Flash Softbox

[erniehatt]

Flash Softbox Defuser.

Being a pensioner all the little accessories become somewhat out of reach these days, so one has to turn to DIY projects.
I have tried various types of snoots etc, they were fairly successful in there own little way, but the shadow softening was never quite there.
So I came up with this little idea, and was quite amazed at the way it softened those shadows As you can see in the image Light Spread below the shadows are quite soft, the light spread is very good, the curtains were 3.2 meters from the flash. There was a bit of overexposure at the immediate point just in front of the flash, as expected, I will try to see if I can shade this out.

In the following image Shadows I purposely stood the young lady up against the wall to see the shadows cast, thats something I would not normally do. I used two of these boxes one each side of the subject, the one on the right was slightly weaker in power, both were about two meters away.
Ok so what did I use, well I bought a set of plastic bowls from Crazy Clarks for just under A$3, there was three different sizes in the set all very usable, the three units all up cost about A$12, and I would have some materials left over for a half dozen more. These materials bought at Bunnings were, some 3mm thick plywood 1m X 500mm, and a 1m length of 25mm X 3mm aluminum bar, for the brackets, the rest was some scrap timber, laying around in the shed.
Draw around the bowls onto the ply and cut out with a jig fret or band saw, even a Stanley knife would do at a pinch, then measure the flash opening in the centre, now get some 20 X 20mm timber and cut it to fit around the cutout, I found it easier to stand the flash in the hole then put the timber up against it to get a good fit. Next, I used contact glue to fit the ply to the bowl ( I painted the inside of the ply white ).
The brackets are a matter of how each person wishes to use them, using it from a hotshoe fitting then no bracket is needed, as in my case I used them on light stands so a bracket of some description is necessary.

Image 1, showing the bowls

Image 2, showing the back plates and folding brackets.
Image 3, Here we have both units with flashes attached, with brackets folded.
Hope this is useful to someone. Cheers Ernie