A few folks have asked about the "soft lighting" in some photos here on Pizza. The answer: a juicy strobe bounced off a white or light color ceiling, however, sometimes bouncing is impossible or you really need front light (such as when the subject is wearing a hat, often due to having just awoken to find a camera in their face) - for this I have a silly, home-made hood I attach to a Canon 580EX Speedlite, with a piece of photographer’s diffusion material clipped on (medal of freedom to whoever created the tiny binder clip!), though tissue paper would work, too (you may have a higher "shame factor" than I do).

Template for Flash Diffuser

Download: PDF diffuse hood template

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Materials & Equipment

1. White, stiff, yet mildly flexible cardboard.
2. x-acto knife
3. Binder Clips
4. Rubber Band or Tape
5. diffusion material or tissue paper

Instructions

1. download and print the template
2. affix the template to your cardstock. I used some old, stiff glossy laser printer stock I had laying about. As you’ll see, I made an adjustment later to compensate for it’s thinness and lacking opaqueness.
3. cut along the solid black lines of the template. you won’t remove any material, only making a few slits. Note the couple of places along the upper arcs where little tabs of material are left — attaching or hinging the sides to the back.
4. fold along the dotted gray lines. As this is tough to explain, take a look at the picture at right (hood sans diffsing material). You’re going to be forming a hood or miniature Hollywood Bowl amphitheater.
5. you’re now done with the template. Pitch it or save it to make more.
6. attach the diffusing material (mine came from a friend’s excesses, he’d purchased an entire roll of the stuff from Calumet, tissue paper will definitely suffice) using the binder clips (see photo below)
7. tape the two bottom flaps of the hood around your flash unit; a rubber band can be used to hold it on, but generally mine is snug enough that it stays in place fairly well (see photo) even if I slip it on/off several times during one session.

You’re done. Go experiment! You may need to adjust the bottom to fit your light’s girth. You can dispense with the binder clips and permanently tape, glue, or staple the diffusion to the hood. However, I find that being able to fold this diffuser and stuff it into my camera bag is quite a handy perk, and another reason to make a spare.

Note about the cardboard As mentioned above, I used some glossy photo paper intended for a laser printer. I quickly discovered after a few flash tests, that it transmitted too much light. Sure, we’re softening the flash, but we still want to reflect most of if — we’re just breaking it up a bit. So paper that is too translucent, or translucent at all, is not good. The solution? We’ll if you look closely at the photos of my hood you’ll see a bit of shiny at the edges. I made a paper-aluminum foil-paper sandwich.

I taped the paper (dull side facing inward, where the strobe’s light will hit) then a square of aluminum foil, followed by another sheet of the card stock. I then cut these as described above, but together. Works great and no light loss!

Using The Hood

The hood is a portable cyclorama, only in reverse. Instead of obscuring shadows it obscures or distributes light.

At right is the hood affixed to the flash. The gentle back-slope does a fairly decent job of distributing light over the hood’s entire surface, with a minimal hot spot at the throat’s bottom. As an aside, people (aka subjects, or "victims" if you will) have actually thanked me for using this admittedly sad looking setup since it’s much easier on the eyes than a full-strength strobe to the face.

The back view has the diffuser attached and illustrates those fantastic binder clips (I don’t know the size, not the number fives, much smaller).

Samples

Fine, you need proof? Well, I haven’t shot any before and afters — yet, but here’s a shot utilizing the hood on subjects only few feet away and with a background that was quite dim. And yet, the flash gives a very smooth, flattering light.

Another example is this wedding cake photo. In most of the wedding reception pictures I was able to bounce the light from the ceiling, but for this shot a soft, close light was required and I was between the cake and the ceiling.

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Above is the hood sans diffuser

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Above the back of the diffusion hood with the diffusion material attached using binder clips

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Wednesday, February 11th, 2004Photography