Left: I call it a light socket but Home Depot calls it a "Keyless Plastic Lampholder". It was the cheapest socket available at $1.19 a piece. Right: Bulbs, any old bulbs will do the trick. I bought 60 watt bulbs (and I also bought some 100's just in case the 60's didn't work.) * Please do yourself a favor and buy full spectrum light bulbs.
Left: I wanted to have the ability to turn the unit on and off so what you see is a junction box, a faceplate and some clamps. The clamps secure the cord that will come out of the junction box, this way if you trip over the cord then nothing comes loose and sparks and burns the house down. Right: A dimmer switch I got about 6 months ago in a dumpster diving expedition. I wanted to use a dimmer for more flexibility. Now I don't have to change out the bulbs for a different intensity light. Dimmers usually run about $5-$10. If you don't care for the dimmer idea then you can snag a standard switch for around 50 cents. *edit - The dimmer was in the trash for a reason, it overheated because it wasn't able to handle the wattage. That brings up a good point, make sure the switch you buy can handle the juice you're pumping through the bulbs. The one I bought goes up to around 800w.
2. Lay Out and Mark Lights -
You can tell I'm taking the Git-R-Done approach with how unscientific my measurements are. Again we're using the jigsaw here.
3. Cut Holes and Screw in the Lights.
4. Wiring -
This was by far the worst part for me. I'm no electrician and I didn't pay attention in science class when we did the series and parallel circuits with the batteries and light bulbs. Incidentally this was the most time consuming part as well. This took about an hour to do. I ended up blowing a circuit because I messed something up. It's one of those things where you have to look away and close your eyes as you're plugging it in.
5. Improvise -
Unless you have someone that can hold this for you, you're going to want to rig some type of deal that will hold it in place for you. Luckily I had an old wal-mart tripod laying around that I could butcher. Here is kind of how I rigged it.
Here is a photo.
5. Make it beautiful -
I'll be the first to admit, I'm not winning any points for style and beauty. So while you're at the Home Depot pick up some flat black spray paint. I got the paint that's meant for the grill. It can withstand high temperatures which is perfect for this application. *It's a good idea to make a back cover and a gusset to go all the way around the rig to make it kid friendly.
That's it! -
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I think this is a project that most anyone can tackle. As I said before I've never actually seen one of these, so I may have totally missed the boat. Either way it was a good learning experience.
Here is the finished product. I'm reluctantly posting a photo of myself with the light, but I hate posting pictures of myself. Especially at 3:30 am Saturday morning. Ah well.
This isn't really a good example photo. I need to get all full spectrum bulbs in this thing. The intended result is even lighting on the face and the thing I like how the ring highlights the eyes of the subject.
It's the goal of every photographer to do as much "in camera" as possible such as cropping, exposure, lighting etc. The more you do in camera the less time you spend in photoshop which means the faster you can produce your image. However many times, even after the extra in-camera-effort, the photo still needs a little love in photoshop to make it just right.
Our junk drawers were outta control. Since we moved in to our new house the 4 drawers on the island in the kitchen were a mess. Sarah and I went drawer organizer shopping only to find them to be a little overpriced.
I'm posting my Palm Treo 650 woes with Opera Mini, the need for the IBM WebSphere JVM that Palm no longer offers because Palm is (in my opinion) going down the tubes. It took some digging, I got it working finally and here is how I did it.
Why not spice up your blog or photoblog by displaying a preloading image while your main photo is loading? This is by no means a new technique, I've been doing it for quite a few years and you see it all over the web now. A few years back I had a short DIY on how to do this but it got moved somewhere. So, here it is again!
Lighting Essentialshttp://www.lighting-essentials.com/
DIYPhotography.nethttp://diyphotography.net
Photographing friends with the ring lightMy friends Lauren and Erin were kind enough to test out my new diy ring light today. This is a good example of what you can produce with your very own diy ring light.
Back in 2006 I shared how I made my own ring light with supplies from the local hardware store. I made a new ring light recently and wanted to share how I did it. This new version uses less power and looks good enough to take in front of a client/model (the old one was ugly).
New Ring Light Tutorial ComingI built a new and improved ring light. This is a sample photo of me, again at 3 am after I finished it. The new light will be more portable, not as dangerous, not as hot and more environment friendly (104 total watts instead of 800 watts). Look for that tutorial soon.
I really hate bragging and/or boasting but I have to mention the fact that Sarah and I just got done relaunching our business website. It's been hard working until 3am every morning but I'm glad we finally got it done.
http://photonotes.org/
Just in case you were curious, here is the high tech, high quality, professional level setup for the Schlafly series I did a few days back...
http://www.betterphoto.com/home.asp
http://www.photozone.de/active/news/index.jsp
More gear! I'm trying to build up a nice studio. In order to do that I had to snag some lighting and a few other goodies. I'm way over budget so now it's time to make some funds.
nick B
02.20.2007
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jyoseph
02.20.2007
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Will
02.20.2007
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jyoseph
02.20.2007
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Marcus
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Grant Bourne
02.20.2007
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dave
02.20.2007
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PaulYoung
02.20.2007
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i wish i'll be able to make one soon! :D
thanks for sharing..
omar