DIY Ring Light for Portraits
- 1). Use six to nine old electronic flash units. These flash units must be able to slave to your SLR camera to work properly. Use straight, non-pivoting older strobes that you control via slave and master flash devices attached to your SLR.
- 2). Cut a circular, 1-foot diameter piece of plywood. Move in 4 inches from the rim of this board after you cut it and cut another circle concentric with the outer rim. Nail or screw a block of 2-by-4 board perpendicular to the circular plywood. This will serve as the base to attach to a tripod.
- 3). Drill a hole in the 2-by-4 block to allow the tripod socket to be attached to the bottom. Use a tripod socket from an old camera or buy the piece separately. Insert the tripod socket into the block with glue or screws, if you drill screw holes into the surrounding socket plate.
- 4). Mark off equidistant segments on the ring you have created to place your electronic flash units. Six will work just fine, but if you want more light, you can get them closer together and go up to approximately nine flash units. Use a bigger board for more strobes.
- 5). Glue pieces of fabric fastener at each point where you have made marks for the flash units. Attach the other pieces of fabric fastener to each flash unit. Do not glue over the battery compartments. Attach the strobes via the fabric fastener to the equidistant areas of the circular plywood board.
- 6). Attach your new homemade ring light to a tripod and adjust the height so that your SLR camera is in the center. Attach your slave control unit to your SLR and take a few test shots to make sure all the strobes fire at once.
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