orbis and Ray Flash, which pretty much compete head-to-head in the ring flash adapter arena.

This week, we take a closer look at the AlienBees ABR800. Although it is a ringlight with a self-contained studio monobloc flash, it is priced in the neighbor of the other two units -- especially when you consider a standalone flash is not needed to make it work.
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The AlienBees ABR-800

For the sake of (relative) brevity, I am going to assume you have already read both last week's post and seen the comparison video at SportsShooter. (Again, they talk about the "Zeus" ring flash, which is a pack-and-head model. But for quality-of-light purposes, the two are identical.)

The ABR800 ($400, here) is a monobloc housed within a ring flash unit. At 320 watt-seconds, it is powerful enough to blast into the sun at typical portrait distances. And it has enough juice to work as appropriate fill in full sun at much greater distances.

If you are shooting in open sun a lot, this is reason enough alone to consider the ABR over the speedlight modifiers. Sadly, Paul Buff (the ABR manufacturer) does not sell worldwide. But as of a few days ago he has just opened up an Australian/Asian distribution point.

Alas, for people who live outside of the US or AU/Asia, there are not any current choices at this power level in this price range. (Hint, hint, flash manufacturers.)

At $400, it is a screaming bargain compared to its studio flash competition. Like most Paul Buff units, it is not excessively heavy duty. I have used mine for the better part of a year, and have had no build quality issues. But neither will the high-impact plastic housing and mount inspire lots of confidence for some.

The ABR comes with a bracket to allow mounting on a light stand, a tripod or just married to the camera for hand-held use. I generally use it on a light stand, and walk it around as my shooting angle changes. As a single unit, mounted to the camera, it is pretty useable hand-held. But it will take a little getting used to, and will make you pine for the day when you thought the Ray Flash setup was unwieldy. (Wuss.)

The unit is an AC/mains power only unit. But Paul Buff does, for $300, sell a Vagabond II battery pack which is powerful and robust enough for extended shooting without AC power. Before jumping on that, consider the less expensive alternative of a couple hundred feet of extension cord for $30 or so at Home Depot.


If the Vagabond could be considered an optional accessory, the 30-inch "Moon Unit" light modifier is a no-brainer and you should just buy it when you get the ABR800. The $60 Moon Unit, which shares it's name with the daughter of singer Frank Zappa, turns your ABR into a gorgeous ring light/soft box.

This combo is really sweet, as you'll see below. But it also means that the ABR can be used as a particularly nice, self-contained beauty dish-style light on it's own. Just stick it on a stand and go to town.

That said, as much as I love the Moon Unit, it could also be classified as a medieval torture device the first few times you assemble it. So much so, in fact, that I was loathe to let a subject watch me assemble it during a shoot. (There is usually some cursing involved.)

I am reminded of a novice VW Beetle driver who pulls up a little too far in front of the gas pump. Rather than try to wrestle it into reverse, he says, "I'll be right back!" and takes a lap around the block.

Don't let it bug you too much. You'll get it. All of the work is worth it. And it is totally worth the $60.



The ABR's Split Personality

One of my favorite things about the ABR is its versatility right out of the box. It comes with a very efficient, 10-inch reflector and a donut diffuser. (Mmmm-hmm-hmm… donut diffuuuuuuser…)

These combos basically give you four different looks and/or beam spreads to the light -- bare, donut, reflector or both.


(Please note that all of these pictures were done in the same conditions and time as the photos from last week, so if you want to compare apples to apples, that should help.)



Bare ABR

Without any modifiers, the ABR is very harsh. It is classic, in-your-face, garish ring flash. I have yet to use it this way, but if you shoot for one of those weekly CityPaper-type publications, it might be right up your alley.

In addition to being harsh, it is relatively inefficient when compared to use with the 10" reflector, as there is little to push that light forward for you.

I haven't given it much use this way yet (ain't my thang) but I think it could look kinda cool in B&W if you blew out the exposure a little. Very over-the-top, brash paparazzi kind of thing maybe.


ABR w/Donut

Snap on the diffuser donut, and ring diameter stays pretty much the same. The wall shadow intensity and glare lessen slightly, but not much. This will also cost you some power.

The diffuser has the effect of sending the light out more evenly in a 180 degree sphere, though, So if you are shooting wide -- whether using the ABR as main or fill -- this will probably be your best configuration.


ABR w/Reflector

If you are going for sheer sun-nuking power, this is your best bet.

With the reflector, the bare tube's power is all sent forward, giving you the absolute most lumens possible. And the diameter of the light is bigger, which gives you a different background shadow and light quality. This is how I use the ABR when filling outside in full sun. (But usually not nuking the sun with the ring as key -- usually, as fill in combo with a separate key light.)


ABR w/Reflector and Donut

In this setup, the ABR-800 most closely resembles the classic, studio ring flash -- smooth, even small light going into a high-efficiency reflector.

