Cowboy Blob's Saloon and Shootin Gallery

I'm not a real Cowboy, but I play one in the movies.

Wednesday, October 01, 2014

Photo Hack

One of the first things I learned when I started taking photography seriously is that on-camera flash is for amateurs. That said, a lens-mounted LED ring light is darned handy for close-up photos and cinematography. Besides the ring light, I have a rectangular bank of LED lights that fits on the camera shoe... but that looks too much like flash. I'd rather my photos have character, or in other words, shadows. For this selfie, I held the light out well away from the axis of the camera.  My hands were full.
What do you do when your hands are already full before you consider the light?  The threading on the bottom of the light fits the shoe adapter, but no known tripod shoe or standard light stand.  With my trusty Swiss Army Knife and a plastic gallon jug, I fashioned a light-holder that slipped over a light stand.  I'm planning on getting another of these lights; having adjustable brightness, another would make a great fill light on the other side of the axis. I don't always want the shadows to be so severe.

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3 Comments:

  • At 8:17 PM, Blogger AlanDP said…

    Cool fix. Maybe something that's semi-opaque like a milk jug would cast less severe light?

     
  • At 12:14 PM, Blogger Cowboy Blob said…

    Actually, I can shift the light to shine through the jug material to diffuse it, but it's probably simpler to just dim the light.

     
  • At 8:49 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Seems like I used to have a remote shoe that had a nut on the bottom to accept the screw from a tripod head. Since I never saw the need to tripod mount for flash photography, that let me hand hold the camera and put the flash on the tripod...

    Sure you can find something similar... or an adapter to an honest to gods light-stand... I had those too, with umbrellas et al.

     

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