My DIY ringflash

Following the principle that a ringflash gets it's specific shadow by putting a flash on both sides of the lens, I built one of my own using a $1.75 white hanging planter purchased from Lowe's. While it isn't pretty, I am encouraged by the results. I have yet to design a way to mount it together so I have to hold the flash, the planter, and the camera all at once, but the photo does produce pretty good results.


Here is the first photo using the pop-up flash as a control


This photo uses my DIY ringflash made from a flower pot.


You'll notice that the hard light shadow behind the ears is gone, and replaced with a soft halo type shadow surrounding the model. Because this was my first time using it, I did not notice that everything seemed overexposed,probably because the camera had no idea how to meter for the DIY ringflash, but I will correct for that on future uses. I'd probably want to bump up the contrast too, because everything seems a little fuzzy and white, though that is probably due to being overexposed. Additionally, it felt like the flash was working at very high power to produce this photo, so lowering the exposure should help that as well.




Stay tuned to actually see what my device looks like.