For me, this is most commonly used indoors when I want a standard ring look, for key or fill. Even with the donut, this is a very efficient combo.

And again, more often than not this is going to be used as fill for another lighting scheme.


Outside, the ABR separates itself from speedlight-based models. This shot, a promo still for a short film, was done in the shade.

But we still had power to burn in full daylight if we wanted -- we were powered way down on the ABR. This this cranks.

We used the reflector-with-donut setup mentioned above and found some smooth shade. Then we underexposed the shade by about two stops and brought the ring up to full exposure.

We then took that combo down a further stop-and-a-half and used VAL'd SB-800s as key lights. You can see the setup here, courtesy Rehan, who was helping that day.


ABR w/30" Moon Unit

The combo of an ABR with a 30" Moon Unit is far-and-away my favorite look for ring flash -- especially on those occasions when I use it by itself as an on-axis light.

It is a combination ring flash and soft box, and produces a light like nothing I have seen. It wraps and rings, at the same time.

There are caveats, though. First, you will lose some photog/subject interaction, as you are pretty much gonna be hidden behind the light source. It's big.

Also, you cannot get too close with it, to it gets too soft -- just flattish and blah. And the on-axis highlights in the eyes start getting really big. As in, people start looking like aliens. (Hmm, or AlienBees?) But from a working portrait distance, it is sweet.


It also makes a good modifier for a ring-as-fill, too. It does the job in a smooth way, without leaving its own signature. In the BW example at left, I used a 30" Moon Unit as fill and a gridded SB-800 speedlight as a key, from high camera right.

If you have an ABR and have not gotten a Moon Unit, do yourself a favor. It's cheap and it totally transforms the light. And its secondary usefulness as a beauty dish is a great bonus. Just be ready to feel like an idiot the first dozen times you assemble it.
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Bored of the Rings

So, there you have it -- a full, direct comparison of three of the most reasonable ring light solutions around. Had enough yet? I'll bet yes.

Even if you do not go for the up-against-the-wall standard ring stuff (not a big fan, either) I hope you will consider one as a way of filling some of your edgier forms of key lighting. They make a lot of things possible that otherwise would not look very good.

And even if you can't spring for one you can always sit down with a movie, some cardboard and some foil tape and roll your own. That's a whole new variable to add to your lighting kit for less than $5, which is pretty hard to beat.

Home Depot Week: T-Nuts

So, you bought a cheap old flash on eBay with a busted hot shoe for $5.00. If you've got 69 more cents you can mount it to a light stand.

That thingie mounted onto the back of the (perfectly good) Vivitar 285 at left is called a "T-nut." They are pretty easy to find in 1/4x20 or 3/8" sizes. It is fastened with "JB Weld" glue.

Long story short, anything you can stick a T-nut to can be mounted on a light stand. In fact, you could purposely destroy the hot shoe of a flash without a PC jack to get access to the synch wires and easily fashion your own pigtail 1/8" synch cord, using the T-nut to mount the flash. But that's another post.

You can also get spiked t-nuts that would mount to the underside of a small piece of wood (which would increase the surface area for the gluing) if you are concerned about strength of the bond.

Added bennie: The t-nut mount gets the flash head very close to the axis of the umbrella shaft, if you are softening your light that way.

(Thanks or the heads-up, Chad!)

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Home Depot Week: Fluorescent Lights and Accessories

This is another area I will be getting into when I have a little free time. Fluorescent fixtures are so cheap and so bright, you can use them as portrait light sources very easily.

As you can see, there are lots of shapes and sizes. Normal people see kitchen fixtures. I see soft boxes, strip lights and ring lights.

More on the lights and accessories after the jump.
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Okay, follow me for a sec. Say you have one dinky little flash. Why not consider two fluorescent strip lights for a high-glam foreground scheme and use the flash for the background light?

Seriously, you could mount them vertically (one per light stand) or horizontally (one over your camera, one under, one stand supports the left side of each fixture, one supports the right.) You'd get some very cool clamshell and/or dual sidelight schemes for under $100.

Better yet, throw up a strip light as a side/rim light on each side and umbrella the front to channel your frugal inner Greenberg. (If you want to make the subject cry, shoot another photog and tell him how little you paid for the lights...)

If you are a more MacGuyver-ish, you should be able to find a circular fixture that will work as a ringlight. You'll likely have to cut a hole in the center of the fixture after having relocated the ballast to somewhere off-board.

And if you do this, please insulate the crap out of it. Be safe.

(Some of those progressive Seattle types are already all over this one. Click on the pic for more info.)

