hi all. i have been meaning to get myself a softbox for quiet sometime but all the ones i see online are too expensive to suit me plus u dont get this stuff here locally. so i decided to make one myself. here is what you are going to need.
- box. i used one leftover from the sub install that i did for a friend of mine.
- tape
- some sturdy sticks. wooden/plastic 1 ft rulers would do
- some chrome sticker. can be bought from car decoration shops.
- some wood
- bulb/tungsten rod holder (for flash some thick styrofoam)
- bulb/tungsten rod (or flash)
- white cloth
i dont have the pic of the complete box but here is how it looks cut up into pieces.
this is the sturdy stick i used. since i did it late in night, i didnt have any rulers so i used some wiring duct. crude isnt it?
oh i forgot to mention that u need box cutter as well
this is the old flashgun i was originally going to use but i changed my mind. will tell u later why
to use the maximum of the box, i marked it from one edge towards the other like this. this is so that there is enough area on the back of the bulb mounting plate to be able to mount it to a stand
used the box cutter to cut the box on the marks
this is what u get after the box is cut
tape four of these such pieces together like this
this is what you get
tape the inside of the cardboard with the chrome tape. its a straight forward procedure and i did not take any pics during it so...
as you can see i have taped the ends of the sheets together to make a box of sorts.
then i used the sturdy sticks on the back of the sheets so that they can hold their shape in the form of a pyramid
next i taped a piece of square wood on one side of the box. this will be our mounting plate
as you can see there are five holes in it. i used some nut and bolts to secure it to the softbox shell
from the inside
i used the hole left in the softbox above as a template and cut a wooden piece that would fit in there. then opened up the brass bulb holder and mounted in the center of the wood plate. also drilled a hole in the center for wire to pass
thats the other part of the bulb holder.
used tape to stick the plate to the box
as you can see i had originally intended it to hold a flash but since i dont currently have a remote flash trigger so i decided to use a bulb instead. for flash i just marked the outline of flash head in a thick piece of styrofoam and then cut it with the box cutter
then to make the softbox cloth, i used the box itself as a template and cut the cloth around 3-4 inches on each side. then used hot glue on the cloth and samad bond on box to stick small velcro pieces. you can also use elastic but once again as i didnt have any at the moment so i went ahead with velcro
put in a small bulb i had lying around in the holder and plugged it in. since it was only 60 watts, the light is not all that much but the thing to look for here are the shadows. this pic is with the softbox off and no flash
with the softbox on
pic of the softbox on
some more shots with softbox
my HD7
closeup
with a reflector on the shadow side. basically just propped the cloth it was lying on up a little
the setup for above pic. the bulge on the right in cloth is actually the bulb box used to raise the cloth up to act as a reflector.
so. what do u guys think of it? please do comment