• Beauty Dish for SB-800 – David Tejada “The F-stops Here”
• New Beauty Dish Adapter for SB-800 Speedlight - Jon C. Haverstick PHOTOGRAPHY
• Building a DIY beauty dish – LightandPixels

I don’t have a step-by-step tutorial since the ones I listed above do a much better job explaining than I could, so check them out if you want to make one for yourself.

Here are a few shots after it is mostly finished.  I still need to make the light stand mounting bracket and it will be done.

And here is a quick shot of my using this as the only light modifier.  It was shot at f/8 and 1/4 power, so the light loss isn’t too bad.

Not too bad.  It has a not-hard, not-soft quality to it, much similar to the Lumiquest Softbox III, only on a larger scale.  I’ll have to play around with it some more and see what I think.  One thing I’d like to change is maybe getting a shallower bowl to use for another version.  I’ll keep everyone posted if I did end up doing that.

Let me know what you think!

First, as I mentioned in an earlier post, is that I ordered Joe McNally‘s new book, The Hot Shoe Diaries, which came in a few weeks ago.  This book rocks!  I read through all of it in a matter of days and I’m re-reading it now.  Joe is really a genius and I would give just about anything to be able to work with him, but since that is probably never going to happen, this book is the next best thing.  You get some great insight to how Joe thinks and works and his approach to taking great pictures.

I’ve also been enjoying Joe’s training videos over at Kelby Training.  He has some great videos that go along with some of the photos from The Hot Shoe Diaries, which is nice.  I signed up for a one-month membership and I’m trying to get through as much training as I can.  Lots of great stuff there.  Speaking of Kelby Training – Scott Kelby, along with Matt Kloskowski, have been doing a weekly web series for Nikon shooters called D-Town TV.  There are some great tips there and a good watch every week.

Ok, on to the shoots.

Back in the middle of March I headed to the park to do some nice casual portraits of my friend Mandy.  I was out shooting with my SB-800 and triggering via CLS (which is awesome).  I’m really trying to fully master a single light source, so this is my go-to light (until I can afford an SB-900).  I got several good shots from that shoot, but I wanted to share one of my favorites:

This was shot with the SB-800 through a white umbrella on camera right at 1/4 power at 1/200 at f/5.6.  Very nice, saturated background and a great exposure on Mandy.  The look and the wind really add some flavor.  Speaking of wind, that shit is dangerous (as you’ll find out later).  Knocked my stand over many times and messed up my umbrella and stand a little.  I really need to get me some sand bags.

Last weekend I drove down to Joplin, Missouri for a little photog/model group shoot which was pretty fun.  The day went pretty well – got some great shots, got some exercise climbing all over rocks and trees, got some sun (a little too much), met some new people.  Almost too good to be true.  The wind was pretty strong that day, so my lighting stuff took a few tumbles, but for the most part it did well, especially when I was shooting with no modifiers, just zoomed flash, like this shot:

That was just a single SB-800 zoomed to 105mm with a full CTO gel plus and extra 1/2 CTO gel.  The camera was set to Tungsten white balance to get the cool feel.  The sun was pretty bright most of the day so I was pretty much at max sync speed (or higher with Auto-FP) and smaller apertures.  This shot was done at 1/200 at f/8.  Working close these little flashes work great, even with the bright sun.

After everyone shot at the park for a few hours we headed over to The Falls in Joplin to do some bikini shoots with the weather being nice and all.  Unfortunately this is when things start to take a turn for the worse.  We got to the falls around 2:00 or 3:00pm, so the sun was straight overhead with no cloud coverage whatsoever, which means I’m shooting at 1/200 at f/16 on IS 100 (usually I shoot 200 since that’s what most Nikons are optimized for) to get anywhere close to a proper exposure.  Forget about Auto-FP sync at f/16 – it’s not going to happen with just one Speedlight (maybe if I had a tree of Speedlights like Joe McNally did in the desert (p.259 in Hot Shoe Diaries)).

So, I’ve got one of the models out on a rock in the water and I’m several feet back trying to shoot some full body shots, hoping my SB-800 at 105mm on full power can get out there and through a little fill into my subject.  Not happening.  And just to make sure it wasn’t going to happen, the wind picks up and pushes my light stand over – right into the water!  Granted it wasn’t very deep, but still, my SB-800 went face first right into the water…not good.  So, I run over and pull it out and immediately turn it off and take the batteries out.  While maintaining a calm exterior but screaming “Oh my god, my flash!” on the inside I went over and finished that series with the model.  The whole time I was being nice and calm on the outside and freaking out on the inside.

I take my flash up the car and let it start drying out, but I wasn’t done.  There were still models I wanted to work with and shots I wanted to try, so I had to keep going.  I pulled out the trusty old Nikon SB-24 and some Cactus triggers and went back down to the falls to finish up.  Glad I came back because I managed to get this shot:

This was done with the SB-24 zoomed to its max of 85mm at full power and my camera set to 1/200 at f/13.  I wish I could have gotten the background slightly underexposed, but with the sun like that I was happy to just get some decent pictures.  Always have a backup handy.

So, I got some good shots but I might have lost my SB-800, and I definitely wasn’t looking forward to shelling out $450 for an SB-900 (even though I really want one…that’s a lot of cash).  On Monday I went to the local camera shop and got like 50 silica gel packets and packed my SB-800 with them and through it in a ziploc bag hoping they would pull all of the moisture out.  I fired it up today and everything appears to be working fine.  I tried it on the hot shoe, as a remote, manual power, TTL, no hiccups.  Bullet dodged…for now.  Hopefully it doesn’t slowly deteriorate.