Remember, you'll want to green any flashes you use along with the fluorescents and set you camera to fluorescent white balance. For better color, check which bulbs match your camera's fluorescent white balance before purchasing by shooting the various bulb displays and seeing which looks the whitest.
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Moving down the aisle a little, we get to the cool, prismatic diffusers. How does $7 for a 2x4-foot sheet hit you? (Yeah, me, too.)

This is wonderful stuff. It diffuses the light and is designed to be very efficient. It is cheap because it is hardware, not photo gear.

If you have a Dremel tool, this stuff cuts pretty easily. (Ringflash diffuser, anyone?)

You can also use this to make ugly directional sunlight much softer or to diffuse a bare flash. And of course, it works well to front those strip-light fixtures mentioned above.

Home Depot Week: Foil-Backed Tape

The first time I saw this stuff, the word, "coool" involuntarily escaped my lips: Aluminum foil. And tape. All mashed together.

Okay, the possibilities for light mods here are pretty much endless. Ringlight internals, beauty dishes, custom macro reflectors -- go nuts. The stuff is pretty cheap, too, depending on how big your project is.

HD has is by the 30' x 1.89" roll for $2.27. Or you can get it here, too. (Scroll down.)

I am curious to see what ideas you might have in store for this. Hit us in the comments.

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Home Depot Week: Continuous Light Sources

Fortunately there are now enough people in the world who would like to be able to blind someone with a flashlight to where we can get a killer light-painting source for next to no money.

Most hardware stores will have a good selection of rechargeable, one-million-candlepower+ spotlights at very reasonable prices. Amazon has them, too.

There's even a twenty million candlepower light at HD. Just in case you need to signal someone on, say, Jupiter.

They plug into the wall or your car. Charge 'em up and you are good to head out into the night.

John Moran used one in the photo from this article, and I just saw a cool 1MM-candlepower light painting photo pop up in the pool a couple days ago.

Tips:

• These are usually tungsten balanced. So you can get your camera to tungsten (making other ambient daylight go blue) or put a "CTB" gel over the flashlight to make it daylight balanced.

• For heaven's sake, don't just stand there at your tripod and nuke the scene. That's pretty much the same as on-camera flash. Walk around into the background (stay out of your photo) and define your subject from different directions. You can make a black cardboard tunnel gobo to hide the light if you have to sneak in there, too.

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Ring Flash Week: Building the HD Ring Flash

I just didn't have the heart to force-feed you another donut. Even Krispy Kremes get old after three days in a row. Logo or not...
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So, here's the main structural component of the ring flash. A 16" concrete form tube. ($10.67 at Home Depot.)

This stuff is so useful for DIY goodies. I have seen giant Dobsonian telescopes made out of this. And some killer speakers, too. (No standing waves in a cylindrical design.)

I made this two days after Halloween, if you couldn't tell. More after the jump.
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The height of your device will be determined by the length of your lens and body, including shade. Since mine was a tele, I gave the PVC tube a couple of extra inches as a auxiliary shade, so to speak.

You could make this using a wide lens. But the longer it is, the more room for the flash light to disperse inside. And thus, the more even the light on the front diffuser.

I traced a line around the cardboard tube and cut it easily with a jigsaw. I never once made a measurement in the whole process. Just eyeballed, drew the line and cut. As a guy, I am rather proud of that. And it is no loss on your end, as your dimensions will be determined by the camera and lens combo you choose to design it around.

I cheated it a couple of inches on each end (extra PVC for shade and a little extra cardboard tube at the back.) I wanted decent depth for good internal flash throw. Worked out fine.

I traced the tube and the PVC (also cut to length with a jigsaw) to create the donut/washer shape for my front Plexi diffuser. I screwed up the cutting with a jigsaw, so mine had cracks (none fatal) that I had to shore up with clear packing tape. Before taping, I also sanded it on both sides to frost it. (It was not enough, as we saw yesterday, so I ended up with an addition sheet of paper inside for more diffusion.)

This shot shows how the tube and hand-bent aluminum plate brackets mount together. It is important to allow for the bolts in the PVC when checking to see if it will be thick enough for your chosen lens.

If you look at the large version, it should be easy to see how the pieces go together. The camera mounting plate is sandwiched between the PVC and one of the brackets.

You can see the "L" brackets that hold the Plexi to the cardboard tube and PVC here, too. That cardboard tube is tough. May as well be wood.

The bracket assembly bolts to the cardboard concrete form tube, making for a very solid final unit. It went together more easily than I expected.

I think the key is transferring the correct "inner tube" to "outer tube" distance for your aluminum brackets. Get that right, and you are pretty much home free.

Here is the whole thing, put together. The flashes ball-bungee to via two sets of two holes on each side. You'll need a strap, too. Put the strap holes at about 90 degrees apart and it'll ride better on your shoulder. You'll still look like a geek, tho.

You can see the paper disc inside at the bottom here, too.

