French Brown Photography

A few friends over at NSOP were talking about another DIY Ringlight build – found here. While his build was very good, I still liked my original pastic design better. However, I did like his use of a white, thin, plastic cutting board.

So I decided to scrap my old ringflash and build a better one using the cutting board as a diffuser.

Start with a white plastic bowl, I found mine at a party supply store. Cut circle in bottom. Make tube with white posterboard. Cut fringes on one end of tube so that you can mount the tube to the inside of the bowl with tape (my first one was taped to the outside of the bowl, and the inside looks much better). Cut white cutting board to fit front of bowl. The cutting board has a dull side and a more reflective side, you want to use the reflective side on the inside. I found that the cutting board was so reflective, it reduced my need to put aluminum foil on the inside. Next, attach cutting board diffuser with small zip ties. Cut hole for flash head. I put some electrical tape around the hole so my flash would not be scratched.

I am very happy with this version of the ringflash. It looks very good and the whole thing only weighs 5 oz.

The cutting board provides good, even diffusion of light.

The above videos also convinced me to build a bracket to support the ringflash for one handed operation. I bought and bent a 1/8″ x 3/4″ piece of aluminum so that I could mount it to my camera and the bottom of my OC-E3 off camera cord with 1/4″ thumbscrews.

To use, screw the cord to the bottom of the bracket. Attach flash. Place ring on flash. Place camera lens through ring and screw camera to bracket.

close up picture of bracket

This rignflash in ettl mode provides great even lighting for portraits and macros. This new ringflash provides great round catchlights in eyes. Also, the positioning of the flash allows me to retain the AF assist beam. Currently there are two manufactures of ring attachments for flashes and those sell for $175 and $300. Why waste that money when this was built for well under $10.

The NSOP October Challenge is “Streamline.” Here is my submission:

Check out all the sumbissions HERE

I also won NSOP September Shot of the Month.

At least something good came of my car getting smashed.

Thanks for everyone that voted. There were some amazing shots last month. See them all at the above link.

I won the NSOP September Challenge “Minimalism”

Thanks for everyone that voted for me!!!

My buddy, Daniel Glaser, built me one of his DGO bags for my trip to DC. It was a super stealth messenger style bag that held my camera, 3 lenses plus more.