A ringflash is a type of camera flash that is…well, A) a flash, and B) ring-shaped. The lens sits inside the ring and is therefore surrounded by light, the result being aesthetically pleasing flash lighting without sharp, nasty shadows. However, ringflashes are expensive. You can get ringflash adapters, pieces of plastic and metal that go over your flash, and convert it to a ringflash. But at £100-£200; they’re pretty damn expensive too. The solution; build my own…

  
Working under the Chinese flag for inspiration, I’d already gathered my tools. Including my trusty snow-white pencil sharpener; a must-have for any serious DIY’er. The math and doodling stage went on for a while as I constructed my first prototype. Gathering the materials was quite a challenge. First I had to find out what the Chinese was for “thick cardboard” then “silver foil” and so on, and so on. Of course; everyone I asked wanted to know what I wanted it for, trying to explain the concept of a ringflash was so geeky.

  
Left: the prototype. Basically a template for my final version. Center: A snap taken with the prototype; I quite liked the diffuse light. Right: The (almost) finished final-version. Urgh; far too many man hours went into it. A good 5hrs of cutting, glueing and sticking.

My secret weapon throughout; 502. Maybe in the west we have some rules about the maximum strength of super glue; because this stuff makes super glue look like primary school PVA. It’s STRONG. I stuck my fingers after holding them together for about 4 seconds, and then took a good 2minutes to seperate them with soap, hot and cold water.

The almost-finished product. Just missing its tracing-paper front-diffuser. Again; tracing paper was another particularly hard thing to find.

  
Some sample photos. None of these really do it justice; so I hope to take some better ones soon. The one on the right was taken with my 50mm lens; which is a lot smaller than my 24-105; which resulted in some light from the flash being sprayed straight into the lens; causing the wierd gloomy effect. I kinda like it; but I’m gonna build an extra diffuser to stop it happening.

The pringles can is a bit too specular to use a ringflash; but the shadow behind the can is purrdy!

Another random test shot. A bit too much ambient light in this one.

I like the catch lights too. Again; slightly less than perfect light diffussion…but; I probably spent about £4 on materials, including buying all the stationary…so; I can’t complain!

Better pics soon hopefully!

In conclusion; it was a blast to make. I really lack any hands-on creative output here in China. In England I had the cars I could work on, or build a computer or two…but here, nothing. So it was great to get my mind and hands into and onto something, and come out with something useful. I’ll hopefully use it to better advantage soon, and when I do; you’ll know where I’ll post the pics! 🙂

If you came to this blogpost expecting some interesting discussion about life in China…so sorry. :p

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