By popular demand (read: one or two requests), here are a few more shots using our DIY ring flash set up from last weekend. A lot more tweaking remains to be done to the rig itself, as well as to how we’re using it, but it’s a pretty cool toy to play around with.

One thing I forgot to add yesterday was the cost of constructing the ring flash. Following Tejada’s suggestion, most of the materials were obtained from Home Depot for around $25 (I already had metal shears, tape, tripod, magic arm, and I just used an old white shirt as the diffuser), so it was pretty affordable. His tutorial says he did it for $20 (though he does say he had a lot of the materials on hand already). I’m guessing if you followed his last steps to construct the flash bracket, your total would jump quite a bit.

More to come soon!

JR Heart Hands
The ones on the black background turned out pretty good, but we really liked the shadow ring around the subject on the white/gray background.
Maggie Gray Background
On the flat white/gray background, the ring flash surrounds the subject with a shadow, which looks pretty cool.
JR BW Closeup
Shooting with the 85 and 135 resulted in nice portraits, as expected, but completely lost the cool ringed catchlight in the eyes. To get these, we switched to wide angle and went in close. Real close.
Brian Closeup 1
At this point, we were just messing around, seeing how close we could get and how prominent we could make the catchlight.
Max Closeup 1
I still say Max looks like Mark Dacascos in this one. If you don’t know who that is, I’m sorry, but we can’t be friends anymore.
JR Mugshot
I love the perspective in this one. If chins could kill…
Brian Closeup 2
It’s like the camera begs me to look absolutely insane.
Max Closeup 2
This is Max’s “You’ve-kept-me-here-for-six-hours-working-on-this-damn-ring-light” face. I get it, Max. I get it.