Generic Asian DIY Beauty Dish / Ring light flash

First things first… this will never, ever replace or outperform the professional made equipment, nor will I expect professionals to use cheap stuff like this…  But for poor bastards like me who just shoot for FUN!!!  This should be fineI was inspired by latest development in strobist lighting attachments…

I had heard of the Ray Flash ring light adapter and was seriously looking at it as a nice addition to my gadgets.

This was until I saw the price tag.  Hey, I am not a professional photographer and I do not plan to be one nor can I shoot like one, and most important of all… if I bring home a Ray Flash Ringlight adapter, I would be killed by the wife.

Here is the link on the Rayflash ring light adapter from the review of Strobist… http://strobist.blogspot.com/2008/03/full-review-ray-flash-ring-flash.html

I was in the mood for experimenting again and here is my attempt to make my homebrew ring light flash.

Basically, I used baking aluminium foils.

Mounted it on my 550 EX flash.. and tried on my usual model…  Basically, I got a beauty dish / ring light effect.. Nice accident…

The canon 550 ex was mounted on the camera… The effect was a nice even light with a nice simple round catchlight.

I still need to work on how I mount this on the flash… but overall I am very happy with the effect it makes and the simplicity of the design.

Looking forward to hearing from you and your ideas.

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the Generic Asian

DIY Snoot or maybe we can call it Monster Honey Comb

NOt sure how to call it or what it is… I’ll let you guys decide.

I recently finished my DIY shooting table using PVC pipes and had some left over scrap pipes which I set aside.

So far so good…

The PVC is cut to about 3 inches long and tied together by using some of those plastic tie things….

I can only muster and gang a up 5 pipes from the left overs, but it proved to be enough.

I then wrap it on the tried and true tested Ikea kitchen cabinet liners…  These plastic liners are also my strip lights on some of my shoots.

Here are the initial results…..

Now back to making more experiments on this babies..  See you later!!!

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the Generic Asian

Waiting yet again… but in total nerdgasm

I had recently come across a new set of barn doors.  http://www.nicephotomag.com/the-latest/the-10-no-mod-barn-door-for-your-flash

Immediately after following on the link to B&H and ADORAMA, I quickly realised that I may have been the last man on the planet to know about this as it is completely out of stock.

I am in Bangkok, the Land of Smiling faces, and for all its charm and beauty, it lacks many essentials (read – photo related equipments).

So I find myself improvising a heck of a whole lot here… from snoot to gobos to bardoors.  I also found myself improvising on how I approach photography.

And that is a good thing.  See my photo of the wine glass… it is basically shot using available lights.

But once in a while when I see nice stuff like these relatively ineqpensive barndoors, I go gaga and turn into geek heaven.  Geek or Gik in Thai street slang means mistress by the way.

So here I am, yet again waiting, but waiting in pure nerdgasm state.

And by the way, I am going on another business trip… gotta make sure I am packed properly and I pay attention to my flight details.

Until next time…

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the Generic Asian

Stuck in Changi Airport

This is a first for me…  I have been travelling business for quite a while now now, if memory serves me well, my first business trip was in May of 1992.  I remember that clearly because I almost missed my flight. Being a novice business traveller, I underestimated the length of time I would need.

Fast forward to today.  I estimate, and I must say it is a very feel based estimate rather than one based on fact, I must have traveled at least 1 day a month of every month for the last 4 years. Just to get a feel of how much this is, my peak traveling clocked at around 150,000 Krisflyer airmiles for a 12 month period of traveling.  This may not be a lot for the more seasoned traveler, but it is not a push over either.

Since I moved to Bangkok, I do not travel much anymore. In the beginning I actually missed flying.  Gradually as time moved on (about nine months), I gradually did not miss it. In fact I liked it quite a lot. Being more at home that is.

I thought about this and said hey, I can have more time for my photography.  And then there is the other group of people I live with.. (wife and kid)

I also thought and said to myself, at some point though I will need to travel and travel I did.  Being in an airport always gives me a funny-nice feeling.

The concept of flying was not new to me. I can’t explain it, but during this trip it felt a bit awkward.  But I guess its like riding a bike.  You never lose the “skill”.

So, there I was in Changi airport.  It felt good, it felt right.  I was on my way home after a good meeting with a customer.  I was tired, lacked sleep, a bit hung over, but hey I was going home and so I thought.

I checked in, did the usual stuff and then I went through the usual look-see of the duty free items and BLAM… I totally lost track of time and the plane had left without me.

I began to melt like ice in this global warming stricken world.

It was a sense of panic, then calm then acceptance and then I felt really really really stupid.  Then I thought to myself, how the hell did I miss this flight.

Was it because I did not have my regular travel “workout”.   Maybe I was just too hung over…

Whatever it was it made me again try to think of this experience and relate it to photography.  Afterall, this blog is about me and my photography.

This also happens a lot in my world of photography, it maybe plausible that I can apply the same train of thought.  Is it possible that I can lose my head in photography with inactivity.  My sense tells me yes.

I cannot control the amount of business or leisure travelling that I will do, but I can sure find a way to ensure it does not happen to me in my photography.

So I am here after 12 hours still in Changi and its 6:00 in the morning, still in the lounge of Transfer F, waiting for confirmation that I can get booked on the next flight.  Stuck in Changi Aiport…

See you home soon..

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the Generic Asian