I used foil-backed tape on the outside of the PVC tube all the way around. This got the light to bouncing around on the inside. I put foil-backed tape pretty much everywhere but near the flashes on the outside. Flashes are fired at the widest setting (W/A diffusers in place) and provide very even -- and strong -- light when all is said and done.

Here is a shot from the front. The light is broad, round and plenty even. I can easily work at modest portrait ranges outdoors in broad daylight, which is great.
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It is a little clunky, but hand-holdable nonetheless. Next improvements will be:

• Tripod mounts along both axes -- vertical and horizontal camera orientations.

• Spray paint it flat black, then acrylic to protect it.

• Rounded cap nuts on the protruding (1/4x20) bolts.

• Drop some money on a soft drum case to be able to take it on the road (airlines.)


Here's a photo of the business end, shot by Jeremy Reitman at the Patasco Meetup. I'll be the first to admit that this is a little, uh, gung-ho, compared to some of the earlier designs. But this thing rocks on the output and the even light, so I am one happy camper.

Oughtta have some pretty nice guns by summer if I use it enough, too...
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NEXT: Test Driving the DIY HD Ring Flash

Pentatonix' Daft Punk Video: Low Budget Meets Awesome Creativity

If you are one of the five people on the internet who have not yet seen the new video of Pentatonix covering Daft Punk this week, you're in for a treat.

And as cool as it is, dig a little deeper and it gets way better. This video is one percent budget and 99 percent pure talent and creativity — the latter of which will trump budget and scale every time.

Read more »

Two Cool Tips from PopPhoto Flash

I am working on an article on how to overclock your camera's sync speed, (flash at 1/2000th, anyone?) but I have just been handed the following assignments for Saturday by The Sun:

A double-header softball game and an additional single baseball game (three games all together) that are 75 miles away from each other. But at least the traffic between the two on I-95 should be smooth going on Memorial Day weekend...

Yikes. Looks like I'll be finishing the flash sync post after that. But at least I have time today to point you to something interesting.

PopPhoto's new Flash Daily blog (that's flash as in news flash and not as in strobe) is already throwing up some pretty cool tidbits.

This week they show you how to make a cheap background paper stand (at your local Home Depot) and where to find a cheap light stand bag at a sporting goods store.

If you'd like to pad your resume with the name of a big-time magazine and you are interested in doing some photoblogging, PopPhoto Flash is looking for contributors, too.

The pay ain't much, but the potential is there for some pretty cool schwag, I'd think.

Speedlinks, June 11, 2008

It's been forever since we did one of these, and I had a bunch of cool stuff pop up this week. So here goes:


• What? You haven't pimped your McNally yet? Me, neither. But I think I'm gonna. (Note to Annie: Please actually read the post before jumping to any naughty conclusions...)

• Live near Denver? Now you can get your small-flash learn on in person with Dave Tejada.

• Scott Kelby takes you on a tour of photo permit purgatory.

• Lighten up, Frances: Check out Zack "OneLight" Arias' excellent series of white background tutorials. Dude gets the Apple reflection look with a $10.97 Home Depot panel -- gotta love that. Great series, Zack.

• Is your dad hideous? Give him a Father's Day makeover with lighting tricks...

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How To: DIY eBay Beauty Dish Speedlight Mount

As noted last week, the 16" eBay beauty dish kit I got has seen much more time on a speedlight than on a big flash. It is small, and thus ideally suited to lighting from in close -- especially when using the included grid spots.

Today, how to securely connect it (or any thing else with a speedring mount) to a speedlight. Read more »

Photo DIY Heaven

Strobist's Starving Student Off-Camera Light Kit (the name alone is sufficient explanation as to why I do not work on Madison Avenue) popped up, well, everywhere last week.

But no reference was more gratifying than on the Make: blog. For those who have not seen it yet, "Make:" is the coolest DIY mag going. I luv it, luv it, luv it.

In seeing where the SSO-CLK popped up, I found this page full of DIY projects. Way geek, way cool. The Home Depot-sourced (I get orange just thinking about it) bike steadicam bracket rocks.

Which, of course, is exactly what it is supposed to do.

Lighting 102: 5.1 -- Refract and Reflect

Okay, show of hands: How many people have been trying to do this Lighting 102 stuff with just one flash?

Don't feel so bad. Back in the day, lighting guru Dean Collins was only allowed to use one light source for his first year of studying his craft at school. And he did just fine, thank you.

Whether you have one light or twelve, the trick is making them look like more is knowing how to stretch them into doing double-, triple- and even quadruple-duty for you. Or you can just take that one light and give it some texture -- a little more interestingness.

By reflecting and refracting light, you can pimp it up like a college student making a gourmet meal out of ramen noodles and a few Taco Bell fire sauce packets. Hit the jump for more.
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For the most part, light from your flash starts out looking pretty yucky. We have learned how to move it around, soften it up and restrict it, but you can also bend it, or shoot it right back at itself.