Long story short, flashes and water don’t mix!  Be careful with your equipment when working around water…

Materials

• 2x 10ft 1/2″ Schedule 40 PVC Pipe (purchased mine at Lowes; I had them cut each piece into a 4ft and 6ft piece before I left so I could fit it in my car)
• 2x 90 degree elbows
• 2x straight couplers
• 2x 3-way couplers with threads on one of the joints
• 2x threaded extenders
• PVC primer and cement
• 6.5ft of white Rip-Stop Nylon (from JoAnns)
• 1yd of white elastic
• 20ft of bungee cord

Total Cost: around $25.00 or so.  You can see the materials below:

Constructing the Frame

The PVC was cut into 6x 3ft sections, which left 2x 1ft sections left over to be used as the stand (1ft might not be long enough to keep the stand from tipping over…).  After you have all the materials a pipe cut its time to test fit everything together to make sure it looks right.

Notice the pack of cement on the stand…it kept wanting to tip over…might need to modify the stand legs at some point.  You can see a closer view of one stand leg below.  It just screws in and is easy to take out for transport.

Notice the different connectors at the base.  I used these so I could easily add some legs so this things could basically stand up on its own (you might need to throw something over the legs to keep it from tipping over). After you are sure everything fits right its time to start cementing the pieces together.  Once it’s primed and dry, carefully glue the pieces together (don’t glue them all together, follow DTN’s guide above for which pieces to glue and which ones not to glue).

Let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes or so before continuing.  Once it’s dry its time to run the bungee cord through the length of the frame.  Take it through every piece and pull it through until you have the two loose ends together.

Once that is done, just pull it tight and the the ends together.  Now you have a frame that is easy to collapse and just as easy to expand and set up in less than a minute.  Collapsed it is fairly compact and easy to transport.

Making the cover

I learned a valuable lesson while making the cover – if you are not the one sewing it, DO NOT try and trim it ahead of time.  Since I took the cover home to my mom to sew for me during Christmas (thanks, mom!) we got to have fun working around my attempt to get it ready for her.  Basically, get more fabric than you need, try it down and hem it about 1/4 to 1/2 inch all the way around, then attach the elastic to the corners and you’re done.  Too bad for me I can’t sew, so I had to rely on my mom to help me.

Here are a couple finished shots:

Pretty sweet, huh?  I’m looking forward to messing around with this in the future.  For some good examples of the kind of light you can create with this check out Dat-Tuyen Nguyen Photography, specifically his posts on Butterfly Lighting and Working with Panels.

Not bad for $25 and maybe an hour’s worth of time.  The end result is a nice frame that gives you some really soft light.  Very nice.  You can see some more construction shots on my Flickr page.  Watch for some shots using this in the near future!

The biggest problem for me was where the hell do I find black straws?  They are definately not the most common type of drinking straws to be found.  After asking a few friends I was led to Panera Bread, and, sure enough, there were my black drinking straws.  After grabbing a few handfuls of those I was ready to go!  I pretty much followed the tutorial above and ended up with 2 pretty good Grid Spots for my Nikon SB-24.  You can see pictures of my craftsmanship below.

This was after the first row was glued down.  You can see all of the little straw pieces in the background.  Probably the most tedious part was cutting up all of those straws.  I also decided after this one to not use Elmer’s glue anymore, leaves too much white residue.  I used some clear spray glue for the second one.

This was after I had finally gotten the height right, just time to fill in all the missing straws on the sides.  Almost done…

And the finished Grid Spot.  This one was about 2cm or 3/4 of an inch in length.  It produces a fairly focused beam of light.  You can see some test shots of it below.  I also made a 5cm (about 2 inches) one for an extremely small, focused beam.

And now for a few test shots of the finished product in action.  The first 2 show off the beams on the wall, and the last picture is just a quick test shot I did on myself with the 5cm Grid Spot.

(Nikon SB-24 @ 1/8 power. ~6-8 feet from wall, 24mm zoom. 2cm homemade grid box)

(Nikon SB-24 @ 1/8 power.  ~6-8 feet from wall, 24mm zoom. 5cm homemade grid box)

(and a quick test shot of me, just to see how it looks)

Not too bad for a few hours of arts and crafts and almost no cost to me.  Hopefully I’ll get a chance to try these out soon.  I have a few ideas I’d like to try…just need to get some people to practice on.  Any volunteers?

I remember these pretty nice microphone stands that my friend Mike used to have when he had a band.  I thought “hmm, maybe I can use one of those as the basis for my reflector holder.” And, they are quite cheap, as little as $20 as seen here on Guitar Center’s website.  I checked my local guitar center and ended up paying $40 for mine, but still cheaper than a whole new light stand + boom arm combo.

After I had my stand I needed some clamps to hold my reflector to it.  A quick Google search brought me to this great article on a DIY Boom Arm Reflector Holder.  I went to my local Lowes and picked up the pieces and easily assembled a couple of clamps that easily attach and adjust on my microphone stand.  Here are some finished shots:

It turned out pretty well, for around $50 total probably.  So it was a little cheaper that buying the professional stuff, plus it gave me something to blog about.  Now I just need to try it out!

NOTES: Yes I know these pics kinda suck, but I took them with my crappy PnS and I was tired LOL.  And yes, I also know that these pics are on a different Flickr account than my other one.  I started a new account for this blog and my little photography business, but didn’t want to lose my comments, views, etc from moving my old photos over.  So some pics will be on my personal Flickr and some will be one my professional Flickr.