Ring Flash o' Wood

Ring flashes are fascinating. Shadow less light...something I am a BIG fan of...frikking super sexy. There are a lot of different designs going around right now for a DIY version, and this one in particular caught my attention. I really believed it had potential, and it does! To shake things up a bit...I decided to make mine out of balsa wood. The entire thing ways less than a pound, and is super sturdy. A while back, I made another DIY ring light that almost caught the house on fire...this one is much safer.

Sure...they make ring flashes that you can buy for about $400, but then you need the battery pack to go on location, and that bumps it up to about $800 or so. Besides, at this point in my career, I do not do enough high fashion/commercial work to justify purchasing a real one.

Making one is so much funner! (thats right...funner)

Actually...it wasn't fun. The damn thing took me an entire day to build, it's crooked as hell, but I'm happy with it!

Materials:
Balsa wood
Super glue
Foil Tape
Chefmate Flexible Cutting Board

Tools:
Exacto Knife
Dremel

Cost - $30

Time Spent - 4 hrs

I'm not going to go into a lot of instructions...the pictures are pretty self explanatory.

What I will say is this...I'm paintin this bad boy, and inscribing our logo on it! I'm going to take it for a real world spin tomorrow night when I meet up with a bunch of cool OSP folk.

You can tell it's later in the day...stupid ring flash.



Look at that perfect circle!



Babe...I know I said I wasn't going to post a photo of my test subject...but look at that shadow! It's so cool!



Ignore the leaks...they'll be fixed. Flash at 1/32 power



Flash at full power.



It just sits on there until I can find a way to strap 'er down.





Setup shot for the photo below.



580EX on shoe cord TTL into DIY ring flash, +1 FEC. 430EX camera left 1/2 power 70mm zoom, SB-24 camera right 1/2 power 70mm zoom - Triggered with Pocket Wizards.



100% crop for the catchlights...yeah...they suck...but they light is cool.