In fact, before the light ever leaves your speedlight, it has already been refracted. The fresnel lens on the front of your strobe bends the rays to make them spread out wide or zoom in tight. But who's to say that you can't do a little more of that kind of stuff after the fact?


At left is a photo of photographer Ant Upton, who did this cool guest On Assignment of a soccer player in Paris a ways back. I shot him during a lighting seminar in London last year.

Before we lit it, the backdrop for this photo was an speckled grey room divider. A gelled flash took care of the drab color. But the subtle pattern was created by shooting our background flash through a water pitcher to bend the light around in a funky way.

This is the kind of thing that can turn a plain-jane background into something with a little texture to it. I do these lighting gigs in typical, boring hotel conference rooms, and I often have to scrounge for something to make the light a little more interesting. I have to go with what I have on hand, and frequently, that means a stack of water glasses or a pitcher.

In this instance, the trick is to back the flash up a little from the pitcher to make the light point-source enough to create a good pattern as it shoots through. (This also means you are probably gonna get a lot of spill around the pitcher, so I tend to snoot or grid the light to keep the beam tight.)

If you are looking for an even cooler thing to shoot light through, those (cheap) translucent, wavy-glass blocks at Home Depot look even nicer for a light bender. Use your imagination -- light modifiers are everywhere.
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Or, you can easily make one light do the work of two. For this quickie headshot-in-a-corner of actor Bruce Vilanch (in drag for a role in the musical "Hairspray," I stuck a speedlight into an umbrella and used one wall of the corner setting for a backdrop and the other wall as a reflector.

Bingo: One light becomes main and fill.

(Full how-to on the quickie corner headhot setup here.)

This is simple stuff, and you should always think of a neutral-colored wall as a second light source, waiting to help you fill those shadows.

But refracting light can make it more interesting, and reflecting light can multiply it into something that looks far more complex than it is.


For instance, you can shoot light through something translucent and use the resulting modulated shadow as a compositional element. A good example is this shot of a pair of glasses, by Ekistoflarex.

All it takes is a little imagination.
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But especially nifty, IMO, is what you can do with mirrors. And rather than throw an example up for this, I want you to take a moment to previsualize it. This way, you start to build a photo in your mind before you pull out the first (and sometimes only) light.

You want to get to where you can see the light in your mind before you ever start to create it. You want a process you can depend on, not a string of lucky accidents. (Although we'll certainly take lucky accidents when we can get them.)

Imagine a table-top product shot, lit with a single, bare light, say, from directly above. You'd obviously get that "suspect-getting-the-third-degree" kind of light. Which can be cool, depending on the reflective quality of the surface the object it is sitting on.

But say, for the sake of argument, that you happened to drop by Ikea or a home store and bought a pack of four mirror tiles for $5.99.

Now, say you placed two mirrors front camera left and right of the subject, and the other two back camera left and right, too. If you angled them properly, you would turn that one, top-spotlight into a full, five-sided wrap-light setup for just $5.99.

You seeing it?

In fact, you can do a lot of seemingly complex table-top photography with just one real light source, if you bounce that thing around some. That mirror-wrap thing is just an example. You might decide to build your lighting scheme on one (real) rim light with reflector cards and mirrors stretching it into a near-endless set of apparent light sources.

If you are into gelling your light, you could control the color of each of those mirrored light sources individually. You just have to remember that you'll get double the strength out of your gels, because the light gets gelled on the way in and on the way back out when reflecting from the mirror.

(It's an easy fix. You just use half of what you need -- a 1/2 CTO becomes a full CTO, etc.)

If $5.99 is beyond your disposable income limit this week, consider making some foil reflectors. Just a little cardboard covered with aluminum foil can do winders for a small product shot. Remember to crinkle the foil up, then spread it back out, for a nice, even reflector surface.

No assignment today -- just some thoughts to get your gears turning. Just a heads-up to be thinking about what you have -- or can scrounge or buy -- as a set of reflectors. Because our next assignment (which I'll be doing, too) will require that you use one light -- in several different directions at once.


NEXT: 5.2: Assignment | Double-Duty Light

Ring Flash Week: Designing the HD Ring Flash

Gettin' tired of the donut logo yet? Have another... We still have a whole 'nother box...

I have been pining for a good DIY ring flash adapter that will do everything I want it to do for a year now. Every time a new design would pop up, I would want to play with it. But ultimately, I knew I would be disappointed if it would not meet my needs. So I just let the idea sit in my head and percolate a little longer.

The result is the Strobist HD Ring Flash Adapter. The "HD" stands for "Home Depot," because that's where all of the parts came from.

