{"id":7605,"date":"2011-10-29T12:57:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-29T10:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/?p=7605"},"modified":"2011-10-29T13:04:22","modified_gmt":"2011-10-29T11:04:22","slug":"diy-pop-up-flash-diffuser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/archives\/7605","title":{"rendered":"DIY Pop-Up Flash Diffuser"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tonight I am off to Amsterdam with my husband and a friend to take photos of a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amsterdamhalloween.nl\/zombiewalk.html\" target=\"_blank\">Zombie Walk<\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s a celebration that is being put on by the FOXLife network to celebrate The Walking Dead starting soon on TV here in the Netherlands. It\u2019s great timing that it is so close to Halloween.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve always seen photos from Zombie walks in Canada and the US and I\u2019ve so wanted to get photos of one myself, so I\u2019m really happy that they are doing one here now.<\/p>\n<p>Only problem is that unlike most of the zombie walks in other countries, this is going to take place at night, which makes the whole photo thing a bit more difficult for someone like me. I don\u2019t have a lot of gear and taking photos of moving targets in the dark will be a challenge, to say the least.\u00a0\u00a0 So I asked my friend <a href=\"http:\/\/gailatlarge.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Gail<\/a> for some tips\u2026 the first thing she said was maybe looking into sorting out a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Diffuser_(optics)\" target=\"_blank\">diffuser<\/a> for my pop up flash.<\/p>\n<p>One of the most popular types of DIY diffusers were like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.instructables.com\/id\/DSLR-Pop-up-flash-diffuser\/\" target=\"_blank\">this one using an old film cannister<\/a>, but I didn\u2019t have one of those handy.\u00a0 I saw other version like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.instructables.com\/id\/DIY-built-in-pop-up-flash-diffuser-soft-screen\/\" target=\"_blank\">this one using wire and a vaccum bag<\/a>, but the hot shoe on my camera is designed differently so that wasn\u2019t going to work. Plus, we have a bag free vacuum \u2013 DOH!<\/p>\n<p>So, together with hubby I sat down and tried to come up with a design of our own.\u00a0 These are the products we used (I forgot to take photos before cutting stuff up so these are random ones I found online):<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. A frosty plastic file folder<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 10px;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.uni-plastic.com\/File%20Folder%20003.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" \/><br \/>\n<strong>2. A thin plastic shopping bag, like what <a href=\"http:\/\/switchboard.nrdc.org\/blogs\/pgutis\/plastic_bag_as_art.html\" target=\"_blank\">this person<\/a> put their cat in. The semi see-through crinkly kind (I used a HEMA bag for those of you who might be in NL).<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 10px;\" src=\"http:\/\/switchboard.nrdc.org\/blogs\/pgutis\/WindowsLiveWriter\/PlasticBagasArt_13B6E\/165667266ROBIN_CAT_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" \/><br \/>\n<strong>3. One or two skinny rubber bands<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 10px;\" src=\"http:\/\/magic4learning.com\/rubberbands.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"217\" \/><br \/>\n<strong>4. White (or any other color if you don\u2019t want to match) electrical tape<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 10px;\" src=\"http:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/21LCOABEPRL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"240\" \/><br \/>\nI didn\u2019t take photos of the actual creative process, but here\u2019s hubby working hard on it.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"DIY Diffuser by Breigh.com, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/breigh\/6291298064\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 10px;\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6057\/6291298064_ed64e9ba62_z.jpg\" alt=\"DIY Diffuser\" width=\"600\" height=\"620\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nHe even managed to only cut himself once, which is a miracle if you ask me, considering he was using a box cutter AND scissors!<\/p>\n<p>Here is the finished product:<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"DIY Diffuser\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/36166632@N00\/6290778091\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 10px;\" src=\"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/6033\/6290778091_dedab8d936_b.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"DIY Diffuser\" width=\"600\" height=\"434\" \/><\/a><a title=\"DIY Diffuser\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/36166632@N00\/6290778721\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 10px;\" src=\"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/6099\/6290778721_bfec5a5555_b.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"DIY Diffuser\" width=\"600\" height=\"428\" \/><\/a><a title=\"DIY Diffuser\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/36166632@N00\/6290779443\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 10px;\" src=\"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/6043\/6290779443_941f1787f1_b.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"DIY Diffuser\" width=\"600\" height=\"423\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nWill it work in softening up some of my photos this evening?\u00a0 Well, that remains to be seen!\u00a0 I did a few quick test shots with hubby as we worked on it.\u00a0 I had him stand in the toilet where it was dark so I could see if there was any difference.\u00a0 If you are wondering, his eyes are closed because I kept blinding him with the flash.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/diffuser6.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 10px; display: inline;\" title=\"diffuser6\" src=\"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/diffuser6_thumb.jpg\" alt=\"diffuser6\" width=\"600\" height=\"1003\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nThe top photo was with the pop-up flash alone, the bottom is with the diffuser.\u00a0 You can see that the shadows aren\u2019t as extreme and (well I would know this, you wouldn\u2019t) the color of the tiles is the actual color in the bottom, but made more white on the top..\u00a0 Both photos are straight out of the camera with no editing so I could show the initial difference.<\/p>\n<p>Granted, this is definitely a different environment than I would be using it in tonight so I\u2019m not sure what the results will be.\u00a0 Good thing about this is that if I\u2019m taking photos and they just don\u2019t look right on my LCD screen on the camera, it\u2019s easy to remove.\u00a0 We\u2019ll see!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tonight I am off to Amsterdam with my husband and a friend to take photos of a Zombie Walk.\u00a0 It\u2019s a celebration that is being put on by the FOXLife network to celebrate The Walking Dead starting soon on TV here in the Netherlands. It\u2019s great timing that it is so close to Halloween. I\u2019ve &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[153,49],"tags":[607,605,571,52,606],"class_list":["post-7605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-geek","category-photography","tag-diffuser","tag-diy","tag-geeky-crap","tag-xander","tag-zombie-walk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7605"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7613,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7605\/revisions\/7613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}