Been tearing too many ABBCs, what about acrylic?

Hey everyone!

After a few months making, using and unknowingly tearing apart countless DIY Paper ABBC bounce cards, I'm thinking of trying out acrylic as the reflector.

My 580EXII is fully Velcro-ed a full loop around the flash, as seen in the following picture:

Were you using paper for your bounce card? If so, try the craft foam that was recommended in the ABBC video. If you've been using craft foam and tearing it, then you'll have to use something more durable. (I'm not sure how you could tear craft foam.)

Personally, I opted for a Flip-It. At $30, it really isn't very expensive and it's very versatile. You can adjust the angle of the card for different effects - something you won't be able to do with paper, craft foam or acrylic.

I see. But I want to get a more even spread of fill-light. When I view the catchlights in a person's eye with the ABBC paper that I use, the brightest spots are concentrated right at the corners of the card where it folds. I'm sure the acrylic won't do that for me..

The acrylic I'm familiar with is brittle and completely inflexible. I'd use almost anything else.

If you don't want something flexible, such as craft foam, then maybe styrene would be a good choice. Back when I was actively model railroading, I used to get white sheets of it at hobby shops. Try one that specializes in model railroading if you can't find it elsewhere. Easy to cut with a score and snap technique and glues with virtually any plastic model glue or solvent glue.

Calendered vinyl sheet or rigid vinyl sheet might be another possibility, maybe even better. Stiff, but flexible. Calendering is a hot roll process that puts a matt finish on both sides. Most of the stuff I'm familiar with comes in 21"x51" sheets. I don't know how easy it is to get in small quantities, but a web search ought to reveal something. If you have a local plastic supply house, they my have lots of ideas.

I recommend the foamies sheets. 33 cents per at Wal-Mart and I bet you can't tear it. Also, being so pliable, you can adjust it's forward projected light pretty easily.

I think the ABBC's are great and can do a lot but I have to agree with Mike. The cost of a Demb Flip-It is $30. It's well made, versatile, and works really nicely in landscape and portrait orientation.

I suppose that if you're on a tight budget then that's about $27 more than you might spend on a DIY with fun foam but in the general scheme of things you're going to be making and replacing the DIY's and the Flip-It will far outlast them.

I don't usually recommend that people go out and spend or waste money but I don't think you'd be disappointed if you spent the $30.

My 2 cents.

Use the foam sheets not paper. I have been using the same one for several months. I stick it in my pocket, it gets beer spilled on it and still looks and works great.

Instead of all the velcro on the 580 why not go with a speed strap to just wrap around the ABBC and strobe. This is nice DIY one post on the Strobist blog - bicycle inner tube and selfstick velcro.
http://****/5dyya8

Jack

Heres what I use.

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airfrogusmc wrote in post #6092468
Heres what I use.

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notice the tungten gel for rooms with tungsten light

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Home made

Results:
this is not a very good photo but it give you the idea. I usually go with the flash up one stop from the ambient and expose for the flash. So the ambient is a stop down as not to over power and the gel is color balanced for the ambient. I will use a fluorescent gel in that situation and I frequently shoot a ISO 1600.

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Does this mean that you are in Manual mode and underexpose ambient (using camera's metering system) and then dial in +1 FEC?

Manual. Strobe ettl:
if the metered ambient light say is 1/60 at f 2.8 I'll set the camera and strobe for 1/60 at f/4. So that means the strobe is pumping out f/4 and the camera is set at 1/60 f/4 but the ambient is 1/60 at 2.8...1 stop down so it doesn't over power but you still get great detail in the room. Kinda the same way exposure wise I do environmental portraits with larger strobes. I usually set my exposure so the ambient is one stop under what my main light and my exposure is set at. Does this make any sense at all ?
I hope so.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #6092900
Manual. Strobe ettl:
if the metered ambient light say is 1/60 at f 2.8 I'll set the camera and strobe for 1/60 at f/4. So that means the strobe is pumping out f/4 and the camera is set at 1/60 f/4 but the ambient is 1/60 at 2.8...1 stop down so it doesn't over power but you still get great detail in the room. Kinda the same way exposure wise I do environmental portraits with larger strobes. I usually set my exposure so the ambient is one stop under what my main light and my exposure is set at. Does this make any sense at all ?
I hope so.

Yes it does. It's also the way I shoot using flash indoors.

Just an update guys. My school engineering workshop had a few spare pieces of acrylic lying about. The IC helped me cut rectangular 5"x7" pieces of white and blue acrylic and gave them to me for free!

Hmm, must be a slow morning for me. I'm not quite getting it. Can you elaborate and better explain this method?

TMR Design wrote in post #6092951
Hmm, must be a slow morning for me. I'm not quite getting it. Can you elaborate and better explain this method?

If I'm not wrong, he's trying to say that correct exposure for ambient is f/2.8. While using flash, he'll underexpose for ambient by 1 stop, shooting at f/4 with the same shutter, and rely on the flash to give a correct subject exposure. The final picture will have the subjects correctly exposed and the background a tad underexposed.

Ahhh got it. Thank you for the clarification. Makes sense now.