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.