(More after the jump.)
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Design objectives, in no particular order:

• Speedlight Based

Sure, I could drop $400 on an ABR800. They are great units, and will do everything I need. But I already own the light output. All paid for. So it seemed kinda wasteful to just go and buy my way out of my problems. So I wanted it to run on speedlights.

Besides, that would mean I could go TTL if I wanted to. (Hey, I do that sometimes...)

• Strong Enough to Use Outside

Almost every DIY setup to date failed on this one. I realized pretty early I would want two speedlights driving it, fired directly at a front diffuser.

• Even Light Around the Ring

Here was the other factor that led to two speedlights. Every one-flash design I have seen balances light even-ness with output efficiency. I needed both. I needed two, symmetrically placed speedlights.

• A Large Ring Source

I like the soft box / ring flash look. Besides, if I want tight and sharp ring light I can always mask it. Not so the reverse with small designs.

• Reasonably Inexpensive

For me, that means $50. Otherwise, what's the point? Just go buy the ABR800.

• Reasonably Rugged

Why bother to design and build it if it would not last? I love some of the folding designs that fit in the camera bags, but they fail on criteria 2, 3 and 4. So I was committed to building something a little more substantial.

• Reasonably Portable

This, I was willing to bend on. In the end, I settle for hand-holdable. I will be putting a 1/4x20 mount on it soon, tho. Monopod and ball head would be a perfect support.

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Design Process

Eventually, I settled on a donut-shaped device which basically housed the camera itself and two lights. I designed it around a specific camera, the D70s, because of it's awesome sync hack. But you could use this reasonably close in full daylight with any camera that synched at, say, a 250th.

Given that the measurements are based on a camera a specific lens, I designed it around a Sigma 50-150/2.8. [Nikon|Canon] I love this little lens -- fast, sharp, light, reasonably priced.

(Any tele/portrait lens you can stick in a 4" piece of PVC should be design-capable, tho.)


The heart of the design is a 4" PVC tube: Cheap, strong, cuttable and readily available. The camera mounts to it via a ghetto bracket made out of aluminum plate strip: 1" x 1/8" x 3'.

Didn't even cut it with a saw, either. Just bent it in a vice and snapped it. Very easy. Also made the bends by holding it in a vise and doing it by hand. No machine shop tools were used in the project. Just a drill, a jigsaw, and a vice. A little sandpaper, too.


The PVC assembly was joined to an outer shell made of concrete footer tube. (Mine was 16" in diameter.) That stuff is tough. If you drill holes in it, it mounts very solidly with nuts, bolts and washers.

To the front was fastened a piece of sanded 1/8" Plexiglass. It was "washer" shaped, and I simply traced the inner and outer circles with a Sharpie and cut it with a jigsaw. I sanded the Plexi to make it frosted (both sides) but that was not enough. I also used a sheet of parchment paper on the inside as an auxiliary diffuser.

Also, it turns out I suck at cutting Plexi, so mine had a few non-fatal cracks and was laminated with clear packing tape. I mounted the Plexi to both tubes using "L" brackets.


Here is a drawing that shows the relationship between the flashes and the unit. You can tell where the efficiency comes from. Those two speedlights are both blasting right into the frosted Plexi/paper sandwich.

With the W/A diffusers on the flash and some foil-backed tape, I got nice, even light at the front.


The flashes are held to the insides by good 'ol ball bungees. Love those things.

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NEXT: How to Build the DIY HD Ring Flash

Q&A, Speedlighting a Gym

You got questions, we got answers. This post will tackle many of the questions people had after the Speedlighting a Gym post from a few days ago. If you are coming in late, you should read it first.

One thing before I start. I will not be answering any questions that are basic Lighting 101 fodder.

I am amazed that, given the large and easily accessible library of info on this very site, many people will ask about a technique even when I go to the trouble to link directly to the appropriate reference article right from the post, (he said, smacking himself in the forehead with a Pocket Wizard.)

That said, here we go.

Leading off, the previously promised, poorly drawn lighting diagrams. But first, an error to point out in the "Top View" diagram. One of the other photographers, whose name I misheard, is not "Adrienne," but "Arianne."

Even better, she told me today that she just made staff at the Baltimore Examiner. (Way to go, Arianne!)

The top view, which is clickable to a much larger photo, shows the flash placement relative to the court and basket. The flashes are pointed just about straight out, just over the heads the players, to better feather the light.

This side view is also clickable, and shows about how much higher the flashes were than the players. It is your basic, 2nd-floor balcony railing.

Now, on with the questions, in no particular order. (Q's are in bold, A's in itals.)


I'm curious, did you attach a safety cable to the flash or bracket in case you had a mounting hardware failure? (It's impossible to tell whether or not there were fans seated below your rig.)

I used gaffer tape as a backup. The flashes were small and only a few feet over the band. Battery straps went around the railings, too.


