Ace's blog

First project of the new blog

DIY Ring flash.

I'm following the instructions i found here.

My nikon D50 uses a fliter with an outside Diameter of 55mm.
The 60mm LED ring has an inside diameter of 52mm. so that one isnt going to work. :( The 70mm will have an inside diameter of 62mm which will work, but i will need to find a way to attach the plastic to the filter.

So the question becomes do i try to attach the ring flash to a filter and just change filters when i want to use it, or do i try to make it work with the lense "shade" so that i can use it on most lenses? and with my three lenses how similar are the diameter needed to lock into place?
My 70mm-300mm shade diameter is about 63mm.
My 28mm-90mm shade diameter is prob closer to 64mm.
My 50mm has no shade locks.

ok, so if i go with the shade lock, i need at least an 80mm LED ring. if i dont, then i need to pick a lense and make it for just that lense.

Pro/Con of using the lense shade locks:

Pro:

• use on most lenses
• cheaper
• easier to get on and off

Con:

• more space between the edge of lense and the light source
• slightly bigger piece of equiptment.
• cant use on any lense with no lense shade locks

well i think as a first attempt for this project i will go with the shade lock design. which means i need to get an LED ring larger than 64mm.

unfortuantly, after re-reading the article i'm using as a guide, his math is making less sense. he says that he is using the 90mm led ring for the inner ring and that it has a PCB diameter of 8mm making for an inner diameter of 82mm, but he says that it has an inner diameter of 74mm. thats an 8 mm difference. so which numbers do i go with?

looking at it again i'm not sure it makes much of a difference. if we assume his math is correct using the 90mm ring, and the inside is 74mm, then if i use the 80mm ring it will have an inside of 64mm which might barely fit around the lock, but it would fit around the filter and ontop of the lock, which is good because i'm not using the ring to lock it into place so it doesnt need to fit around! however, this inconsistancy does make it harder for me to pick a second ring for the right light as i dont know the inside clearance. :( so i may just go with the 120mm and have a huge Gap between the two.

this is starting to ramble so i will wrap it up!

cost:
80mm LED ring $4.86
120mm LED ring $7.91
misc wires & button $5 or less
--------------------------------
total cost $20 or less

oops

i decided i wanted to clean out the vox posts and start from scratch, but in doing so i deleted my first post here, the one with what i wanted to do with this blog. suck. and i dont remember exactly what was said, but something along the lines of using this blog for projects and professional stuff.