Poor Man's Macro Lighting Rig...

[terraform]

Hi all..

Here's a rig I put together today that I'm still experimenting with. The entire set up cost around 40.00 US. It consists of two Mini LED flexible head flashlights, one rubber plumbers pipe reducer and two nylon cable ties. It's amazing how it actually fits to the Canon 60mm USM EF-S Macro lens and even doubles as a lens hood! I was able to go to a respectable f13@1/40sec with this setup which gave me an exposure just a hair under center.
LED lights can be unpredictable so I did multiple Kelvin tests from 2800-
10,000. If your Canon has the Kelvin option in the White Balance mode this is great! 9,000-10,000 turned out to be the most accurate after shooting six color tabs for color matching accuracy as the LEDs were rather on the blue side.
Has anyone else tried a rig like this before or built any cool homemade devices?? Cheers!

[anthonyhong]

Looks awesome! Any sample shots of it?

[BradT0517]

Thats awesome post some pictures take with it

[terraform]

Hi... glad you like it! I'll take some sample pics in the next couple of days and see what happens?

Cheers!

[Billginthekeys]

bring on the samples. interesting setup

[LordV]

Did try using a set of Christmas tree led lights arranged in a circle around a lens hood but they kept on twinkling- not really- I rewired them so all were on. Just found the light was not bright enough for anything useful and was quite blue. Guess the LEDS were not as powerfull as I thought.
I have used a vidcam light attached to my flash bracket when I was using a non auto lens- looking through the viewfinder at F11 is a bit dim otherwise- interestingly bugs seem to quite like the light.
Brian V.

[Dorman]

Pretty creative, can't wait to see some real world results.

[photobitz]

This might actually be OK. I tried a similar setup to Brian, but found that the beams from each LED were too focused - they have a little lens on the end. These lamps appear to have a lens that is dispersing the light a little better. I still think you will get shadows since essentially you only have 2 point light sources and possibly aiming them properly could be difficult.

[terraform]

Hi!

Yup. The beam is a challenging problem. With a little adjustment here and there it works but it is still too time consuming. I recently bought two halogen mini bulbs encased in glass surrounded by circular light defracting prisms. I'm going to try and hook these up to the LED heads for better light diffusion Thanks for all the comments and tips!

[photobitz]

Hi!

Yup. The beam is a challenging problem. With a little adjustment here and there it works but it is still too time consuming. I recently bought two halogen mini bulbs encased in glass surrounded by circular light defracting prisms. I'm going to try and hook these up to the LED heads for better light diffusion Thanks for all the comments and tips!

How much do they chew through batteries though? That's probably the best thing about using LEDs - they are so efficient.

[terraform]

Dan...each light came installed with four mini batteries. The ones that look like large asperins! So far they are still working fine. I redesigned the lights last night with the halogen prisms. Now the beam is spread wider and with more light diffusion I'll get some pics on here soon.

Thanks!

[photobitz]

OK, that would be good ;)

[theshaner]

I am looking for those lights...can you tell me what kind of battery it takes? AAA maybe? That would help narrow it down.

Thanks!

[terraform]

Shaner,

I bought a pair of the lights at a Low's home improvement store in Atlanta. They each came with four (AG13) type mini batterys (button cells).

Cheers,

Don

[MikeMcL]

maybe you could fashion a couple 2cm x 2cm softboxes for them.

lol

very neat idea, i like the "lens hood" but i would be nervous about putting something of that weight in the front element (it moves on that lens doesnt it?) as it might wear out the motor in the lens.

great innovation!

[Gouba]

that looks wickd, id love to try something out like this. *off to the shops* heh