lactose

So this week has been a week of reciprocal love on many fronts, not the least of which is my 4 year wedding anniversary. I was an active on the blogger/commenter and it paid off big time 40,000 hits and the front page of Digg(thanks to some rose-power), granted 'content is king' but a little back and forth goes a long way. I also got a special shout-out from a blog that I'm am a loyal fan of, Urban Monarch, thanks greg and cash. Articles got featured on LifeHacker, Strobist and a few others (see trackbacks below).

I'm not quite making 'second life' revenue on my ads but enough to take the family out to dinner, thanks again world (except Nascar fans. F1 Rulez!)

Holy cow it's been a good new year! Made the front page of Digg, Lifehacker, and Strobist snagging me 33,000 hits and my Tweeter(TWTR) stock went up 30%.

Have a wonderful new Baha'i year! -
via Wiki entry

Also Happy Anniversary to my beautiful wife and I, 4 wonderful years today, we've been so blessed with two cute kids, supportive family nearby and sufficient material means to keep us off the streets :) Every year has been more fun , and work(kids) than the last.

So I've spent about a grand on my camera equipment (body, lenses) and forgot to save anything for the lighting equipment, doh!

Basically (though you should already know this) a camera is only as good as the light that comes into it, cameras capture light and make a mess when they try to amplify the dark. When I made the move from a point-and-shoot to a SLR I figured I'd get a 50mm lens because it was the cheapest lens that opened up to f1.8, and i wanted to be able to take pictures in the living room (ok my kids) without a flash. Jump to 6 months later I now know that 50mm lens lets in just as much light as a 24mm lens but needs to be shot at least 1/60th of second to be in focus whereas a 24mm lens can be shot at 1/25th of a second, even at f2.8.

The crux of the problem is still that at f2.8 a full face is unlikely to be all in focus until about f8 on a 50mm and f5 on a 24mm which means i need a flash. I used a bounce flash (old school flash aimed at the ceiling or wall) and loved the soft light or occasional color cast from the paint on the wall, but the shadows made dark wells under the eyes.

So i need a soft box which should eliminate shadows from the area that it covers, but, i spent all of my money on the SLR and lenses.



Solution
Cardboard box, tin foil, tape, knife, wireless flash kit,

I got the wireless flash from Ebay with two receivers ($20) which i use with old flashes from my wifes old SLR setup. The trigger just attaches to the camera hot show and the recivers are like little hot shoes them selves.

I upgraded the antenna to extend the range and reliability.

For the softbox i got an office max cardboard box and some reynolds tinfoil. i used the size of the box as a template and cut some pieces. Remember to cut a mirror image because they are Diastereomers , so two of each hand (lateral inversion). Also make them so that the sum of two wider ends equals the size the to opening of the box, measure this by placing to strips next to each other and marking where they overlap:


It is much easier to score then cut with scissors than knife. I also taped all the sides to prevent the foil from tearing, it made it much more durable. When tapping two pieces together the tape can electro statically attract the foil which can muck things up, so i found it easier to pre-tape with small pieces of tape before applying wider tape.

Look kind of like a NASA heat shield.

Now it's ready to fold and tape into the box like a funnel (after cutting a hole in the box of course) This hole is where the flash gets tapped in.





I taped a garbage can bag to the top and then started shooting:

I'm in love with the quality of soft light i and the sharpness that it allows. I put a handle on the top of the box (cut a hole in it, and basically strapped the flash to the hole in the back.

This is at 300mm F22 1/125sec, with a Nikon D70s (which is for sale here ) You can click on the image to see full version. Its amazing how much more detail comes out of the shot with soft light.




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