Photocritic photography blog

Tired of harsh flash, but not feeling like paying up for an expensive flash diffuser? There are dozens of way you can accomplish this yourself, but few are as cheap as the version Ed Perchick has cobbled together - built out of a plastic milk jug!

by Ed Perchick
(visit Remez Media for Ed’s website)

Step one of this trick is to procure a jug of milk - if you are based in a country where these are impossible to get, use anything else that is semi-stiff, semi-translucent plastic. If all else fails, some medium-thick builder’s plastic is perfectly usable.

Empty the milk jug - preferably by drinking the milk. (it’s good for you, and goes great in hot drinks, cereal, or milkshake.)

Wash the milk jug thorougly with warm soapy water - there’s nothing worse than a photographer who stinks of milk that has gone off! Anybody who has ever done experiments with photographing milk drops under hot lights knows how unpleasant it is.

Cut the top off the milk jug, and cut vertical slits long enough for your flash head to be far enough in, so that you can securely attach it with the elastic bands. If you want a more professional-looking version, some velcro can be used instead.

You may want to taper the corners, but that is essentially it. The time is spent tweaking it once the major work has been done.

Slip the tabs you cut, through the rubber bands, and your work is done. The image on the right shows approximately how your flashgun should look.

How and why it works

Diffusing light is essentially just the action of making sure that light that once was directional gets bounced in all sorts of directions, by letting the light come from a source that is “bigger”. This means that shadows will be less pronounced, and you get more of an “omni” light source, which comes from all directions.

So how well does this cheap light diffuser work? Pretty well, actually! On the right, there are some images which hopefully can give you an idea of how well it performs.

First, how my test subject looks with direct flash. As expected, the result this is nasty - lots of harsh shadows, and blown highlights.

Next, if we bounce the flash off the ceiling - a lot better, as there are no harsh shadows behind the subject, and no burnt out highlights on the model. However, the eyes are very dark and the shadows on the model itself are ominous, but that wasn’t what we were looking for. Furthermore, the filing cabinet is taking all the light.

Finally, the diffuser. This image displays the flash bounced off the ceiling, combined with the milk jug diffuser - The result is a combination of the two photos above, and the result looks very sharp. The subject is well lit, and whilst there are shadows behind, they are softened around the edge.

Conclusions - a light diffuser just needs to do that - diffuse light. The larger the surface area of the item you sent the light through, the more the light is diffused. A milk jug works relatively well.

The downside is that it does not look particularly professional, and you may not want to show up at a wedding with one of these. It’s a great party trick for taking photos of family, and friends. It works nicely, and can be replaced or repaired for next to nothing.

Good luck building your reflector!

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This entry is © Haje Jan Kamps / Photocritic.org, and was posted on Friday, December 16th, 2005. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.