David, I'm just a bit curious, one flash behind each basket, right? The local arena has solid walls behind the baskets and no railing systems I can see (apart from the one used for the overheads). Any idea where else can I clamp the strobes?

Every gym/arena is different, and you are on your own. I can almost always find something to clamp to, either behind the baskets or in/above the bleachers.


I'm shooting a Canon d-reb XT and mostly getting it for learning purposes. I know you probably get this all the time, but any advice?

See what I mean about the Lighting 101 question stuff?


Just wanted to clarify something. The SBs at 1/4 power enabled you to shoot at 4fps with the SBs lighting each of the 4 frames as compared to Patrick's 1 frame every 2 seconds using the huge lights?

Yep. Remember, the flash is only dumping 1/4th of it's stored energy each time it fires.


(Very long question on whether I am expanding the tonal range, or - as I had said - compressing it.)

Compressing it. If I shoot up into the ceiling (where the continuous lights are) I have to over expose the ceiling (and the top-down light) to get detail in the undersides of the players. I can strobe them from the side (from the basket's direction) and bring that portion of them up to a level that matches the top lighting. Thus everything fits more neatly into the tonal range that the camera can handle. Presto - smooth exposures with no dodging and burning.


I'd be curious to see a diagram of where your strobes were in relation to the court/basket and where they were roughly pointed. You seem to be getting much better coverage than me when I do the same with strobes behind the corner of the court, aimed at the top corner of the key.

The secret is feathering the light. Aiming them up a little to skim the players' heads means that most of the close-up action is on the outskirts of the flashes' beams. Combine that with a 50mm throw (you might think a 24mm throw would be better at this range - it is counterintuitive) and that strobe really reaches out onto the court.

Just to clarify, what was the ambient exposure? Obviously 1/250, but what aperture and iso? I would think if the ambient iso was 640 you would get a fair amount of ghosting.

I was shooting at 1/250 (and later, 1/320) at ASA 640 and some at 800. remember, the underside of the players was pretty underexposed before the flash got there (see the referee examples) so ghosting was not much of a problem.


I am curious about what you do to prevent errant basketballs from hitting the strobes. Damage to the flash is one consideration, falling objects on spectators or players is another more serious issue.

They were far enough back and up to where that would have been all but impossible. Basketballs hitting the fans would have been more likely (and more damaging.)


Why didn't you use the ol' Bogen super-clampy deal to clamp it to the railing (I know, they cost like 30 bucks, which is far more than your $2 setup....) but the seem to be a bit more secure. I thought you carried these anyway, so I was just surprised to see the home depot clamps (which, incidentally, I nearly bought the $3.99 version a week ago before I saw the .99 cent-ers. Spent a good 5 minutes trying to figure out the difference between the two - none.)

Why no Superclamps? I'll tell you why. Because I misplaced the @#!$% things and I spent the better part of an hour looking for them before this game. I promptly found them afterwards.


Seems to me that you are having a much easier time with white balance than I am. I'm shooting many different junior HS gyms that range from caves to dark caves; one however, has a good bit of daylight coming through large windows during day games, in addition to the sodium "vapes". I use a Expo Disk for WB; works great, but often the flashes come out too green (when gelled). Lighting is getting much better (thanks to your tutorials!), but having to process RAW files for white balance is getting to be a real p.i.t.a!! Other tips????

When working in noncontrollable mixed lighting sources, I match my strobes to the dominant continuous color and balance for that. It's the best you can do, without pumping tons of strobe in to overpower the mixed ambient.


How do you go about getting your strobes back if you get paged to be somewhere else mid-game?

Seriously, I know it sounds flippant but I really would like to know - adds another dimension to setting this sort of thing up if you nedd to be able to grab it all and run without interfering with play.

I had easy access to the second-floor balcony. If pulled off to spot news, I could unclamp the flash/bracket/batts/PW's wholesale and just put them, still assembled, into a gear bag. I could be out the door in 3-4 mins, tops.


I need to understand the real numbers here. The sample shots with refs to show ambient and the flash added is not what I would call fill flash, but direct lighting with the flash. Please clarify :) 1/250 ambient would show more finger/hand/ball blur and the fill would show ghosting ? - unless the flash took over to freeze that action. Would love for it to be this easy.

Again, there are really two separate components to the light. The top-down ambient, and the front/side flash. They really did not co-mingle too much. Thus, very little ghosting.


What does PITA stand for again?

Pain in the armpit.


I've quite a bit of experience using multiple flashed in "Manual Mode". However you mentioned that the flashes "greened ok". Does this mean that you are shooting with multiple flashes on "Auto". I never thought to try that.

(Wondering whether to take the whole bottle of sleeping pills first, or to start with the alcohol. The question being, which would would more quickly bring about my demise and with it, sweet relief...)


