DSLR Geek

by Patrick Arseneau - The use of a ring flash can be effective when you to want to reduce the hard background shadow of your subjects. When using a regular flash mounted on your camera, the hard shadow is inevitable unless you bounce the light from a wall or ceiling. The ring flash shoots light through a diffuser mounted around the lens. This softens the shadow behind the subject.

Ring flash adapters cost over $200. And those are just the adapters that reflect light from your flash. An actual ring flash can cost over $1000. I recently built a home made ring flash adapter for my camera and I thought I would share the progress pictures to show you how I did it.

I won’t take all the credit since I used a few different tutorials from other people. I made my own version and it was fairly easy to make. The best part is that it was less than $20 for the material.

Material

- Salad bowl. I used a metal bowl because I wanted the interior to reflect the light. I ended up putting aluminum tape on the inside because it reflects even better. So it doesn’t really matter if it’s metal or plastic.
- 5″ to 4″ vent reducer. I found this at Home Depot in the air vent section.
- Light diffuser tile. I found this at Home Depot in the tile ceiling section.
- Aluminum tape.
- Steel flat bar. I got a perforated bar because I don’t have a press drill to make holes.
- Nuts and bolts. Got the standard camera fitting size (I believe the size is 1/4-20). I got a couple wing nuts too to make it easier to attach the camera and flash.
- Flat black spray paint.
- Zip ties
- Goop. All purpose glue.

I used the 4″ end of the vent reducer to draw a circle to cut a hole in the salad bowl. Be very careful with the cut metal as it is razor sharp. Start by drilling a hole in the middle and proceed with a sheet cutter. Try to cut close to the guide line but not directly on the line.

With a rotary sander for my power drill, I sanded the edge down to the guide line to perfectly match the size of the vent reducer. This can take some time and it makes a lot of metal dust. Be sure to wear eye protection.

It may seem like the vent reducer material is already pretty reflective. However, you will get much more light power by using some aluminum tape to cover the whole interior of your ring light. So before inserting the vent reducer in the cutout hole of the salad bowl, cover it with aluminum tape.

Then to make sure the pieces will hold together permanently, I cut the extra length of the vent reducer down to 1/2 inch and bent it over the salad bowl using pliers and a hammer. I then used all purpose goop to make it hold together. Note that goop takes about 24 hours to dry but you can keep working on the project if you’re careful.

I used the salad bowl (I will call it the ring flash from now on) to draw a guide line on the plastic light tile. This is the piece that will diffuse the light around the lens in front of the ring. At first I was going to use scissors to cut it out but the plastic was cracking and breaking. So I had to use a dremel tool.

Ok now for the hard part; Bending the steel bar. I’m not going to get into details with measurements because everybody’s equipment is different and cameras and flashes come in different shapes and sizes. You might have to adjust the bents a few times before you get it right. See the picture below to get an idea where to start. I used a vice and a hammer to bend the bar where I needed. I don’t have pictures of that but you can use your imagination. Here’s the result:

From the picture above, you can tell how I was able to guide where the hole needed to be on the ring for the flash to go it. So I tried to get as close as possible and find the right spot to make that hole. Don’t worry if you don’t get it right the first try because you can always re-bend the bar to adjust to perfection. I could have used sheet metal scissors to make the hole but I love my dremel tool and I use it every chance I get

Before putting everything together I thought I would paint it to make it look better. Flat paint works well to avoid dripping. And it dries really fast. I was able to put it all together only 2 hours after paint.

I used zip ties to hold the ring diffuser on the inside of the ring so I had to drill small holes on the vent reducer. The outer edge of the salad bowl had a small “lip” so I was able to put goop on it to hold the outer edge of the diffuser:

With a couple pieces of foam and hockey tape I made a grip to hold the camera sturdy while shooting. Make no mistake, when it’s all mounted together with the camera and flash it’s a pretty heavy piece of equipment to carry around. I attached the ring to the steel bar using a single bolt and nut. It holds pretty good with a washer inside the ring but if you can manage to add a second bolt, it would be even better.

Using wing nuts to attach the camera and the flash on the steel bracket makes it easier to mount and remove without any tools. Notice that I mounted the flash on a hotshoe adapter. This is to allow me to use a wireless trigger to set off the flash. I could also use a corded trigger but with a wireless trigger I have the option to trigger other off camera lights.

Alas! The final product!

Here’s a couple pictures I took using the ring flash adapter: