Another way to make a softbox follows. This method is a bit more involved.

What you will need:
1. Sturdy tripod
2. 2 strobes as mentioned in my OP
3. Plastic storage bin. I went with a 56 QT size.
4. The following available at most hardware stores:
One of these in white: http://www.homedepot.com/Electrical-Ele … ogId=10053
One of these in white: http://www.homedepot.com/Electrical-Ele … ogId=10053
Three of these in white: http://www.homedepot.com/Lighting-Fans- … ogId=10053
Two of these in white: http://www.homedepot.com/Lighting-Fans- … ogId=10053
One of these: http://www.homedepot.com/Electrical-Lig … ogId=10053
5. Metallic silver or chrome spraypaint.
6. Drill, drillbits, 1/4-20 tap.
7. Electrical cord with plug and associated appropriate box clamp.

What to do:
1. Spraypaint your storage bin with a couple coats of metallic silver/chrome paint. Allow to dry.
2. Center your electrical box lid on one side of your storage bin so the short ends of this box are facing toward your storage bin bottom and opening. Move this closer to the storage bin opening to provide enough room for fixture and lights. Mark on the storage bin the 4 screw holes from the electrical box lid.
3. Drill these 4 holes slightly larger than the holes in the lid. Drill another 1/2 in hole in the center of these for your wires.
4. Drill and tap a 1/4-20 hole in the bottom of your electrical box.
5. Run your electrical cord into the side of the box and use your clamp to hold it in place. Plug all remaining holes in box.
6. Assemble the light sockets onto the electrical box lid.
7. Place the lid into your softbox and push the socket wires through your center hole.
8. Wire nut your socket wires to your cord wires...matching black with black and white with white.
9. Fasten your lid to your box through the storage bin side using screws provided with lid.
10. Screw your tripod shoe into the 1/4-20 hole in the bottom of your box and mount to tripod.
11. Screw one of each socket extenders into side sockets and screw strobes into those. Screw modeling lamp into center socket.
12. Plug in and enjoy.

Finished product......

http://www.nunuvyer.biz/Photoshoots/Tes … 2_0031.jpg

GeM Photographic wrote:

That looks like the Morris AC slaves that I have (sold in the Chicago area by Helix). They are also good as colored fill or background lights. They sell a set of screw on caps for that purpose. Don't buy them. Go into a photo store and get the sample strip pack of the Roscoe gels (Helix gives them out as free samples). A little trimming and some electrical tape and the gel mounts over the flash tube. Good and cheap.

B&H sells their samplers for about $2 (fits smaller camera top speedlights)
Rosco Roscolux Swatchbook
Rosco Cinegel Swatchbook - 1.75 x 2.75"


If you need a little larger size (works nice for the vivitar 285HV or any potato masher, about $25)
Rosco Roscolux Designer Color Selector Swatchbook - 3x5"

They also have sampler books that will fit studio strobes for a bit more money, and indiviual sheets that will fit a softbox, and rolls that will gel the windows in an entire room. I don't have the money to play with the last two sizes.

The sampler books also have a few sample ND gels. If you can cut a circle, you can make yourself a few inexpensive ND filters. Just another justification to grab a book or two.

I will have to look at what Adorama has to offer. B&H's website is a little easier to find things for me and their prices are comparable.

I haven't used the pringles can trick, sounds pretty good. I use a sheet of craft foam that I wrap around the the speedlight. It works but I don't have the luxury of using the ND gel filters with it.

Kevlar Vest Girl wrote:

I use the Morris slaves all the time to illuminate lamps in room scenes. They are usually much too powerful for the requirements of most  of my shoots, so we end up applying tons of ND and diffusion. All this means is that they probably rock in a home made soft box. What aperture do you usually get from your soft box at iso 100 with one light?

I actually just finished this softbox and have only used it in one shoot so far. I drop a piece of cheesecloth over the opening and use 2 strobes in it as shown in the linked photo for the finished product.

This photo was taken with the softbox approximately 4 ft away from the model. f6.3, ISO 200 and exposure compensation in ACR was -0.35.

http://www.model-citizens.com/Photoshoo … 8_0011.jpg

Which might make you wonder why I'm not getting much light. My explanation is that the paint I'm using, while silver metallic, isn't as reflective as your standard reflective material used in commercial softboxes. It actually turns out to be a light, glossy gray color. I've been considering lining the inside with aluminum foil to see what kind of difference that would make. I'm guessing it would add at least a stop or slightly more, but I'll let you know for sure when I try it. I'm starting to wonder also if a nice white acrylic paint would reflect more light than the silver metallic.

I have a bit of time now. I'll take a test shot of something then line it with the foil and take the same shot.

Four lights aimed obliquely into the sides of the soft box might be fun to see.

OK. Test complete. I got a full stop of difference by using the aluminum foil vs the silver metallic paint.

f8.0, ISO 100, silver metallic paint: http://www.nunuvyer.biz/Photoshoots/Tes … 3_0004.jpg

f8.0, ISO 100, aluminum foil: http://www.nunuvyer.biz/Photoshoots/Tes … 3_0005.jpg

f11.0, ISO 100, aluminum foil: http://www.nunuvyer.biz/Photoshoots/Tes … 3_0008.jpg

They each were taken directly from the RAW files with no adjustments made.

Photons 2 Pixels wrote:

One thing I'll mention up front is that I use a lot of these strobes because they are simple, versatile, cheap, and fit into a standard light socket.

http://www.adorama.com/LTACMS.html

Yeah, those kind of little strobes are great. I use them all the time when I shoot interiors. They work great to light up a (or several) corner(s) in a big room. easy to modify the output and put on small tripods or clamps..=*^)

Christer
http://www.ChristerArt.com

G M Knotts wrote:

I haven't used the pringles can trick, sounds pretty good. I use a sheet of craft foam that I wrap around the the speedlight. It works but I don't have the luxury of using the ND gel filters with it.

A Pringles can will fit over most Speedlites also. I had to slit the end and spread it a little to fit it over my 580. That with a little tape and it worked great.

Now I have a pringles can snoot to go with my " milk bottle diffuser"( DIY Project)( I wont use it in public,but should have a lot of fun in studio)
Great info posted!

LOL. Some models request the Pringles can when they come over to shoot. I usually hand hold it and aim it from a bunch of different angles and distances right at their face. It's fun to see what you can get with it.

Ugh...by the time you've emptied the shelves at Home Depot and if you pay yourself your hourly rate to cobble together these "DYI" lighting contrivances, you could have gone on line to E-bay and bought some used good stuff or even get a lighting kit from B&H or someplace.

Even better, buy the real stuff and lower the risk of electrocuting yourself or burning your "studio" down.

John Rayner wrote:

Peter Flanagan wrote:

Ugh...by the time you've emptied the shelves at Home Depot and if you pay yourself your hourly rate to cobble together these "DYI" lighting contrivances, you could have gone on line to E-bay and bought some used good stuff or even get a lighting kit from B&H or someplace.

Even better, buy the real stuff and lower the risk of electrocuting yourself or burning your "studio" down.

True... but one has to learn some how. Half the time the "cheap" lighting kits are not much better than a strobist setup.

Alien Bees, Hensel, JTL, Novatron and even Elinchrom have introductory lighting kits that are very scalable and supported by a variety of accessory light modifiers and other equipment.  Yes, the initial layout of cash may be $1,200.  But, over the period of a year or two, they'll pay for themselves in terms of time, materials, and the general overall satisfaction the shooter will get from his/her images.

John Rayner wrote:

Peter Flanagan wrote:

Alien Bees, Hensel, JTL, Novatron and even Elinchrom have introductory lighting kits that are very scalable and supported by a variety of accessory light modifiers and other equipment.  Yes, the initial layout of cash may be $1,200.  But, over the period of a year or two, they'll pay for themselves in terms of time, materials, and the general overall satisfaction the shooter will get from his/her images.

I agree, for an individual who wants to go pro and there is a market to support it, a good lighting kit can pay for itself quickly enough. More often than not, folks upgrade to a better kit before they have the skills to utilize those tools. So the payback time is usually extended over several if not many more years.

There really is a need for a quality product somewhere between the cost of studio strobes and speedlights. The camera manufacturers presently fill that market with underpowered speedlights that are more bells and whisltles then decent  power. You can count on one hand the number of speedlights that will overpower the sun at 10 feet. Heck, even less have a  modeling light.

I'm not sure I follow you, here.

AVD wrote:

Peter Flanagan wrote:

John Rayner wrote:

There really is a need for a quality product somewhere between the cost of studio strobes and speedlights. The camera manufacturers presently fill that market with underpowered speedlights that are more bells and whisltles then decent  power. You can count on one hand the number of speedlights that will overpower the sun at 10 feet. Heck, even less have a  modeling light.

I'm not sure I follow you, here.

Im not sure I do either.  With HSS any 56 or 58GN speedlite will do the trick.  I think even my 36GN speedlite will overpower the sun at that distance. would probably be swapping out batteries before 100 shots tho.

Okay... I might be showing my inexperience here, so correct me where I am wrong.

Guide number is the desired F-stop at a given range at ISO 100 and 1/100sec typically. So to overpower the sun (F16-ISO100-1/100sec on a sunny day) a shooter will need a strobe that will produce the light for a Guide Number of at least 160 at 10 feet. Throw a modifier on the light and one needs at least a GN of 180 and more likely a GN of 220 or higher. A decent studio strobe can produce enough light, but most speedlights are seriously underpowered. Only the "Potato Mashers" have enough light to do this.

Please explain how a speedlight with a GN of 36 can fully illuminate a (F16) backlit 5'10" model from a range of 10 feet. From my limited experience, such a speedlight will give you a F3.6, which would not even provide enough light to register on the camera, with a backlit F16 (about 7 stops under what is required). This I would dearly love to know. Then I can use my wittle popup flash to illuminate a stadium.

My math must be off someplace. Maybe it is my meter to foot conversion... or is it my footcandle to electron-volt conversion? Then it could be pie are squared, but pies are round... I am really lost now.