Where: Most of the measurement, mock-up sample were done in my room. and the real cutting part in my back yard. Well, I have no real work bench or garage area to work with.
When: It takes some good 15-20 hr out of my life!
How: DO NOT DO IT!!!! PERIOD! check WHY below!
If you still come back to HOW after reading WHY... then here we go.
NOTE: I'll not go into much detail as these are pretty popular on google, flickr search plus I don't want anybody spend time doing this.
You'll need:
- Acrylic sheet
- Something to cut the sheet with ( I used my dremel)
- 5 min EPOXI or hot glue (works better and leave little mess)
- few nuts and bolt
- Aluminum foil or foil tape
- A plastic bowl and a plastic cup.
SAFETY GLASSES AND EAR PLUG if you are gonna use dremel. DO NOT START UNLESS YOU HAVE THESE ON!!!
Some dimensions to call out when buying:
- Diameter of the cup (Dc)should be bigger than your lens so it can fit in right.
- Bowl diameter (Db) is depended on how thick you want your ring to be. Thickness of the ring is Db-Dc. Mine is about 1.5" to 2" thick.
- Total Acrylic sheet area needed . I used 1x2 ft.
Procedure:
ALL DIMENSIONS DEPEND ON YOUR LENS, CAMERA, AND FLASH. I'LL JUST GIVE GENERAL DIRECTION.
Try to make paper model if you have time and wanna make it a perfect toy:
- Cut a hole at the bottom of the bowl enough to fit the cup. Cut out bottom cup as well.
- Cut the side of the bowl about 1-1.5 in. thick and little less than half circumference of the bowl.
- Cut Acrylic sheet to make top tube connecting to flash. Looking from the front, x depends on the width of flash head, y depends on hight of flash head, and z depend on how far you want the ring to extended to. I had my ring extended so that I have room for my hand on focus ring and that the lens can move freely inside the cup.
- The hard part is try to cut acrylic sheet for the front tube. Bottom tube should match the whole on side of bowl you cut earlier. Top should have x of the top tube. Make another sheet to create an angle ~45 for flash to bounce from top to front tube.
- Make an extended metal rod or thick sheet to support the ring going from bottom ring to bottom camera. Bolt it to the ring flash. Free the other end so when in used, you can attach it to the camera using the tripod plate with bolt
- Cover all sheet with foil tape.
- Cover inside bowl and outside cup with aluminum foil tape.
- Glue them together using hot glue gun.
Compare with paper model
Front view
Back view
Side view
- I cover the whole thing with black duck tape so no light can leak out.
- You'll need some type of diffuser for the ring. I didn't want to spend any more on this project so I cut a 2 gal plastic milk containder and use it as diffuser. Work pretty good.
Almost finish
Here are some example to compare:
Bolt with SB-600 flash
Bolt with on camera flash
Why: I found cheap clean ring flash version on ebay for around $40 (keyword: ring flash d90 (or your camera) sb-600 (or your flash) ) even before I started this project. BUT my handy self said "NOOOO, I must build it myself with all the time I THINK I HAVE". After $20 plus into this project and it's only somewhat half way done, my "engineer and development dept." started looking at "financing and accounting dept" and go sh!t... Now if this mess up, I have $20+ worth of junk and another $40 to spend to get a some-what real flash ring from Mr. China. SO ... DO NOT DO IT, GET IT FROM EBAY/MR. CHINA and go out have fun w/ macro unless ...
Oh and here's another WHY you should NOT do it. While cutting the bowl I had a small plastic particle flew into my left eye, in the MIDDLE of it because I was lazy to put on the safety glasses for a tiny trim on the bowl. Second time, it went to the corner of my right eye even with the safety glasses on... hurt like hell! I had to poke my eye with a q-tip both time to get it out. Oh and neck got burn a little from the melted acrylic sheet when cutting with dremel. It melted, flew and stay on my neck, couldn't dust it off cuz I was holding the dremel or I'll cut my ear off with the dremel... so Again DO NOT DO IT. Unless you have some kind of laser cutting tool or planning to do it out of FEDex shipping boxes.
Update: I got something in my right eye again!!! Doesn't hurt as much but couldn't get it out. Had to come to work the following day to use the eyewash station. Damn the water hurt like hell!
