My newest invention – the light gun
October 19, 2009 by Juergen Specht · 6 Comments
For an upcoming fashion shooting I was in need of a battery powered, extreme focus-able concentrated light source. And with some stuff I had lying around, I was able to build my own light gun for a material price of about 300yen ($3US)…
Test shot with my new light gun
All what is needed is a flash and a magnification glass, which I bought in a 100yen shop.
When arranged as seen in the picture below at a distance of about 45cm…
…and wrapped in some kind of tube (here my first, improvised prototype)…
…it creates an extremely focused flash of about the size of a A4 page at a distance of ca. 3m.
A better usage example is the first picture, where my assistant held the light gun to illuminate only the face of my lovely model, but I can imagine this would be also useful for bird shooters or everybody who wants to have a very focused spot of light at a short distance, or a very long reach without using usual flash extenders.
I created my first prototype with just some paper, a piece of hard foam to make it more stable and some tape. If I need it more often, I probably would spend 500yen ($5US) for a plastic pipe and create a more stable version, but so far this shabby construction works just fine. More pictures below. From the front…
…from the side…
…and from behind.
If you like the creative usage of flashes, check also my posts “The making of Jurrassic” and my Flash Helmet.
Sherlock Holmes to Watson: ” Good grief, Watson, I think we’ve stumbled on the little known relic of the dinosaur age: Garguantosaurus DonnerBlitzundLightThemAll MetzisNotNikonos Rex Mitt GafferTaperum ?!”
Haha, exactly! :)
I love this.
At one point I was hving some issue with the inverse square law. I thought it did not work because I thought the flash throws the light in a similar way to the light gun :) well – it does not: http://www.diyphotography.net/the-inverse-square-law-experiment-done-right-myth-unbusted
Hi Udi,
damn light! Never does what we expect from it ;)
But since you posted about your pinhole experiment, you should see what you can do with a small opening in front of your flash: http://blog.juergenspecht.com/2009/the-making-of-jurassic/
Enjoy!
That poor model must have been seeing 1 huge spot for hours!
Its dangerous to come near my laboratory ;)