Ring Light
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 26.07.08
Sometimes a ring light is used in photography to give a distinct look to the eyes of a model, and the shadows behind them… they can also be slightly on the expensive side. My first reaction, especially after finding instructions for hacking camping lights; wouldn’t making one myself be cheaper? I’d even mix different colour temperatures to make an assembly that could be adjusted to match other light sources.
After shopping around a bit on eBay, I found some super bright lights (over 100,000mcd); both cool white (7000k) and warm white (3000k). Some more purchases from the local RadioShack, and I was set to go. I thought.
Turns out, mcd is measured at the centre of the lamp’s beam. When the lamp has a 10 to 12 degree spread, it results in bright light in the centre, and nothing else. A wide-angle LED lamp, with similar mcd rating, would actually output far more light. Since I was stuck with narrow beam lamps, I gave up on mixing colour temperatures, and focused on just producing enough light to take a picture at normal speeds (the pictures taken here were around 400iso). In all, I used about 80 lamps (40 of each colour temperature) in a ring assembly set on perfboard painstakingly shaped with a knife (something corroded the blade within minutes… I fear for what vapours I’ve been breathing) and Dremel tool (which, I’m sure, has now coated my lungs with caustic dust!).
I carved out holes in a Tupperware bowl and lid, and used a piece of florescent light paneling to diffuse the light (it wasn’t enough, so I added some diffused contact paper as well). With some industrial Velcro for mounting the pieces, and an old pair of headphones for the modular battery pack cabling, it was finally done!
The good news is, it turned out ok. Not great, but ok. The bad news is… it probably would have been cheaper to buy one new. Especially after all the learning experiences (exactly how mcd is measured), my mistakes (two or three plastic containers), and the less than ideal light quality (LED’s, even warm white, do not produce very balanced wavelengths).
Anyway, learn from my mistakes! There are better ways to make a ring light, and unless you have a good source of super bright lamps with wider viewing angles, I’d recommend trying something with flash bulbs! Perhaps like this…? Maybe next year… 
And yes, those stylish glasses are my safety goggles… I may do crazy stuff with my Dremel tool, but I’m not a complete idiot. Except for that one time when I carved slate, and covered my bathroom in stone mud… and that other time when… well, those are other stories, for another time.
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Leave it to John…even his safety glasses are pimp.