DIY ringflash adapter

Here's another DIY project i undertook - an Orbis style ringflash adapter.

Dimensions

• inner diameter - 85 mm
• outer diameter - 235 mm
• depth - 60 mm
• neck length - 95 mm
• ventilation pipe - 110 x 55 mm

Materials used:

• a rectangular ventilation pipe for the neck
• a flower pot for the inner surface
• a fruit bowl for the outer surface
• Rosco white diffusion filter
• aluminium foil tape
• black ducktape
• white tape for covering the inner surface
• wire for tying the parts together

Tips:

• use of a dremel type of mini drill strongly suggested
• tying the pieces together makes the final product more rigid than one where glue or tape was used
• apply 2-3 layers of filter near the adapter neck area as this gets illuminated much brighter than the rest of the diffusion area
• cover the exterior with black tape for a more professional look :)
• make four plastic flaps on each side of the neck and add a rubber band around it to make the adapter fit flash heads of various sizes

A minidrill comes in very handy when cutting out the tricky sufaces - WEAR SAFETY GOGGLES AT ALL TIMES!!! The drill pictured above is produced by VELLMAN and costs around $45 (in Estonia). People on the other side of the pond should look for Dremel products. It's an all-around great investmen.

Light distribution test in a 3D software package using GI (global illumination)

Cut the top off the vase which forms the inner surface of the ringflash adapter.

The wire connections are hidden under the tape

Apply aluminium foil tape to allow light to spread out more from the neck

Rosco filter applied. Rubber band around the neck allows attatchment of flashes of various sizes. BEAWARE: flash might drop out if not held firmly enough!!!

Back side of the adapter covered with black duck tape

Notice the double layered filter near the neck area. It has the same arched shape at the ends as did the bright light on the 3D light distribution test image. Orbis incorporates the same feature.

Ringflash adapter in action - attached is a Sunpak PZ-5000AF - a fairly powerful strobe light in manual mode. I'm pretty satisfied with how the project turned out.

Til next time,
Mihkel

LuxuriaMusic

You know what i've been hooked on for the past 4 months or so? You guessed it - LuxuriaMusic - a listener supported internet radio. It plays the bestest kind of music - jazz, bossa, funk from the 50's, 60's and the 70's. And you've gotta love their catchy punchlines presented by a smoot-talkin baritone male voiceover actor:

• LuxuriaMusic - it's the kind of music that brings back no memories what so ever
• LuxuriaMusic - it's the kind of music that your parents wanted you to listen to
• LuxuriaMusic - sex
• ... and the list goes on

Funny stuff right there. And not only do they play great music - the station actually has dedicated dj-s and hosts who really know their subject. So if you're into this kind of stuff, check them out at http://www.luxuriamusic.com/.

peace,
Mihkel

DIY softbox

Here's a DIY i was working on the last weekend - a softbox for my Sunpak PZ-5000AF strobe. Diffusion area dimensions are 20 x 16 cm and it could be fit on any similarly sized flash. Thickness when folded flat is about 8mm.

Materials used:

• light, strong cardboard
• ducktape - black
• aluminium foil tape (a truly awesome piece of material for photography DIY-ers)
• Rosco white diffusion filter
• black rubber hair band

Aluminium foil tape

Tips:

• all the hinged parts are made with ducktape to protect them from wear'n'tear.
• make a small trame around the diffusion area, but make sure to cover the corners with ducktape to protect from wear'n'tear.
• inside of the softbox is largely covered with foil tape to allow light to spread

And some images of the final product:

Folded flat

Folded flat

Even coverage

Inside covered with aluminium foil tape

Notice the folds made of ducktape

Coming up next - DIY ringflash.

Stay tuned.
Mihkel

Search selection gesture for firefox

This is my "Hello world" of blog posts. I have now taken the dark path of blogging. And ain't nothing better to kick things off with a little snippet of javascript that helped me solve a big problem - how to do a search on selected text with a mouse gesture.

I've been using Mouse Gestures Redox for over a year now and am very pleased with it. A few days ago i thought to myself - wouldn't it be great if i could selected some text and with the same continuous movement perform a search on it? Mouse Gestures Redox allows custom javascript to be run as a gesture and here's what i wrote:

// Get selected text from the HTML DOM
var selectedText = window._content.document.getSelection();
if(!selectedText)
 return;

// Get the searchbar element from the Firefox UI XUL DOM
var searchbar = document.getElementById('searchbar');
if (!searchbar)
 return;

// Perform search
searchbar.value = selectedText;
searchbar.handleSearchCommand();

I have assigned this script to a gesture "R" meaning dragging to the right - really convenient. I'm sure this script is not only applicable for Mouse Gestures Redox but to other gestures add-ons as well.

Helping a brother out,
Mihkel