DigitalRev's Pro Tog challenges are back, this time with a DIY theme. In this video see Pro Photographer Mark Chung create a continuos ring light using some basic hardware store materials, then use them in a fashion shoot.
Of course, it's not very professional or practical to show up for a paid, professional shoot with your ring light made out of a fan; but making your own gear for personal projects is a great way to challenge your creative skills and gain a different perspective on how equipment works. If you have any DIY projects of your own that you'd like to share, feel free to link it in the comments!
Too much work. Just get a Paul C. Buff ringlight.
Once he decided to play politics with his business I stopped buying anything from Buffie.
Well, I'm not familiar with that story, so I'll just consider the gear instead.
http://www.paulcbuff.com/abr800.php $400 ???? Better to build it
i don't usually buy stuff so .. it came from the bathroom
After watching Peter Hurley's DVD, this is uber- amateur work. All the pics are under-exposed...
Was PH shooting with bathroom lights, lol?
That's pretty impressive to build that in under 2hrs :-O
I'm puzzled by why the pics look a bit underexposed. When he half-pressed and it locked, the preview on the LCD was obviously brighter than the preview it showed after the shot. And he mentioned that slower shutter speeds are needed for fluorescents, so it's not like he made a mistake and shot at too fast a shutter speed..
Here is a much easier DIY Ring Light a Friend and I built for under 50 dollars. We do a lot of video work and so we built it to be almost 4ft in diameter.
http://gabrielmays.com/how-to-build-a-40-ring-light-for-50/
You consider that easier?
you bend a pvc pipe, drill a couple of holes, and zip tie together. This took us one hour to build (and document). So yeah much easier than any other DIY Ring Light tutorials i have seen so far .
Aren't the point lights distracting in close-ups?
Hilariously enough, while traipsing about in Home Depot, I spotted these ring tubes and made something similar a few months back, but a fair bit nicer I'd say. I agree with a few commentors here that it is not strong enough for photo work in the sense that I would prefer, but I have used it a fair bit on video and it is quite lovely. Though it does require a custom white balance as the tubes are terrribly green.