I just love tinkering and building odd looking contraptions. I wanted to have a ringlight for my macro shots. After seeing the cost of such devices, I decided to build something from scratch. My initial plan was to use a circular fluorescent tube. But after finding how little light these gave me (and the fact I would need to carry around a long extension cord), my mom bought me a bunch of powerful LED flashlights so I could make something portable.
So, here is the resulting gizmo. All made from scraps. The front is a piece of sample laminated flooring from the hardware store I painted using glossy white paint. The body is made from a piece of 2x3" construction lumber I had lying around in the garage. The handle was again made from scraps of wood, a piece of angle bracket and some thin wood you find in crates of clementines (and plenty of Epoxy I should add). The camera holding bracket is Manfrotto compatible and made using some old cupboard hinges I hammered flat. The lights are mounted on some gimbals mechanism so I can focus the beams. Tension is held through the use of old mailman's rubber bands from the kitchen drawer. So I can focus the beams, I use the string from an old vertical blind that gets looped through wire hoops attached to each flashlight. The tension is adjusted using a system similar to an old envelope with a string (made from an old plastic paint roller centering washer that dates back to the 70's, a screw, washer and spring.) I also added a tripod mount (1/4-20 nut welded to a large washer with holes drilled in it). To make everything nicer, everything is stained and varnished.
So, there you have it... A few weeks of work for something unique. Might have been faster to go to the store and buy something ready made, but it wouldn't have been as uncommon. (Though if I calculate it using an hourly rate... I literally worked for peanuts!)
As an added bonus, since the lights are adjustable, if I ever find somebody photogenic enough, the lights should create a nice reflection pattern in the eyes.
The only thing now is to hope that there won't be a set of batteries that decides to suddenly die just when I take a picture (like you can see on the pics of me using the device
)
Here are pics from the gizmo and the first pictures taken with it
Notice how I can focus the beams into a small spot. All pictures taken using extension tubes and 100ISO film.
[Sorry, image deleted during forum software upgrade. Please re-upload if so inclined.]
