My DIY Gel Holder - Total Cost 80 cent plus tax

Liazon wrote in post #9408557
Does the use of acrylic like that eat up light? I know gels do, but Velcro on the sides work for me. In some situations i dont want extra light to be wasted when i need it.

good point...this needs A TEST

I'll see if I can stop by walmart tomorrow, pick some up and test

nice thread, thanks for sharing. could you use a white material to make a flash diffuser out of this?

Great tip Gong - thanks much for sharing your ingenuity .

I don't believe it should eat up any light at all, at least not enough that we would notice it, or anything that would affect the overall exposure. If it did reduce any, the camera/flash ETTL would notice it, and the flash would squirt out a bit more to compensate.

Liazon wrote in post #9408557
Does the use of acrylic like that eat up light? I know gels do, but Velcro on the sides work for me. In some situations i dont want extra light to be wasted when i need it.

Apollo.11 wrote in post #9408589
nice thread, thanks for sharing. could you use a white material to make a flash diffuser out of this?

you could get frosted plexiglass, but you have to do that fold over part by yourself. And from my work with plexiglass 180 bends are tricky.

Made one tonight using a grinder to cut the frame down and a lighter to bend the plexi...Can't wait to try to with some gels.

Thanks for the idea.

Very nice.

thats a nice diy project. Gonna give it a go tonight.

Thanks everyone, hope this helps many of you out. I haven't had any issues with it eating up any light. I have also tried it with a Lumiquest SB III that I just got and it works great, although I think I will go back to my trusty umbrellas.


Never thought about using a lighter, but I guess that could be done if you don't have a heat gun. Good thinking jbdial!

The good thing about this is that they are fairly easy to make. You can knock one out in about 10 mins or so and they cost so cheap. So if you break one or loose it, no biggies.

Great IDEA!! Mine work great!

Dave

Does anyone have a good idea of how to carry the gels? I am trying to find something the is compact and I can organize the gels by type. The only thing I have come up with is by using one of those picture holders that come in wallets. It works, but maybe there is a better DIY solution out there.

I keep my gels on a wire shower curtain hanger, like this one... http://www.everyfaucet​.com/Bobrick-B-204-1-BCK1006.html. $1 for 12 of them at the Dollar store. Sort them as you like. A rubber band keeps them from flopping all over (gently holding, not tight at all). Simply flip to the one you want, open the hook, close the hook, done.

I took some photos against a off white wall and was looking at the histogram of the light. This holder does diffuse and eat up the light a tiny bit. But it is SOOOO minuscule that you can not notice it.

Can post up photo's and histograms if people want to see.

This needs to be on the DIY sticky

Wow that's an excellent idea!

Great idea. I've always thought about doing this, but I wasn't sure where to get the frame. Of course Walmart has it, duh! haha Thanks for sharing pictures of the process.