Sunday, July 17, 2016

Project: $10 DIY Softbox

Anyone who has ever dabbled in photography will tell you that the most important thing about taking photos is light.

Finding light, creating light, manipulating light.  Harsh light, soft light, direct or indirect?  The "Golden Hour" before sunset.  Backlight, fill light, key light, blah, blah, blah.

I count myself among those who dabble in photography.

I say dabble, because although it is something I have enjoyed for many years (starting in my early 20s with a Canon AE-1 that was made the year I was born), I can't claim to be very good at it.  I have TONS to learn, particularly in the area of using light.

Like most photographers, I prefer natural light.  It's fun to find the perfect light on a subject and capture it.  However, it's not always adequate for what I want/need.  A couple of years ago, I purchased a Canon Speedlite 430EX II to help me get indoor shots of events here at Etnos.  Recently, I have begun putting time into learning (via YouTube) how to use it to improve my portraits.

The problem is that a naked flash, by itself, creates very harsh, direct light and it takes special effort to enlarge and disperse the light source to make it more appealing.  I would venture to guess that most studios have as much $$$ accumulated in lighting gear as they do in cameras and lenses.

I don't have the disposable cash, so I have to use a bit of tinker-thinker to make it happen.  A quick internet search shows that others have successfully done the same.

One of the products I have seen recommended for mobile portrait photography is the Lastolite Ezybox.  I decided to make my own, on the cheap.

I started with a styrofoam 6-pack cooler ($4 at the supermarket) which has a similar trapezoidal shape and a reflective windshield cover ($3, same supermarket).

I cut a hole to fit the flash in the bottom of the cooler, using a Sawzall blade.  I set it as close to center as I could without the front edge of the cooler appearing in the frame at the widest setting of my 18-250 Sigma lens.  It fits snug enough that I don't even need to strap it onto the flash, at this point.


The reflector is basically just foil on bubble wrap, but it is very sturdy and very reflective.  I used one to make a simple solar oven two years ago.  I used a razor knife to cut it to fit inside the cooler and borrowed my wife's hot glue gun to stick it down.


The biggest question is what material to use on the cover, to disperse and soften the light.  There are lots of options, but the most important factors to consider are color and density.  For now, I just went with what I had available:  a bit of white sheet that my wife had laying around in her sewing room. I used a long length of velcro cable wrap to attach it, so it is easily removable.


So there it is.  It's ugly, but does it work?  I took a few quick shots of Addi in her homeschool classroom, to find out!  I left Canon SL1 where it was at ISO1600 in Program mode and left the flash in ETTL mode, with the lens at 50mm.

The photos are as follows:
     1. Ambient light (f5, 1/13)
     2. Bare flash (f5, 1/60)
     3. Flash with built-in diffuser card in place (f5, 1/60)
     4. With the new softbox (f5, 1/60)


The final photo (with the softbox) is definitely the closest to ambient light, with much softer shadows and highlights compared to the other flashed shots.  I left all the settings the same in order to best show the difference, so it came out a little darker, which is easily fixable in camera or in post.  After tweaking the lighting a little, it looks like this:

There you have it.  Less than $10-worth of materials, about an hour's time, and I've got a very workable softbox!

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