Pixiq

LIGHTING THE CLOSE-UP — a DIY approach

As far back as I can remember I have built things — maybe it dates to a childhood with construction sets like Meccano but, in every sense, it has proved useful. Surfboards, electric guitars and other things I wanted I built, often with very limited tools. And now there is an ancient Italian farmhouse... a never-ending DIY project.

So, I have built a lighting unit that works close-up with wide-angled and ultra wide-angle lenses of all sorts: it certainly ain’t aesthetically lovely in its prototype state but, since it works it will probably stay like that for a while.

It is not definitive you might think of improvements: I have used my Nikon R1C1 lighting unit with it BUT any flash can be held behind it or just to the side so it casts light directly and via the panel.

I have pointed out before that, when lighting wide-angled compositions at close quarters, you often have so much background you to have to balance background and flash on the subject…compromise, compromise.

The horizontal angle of view with these lenses is not 180° so you can bring in lighting at the sides as long as you are careful to avoid flashes etc appearing in the frame. Macroflashes …or even ring flash works

Maybe I was a bit hard in previous reports on ring flash - especially when you consider what an exceptional snake shot Jim Zuckermann posted. The small units are still a no-no with me but a large one with power and coverage is a different animal. In effect, I have used this approach in the form of a white translucent Perspex (acrylic) off-cut (through which the lens front pokes and then light this from behind). The circular hole was cut using a router as a ‘compass’. It creates a panel of light around the lens.

I have a lot of useful junk at home – bits of tubes, clamps, aluminium angle and channel and an old rail from a Metz hammerhead gun. This unit's design evolved to employ what was available. That's how I work – I can only design if I have restrictions.

Your local DIY supermarket may well have metal rods and channels for your own version. In the photograph you will see how the camera plus lighting set up (not fixed to the lens so no strain put on it) fits the old Metz rail and, in turn, with a Manfroto hexagonal mount can sit on the omnipresent Novoflex minipod

The pics are self-explanatory and you could use any flash guns – I just wanted something I could carry and this fits in the laptop pocket of my Tamrac 8X photo rucksack.

I have been experimenting with the sensor and emitter of a Phototrap so I could leave the panel near a flower...preliminary results are encouraging but I did not get around to doing this until the last insects succumbed to a drop in temperatures.

In these posts I have detailed techniques and approaches – by all means draw inspiration BUT...just get out there, find your subjects and through your sense of wonder and imagination reveal their world to others. It's what I write all this stuff for - its just a facilitator.

Back to part 4

Click here for Part 3 

Click here for Part 1 

and here for Part 2