DIY Studio Ring Light
Everyone knows that light, the driving force of picture taking, has two basic factors; its strength and its quality. Working indoors the first of these is governed by the lighting system we use. The second, the type of lighting we apply to our subject. In this technique series we will have a look at what can be done with several types of lighting. Here, the ring light is being considered. Ring lights were originally intended for medical or close up photography but are now often used for fashion or glamour photography. This is because they give a soft flattering frontal light. If your model is standing close to the background then this light will cause a soft edge shadow to outline her body. There are many commercially available ring lights ranging from relatively low priced and low powered units to more expensive and powerful studio systems. I have always been a believer in the DIY approach to studio lighting. It is cheaper and you end up with exactly what you want. The unit described here is a large ring flash type system which has a number of extra refinements and uses.
My light is basically it is a large soft box with a tunnel built through its centre. This tunnel is large enough for the camera to shoot through the opening. The diffusing panel on the front of the box is a sheet of translucent opal Perspex with a square hole cut in the middle. On the back of the soft box I cut a hole each side of the central tunnel to allow a studio flash head to poke through into the reflector. A true ring flash has a circular flash tube which fits round the camera lens but my system works almost as well. With two light units fitted it provides a good all round illumination.
It also has the added advantage in that you can alter the lighting effects by varying the power output of the flash heads. You can even only using one or the other at a time. It also works as a normal soft box when moved away from the camera.
My unit is fairly large and heavy so it is supported on a substantial stand to which I have added casters and the ability to alter its height and angle. As an additional convenience I also put a normal lamp holder with a 150W bulb inside the reflector to provide a brighter modelling light if I am using film instead of a digital camera. The reflector body is made from thin plywood. A much lighter version would be possible if the rigid tunnel was used to strengthen it and a light weight framework made out of thick wire like a lampshade used to form the rest. The body of the reflector could then be covered with a thin light tight fabric with its inside lined with cooking foil. Instead of opal Perspex, you could use any thin nylon translucent fabric. This would keep the weight down considerably. This material can usually be found at any large fabric shop. Alternatively you can also use a colourless plastic shower curtain material. I have made convention soft boxes this way in the past.
When using a soft box of this type it is not necessary to put in it a high powered flash unit so two small independent camera flash guns would work well once they have been linked together. As this unit is normally used quite close to your subject the light output does not have to be huge. Should you want to use this type of DIY light with a convention tungsten flood lighting system you have to make sure it cannot overheat or you could have a studio fire on your hands.
With my own system I use two studio flash heads with their reflectors removed. Because the soft box body is rigid I am able to fix the lights on little platforms screwed to it just below the openings. However with a less rigid arrangement they could stay on their stands and be positioned so that the flash heads pokes through the holes in the soft box. The picture here is an example of this device in use.
Normally only the ring light is used to light your subject. Again nothing is set in stone so it can be used simply as a frontal illumination so that other lights can be brought in to accent hair or light backgrounds. It is purely a matter of the effect you want in your picture.
Examples
This is how my lighting unit looks. It is shown with the translucent opal plastic removed from the front. The unit is about 1 m square because that was the size of my Perspex sheet. It could be what ever size you want to make it. The tunnel is 30cm square and reaches from the back to the front of the unit. This allows a DSLR camera to be used with a 28x70 lens. Longer lenses work just as well.
The tunnel also works as a lens hood if other lights are being used in the set-up.
A straightforward head shot of a girl and hairdryer taken using only the ring light. I have included an enlarged section to show the catch-light in her eye. If a true ring light had been used the highlight would of course been a tell tail circular one. This one is less obvious but the lighting produces all the other advantages of using a conventional ring light.
If you are using the system only to produce an even flattering lighting as I have done here, the overall effect can sometimes look a bit bland. So using the computer it is a simple matter to cut it out and paste it onto a different background. In this case the background was a close-up of a piece of charred wood
A further modification to the unit I have described above is shown in the illustration. By masking down the light output to a smaller circle the ring flash effect is heightened. The true ring flash effect; the diffused edge shadow, depends on two things. The distance your subject is placed from the background and the distance the light is from the subject. The nearer you approach the person you are photographing the more noticable will be the outline shadow.
On my own unit I have used a piece of flexible black plastic sheet to made the circular mask. It is attached to the unit at the top and has a thin wooden strip stapled to its bottom to keep it stable. This is so the whole thing can be rolled up out of the way, like a blind, when I want to use the unit as a normal soft box.
This picture shows the modified unit in use. One if the problems in using this type of lighting unit close to your subject is that the light output is often too great. This in turn means the camera lens has to be stopped down to say about f 22 or even f 32 for the correct exposure. It can even happen when you set your studio flash units to their lowest output. The result could be that you are not getting the best from your lens.
Most modern lenses produce their best definition the f 8 - f 16 range due to diffraction setting in as you stop down further. However the circular mask on this unit cuts to light output down to the point where it is possible to work in the optimum range for your lens.
Shelving wrote:
these photos are fantastic
posted on 10/02/2010