Cheap Diffusion!

As some of you know it was raining a little bit too hard to go out to play today, so I finally got around to building that flash diffuser I've been waffling on about.

Commercial versions can be bought for $50 or so, but I rather like this one.

I'm not sure if a smaller one would work, I don't see why not. I must look out for one of those little 200 mm bottles of flavoured milk. I did try a white disposable cup, but the plastic wasn't translucent enough.



First take your scissors to the bottle and cut it like this. It would probably be flasher if you took the label off first, but hey I like to look cheap as well!



Bend the little tab and slip it into your camera's flash accessory slot (this is probably not necessary, just slipping the bottle over the flash will do the trick, but it will fall off if you tip it upside down.)

Now it should all look like this:



Before the diffuser, the result with the built in flash was something like this: Actually it was EXACTLY like this: Note the clearly defined shadow and the concentrated light refraction through the spectacles. If this photo had been taken head-on, I would have expected lots of overblown highlights on the cheeks and nose. You know what I'm talking about, I can just sense it!



Now with the diffuser, a much nicer soft shadow, and no harsh reflections!

I think it was well worth the zero expenditure, and will carry it in my camera bag. I've built a different one for the add-on flash gun and they both fit in one of the compartments with a bit of stuff in them.

Perhaps if you wear a Groucho Marx mask in public, they won't notice that you've got the recycling stuck on top of your camera?