NEXT: Flavored Vodkas

DIY Coffee Can Pop-Up Ring Flash

Want to give your little munchkin the supermodel ring flash lighting treatment, but all you have is a dSLR with a pop-up flash? Or even a point-and-shoot?

All it takes is just a few dollars and some ingenuity to kick your flash photography up a notch.

Reader Doug R.'s "coffee can" adaptation of the HD Ring Flash can be tweaked to fit to almost any pop-up or point-and-shoot camera.

First, how he did it, then how to tweak and adpat it.
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Canned Beauty Light

Last month when I designed the HD Ring Flash adapter, I knew it would not be long before people started tweaking the concept and improving it. What I did not anticipate would be that someone would shrink it down and make it friendly to even the pocket digital cameras.

Doug has done just that, losing the 16" concrete form housing in favor of a coffee can. This makes it all but palm-sized, and the shiny metal interior handles a lot of the (required) light reflecting for you.

Doug starts with an old potato-masher-style flash bracket. But you can substitute a piece of aluminum strip (1"x3'x1/8") at a hardware store. I know Home Depot carries the stuff. It cuts, bends and drills easily with normal household tools, too.

So if you have a camera bracket, like Doug did, feel free to use it, But there are alternatives.

Like the larger version, Doug's design is a tube-within-a-tube. The outer tube is the coffee can, and the inner tube is a subwoofer port. (Doug clearly has some neat detritus around the house.) But this, too, can easily be aped with a short section of PVC.

To reproduce the flange on the end (which is very helpful to hold the diffuser) you could run a multi-layered, thin strip of gaffer's or duct tape around one end to build it up. If you use white PVC, best to paint (or gaffer tape) it black on the inside to avoid flare-inducing reflections. You can get the stuff in black plastic pipe, so that might be best.

Just get it in a big enough diameter for your camera's lens, but not any bigger than necessary. You'll need a fairly close fit to allow your flash to fire on the outside of the lens-hole tube. You'll also want the tube to be pretty short if you want to use wider lenses. But the shorter the tube, the less bouncing around room the light has in the contraption. So the wider the lens you design the can for, the less even the light will be around the ring. Life is a trade-off.

Wrap the outside of the inner tube in foil (matte side out to better disperse light) then in clear packing tape. You'll need this tube to be pretty reflective on the outside for the light to efficiently bounce around inside the can.

Doug uses his bracket thingie to support the whole setup. The bracket is bolted to the inner tube with a bolt and a few nuts and washers to act as a stand-off. At the other end, the bolt is fastened to the coffee can in a similar manner.

You can see the other end of the bolt here, from the outside.

The front diffuser should be made out of material that disperses the light pretty well and is of neutral color. Doug's is made from the lid of a large ice-cream container. Find something without wording, obviously.

Doug cut a donut shape out of the diffusion material, and made a friction fit with the inside tube. If you are using PVC, you'd probably want to slide the donut-shaped diffuser down to your DIY tape flange (see above) and then make another flange behind the diffuser to sandwich it in firmly. If you click on the pic above, you can see that Doug simply used packing tape to connect the diffuser to the can at the edges.

You'll need to position your bracket or aluminum strip correctly, and drill a hole if there is none present to act as a support for the camera. The stuff is pretty easy to bend, if you have to, for camera positioning. Make sure you take into account the position of the tripod hole on your camera, as some are off-center.

A standard 1/4x20 bolt and a wing nut can be used to secure your camera to the strip of metal, if you are not using a pre-made bracket.

Here's Doug, popping off a shot to show off the business end of the can. This is a really sweet design. Best yet, I think it is so cool that anyone with a with a point-and-shoot and a free afternoon can now play with ring flash.
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Tweaking, Adapting, Improving

Doug's design allowed for a dSLR with a pop-up flash, but this could easily be adapted to fit a point-and-shoot.

You'd be using a smaller diameter inner tube (P-n-S lenses are smaller) and you would want to make sure that your flash is positioned on the outside of the lens tube. As some flashes are very close to the lens axis on different models of point-and-shoot cameras, you'll have to give careful choice to your inner tube's diameter.

Here's a tip for getting better diffusion (and more even light) on your coffee can ring flash: Tape a little foil deflector piece on the outside of the inner tube, directly in front of where the flash will line up. Angle it so the flash's light bounces up to the interior wall of the can.

This will block the direct light from making a hot spot (and uneven light) on the diffuser panel in front. This will cost you a little bit of light output, but you'll get more even light on the front panel.

In any case, you will not get a ton of range out of this design. But it should work great for indoor head-and-shoulders shots, of even 3/4 length portraits.

Thanks to Doug for picking up the HD Ring Flash design and running with it. (And seriously, could Olivia be any cuter as a model?)
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Related Links:

:: Pop-Up Ring Flash Discussion ::
:: More P.U.R.F. Photos! ::

More on Ring Flashes:

:: Ring Flash Week ::