These photo albums present various designs for home-made soft lighting panels and stands that can be useful in portraiture, still life or product photography. Click on the Flash Design folder to see my design for use with a slave flash (or hotlight) mounted behind the 3x4' panel on a single pole stand (what I currently use with slave flash). See the Hotlight Design folder for another lighting stand designed for use with "hotlight" illumination using the same 3x4' panel with an inexpensive quartz-halogen worklight. Soft flash folder shows a simple way to soften flash output on a typical flash unit, plus a tip for selecting nylon fabric. Other folders show designs for a flash bouncer, backdrop stand, reflector stand, and carrying case for the stands. Disclaimer: I cannot guarantee that any of these designs will give you the exact results you want, but they can give some good results with minimal investment of money (my goal), if you have the time to experiment and are somewhat of a handyman with some basic tools. I bought all the supplies I needed except the nylon fabric at a local hardware store (Lowes, like Home Depot). Ripstop Nylon is Item number 263-7783 at Jo-Ann Fabrics, 60" width @ 5.99/yard. Or maybe from looking at what I have done, you might come up with a better design to fit your own needs. I'd enjoy hearing about your own endeavors to use a home-made lighting setup. References: Dean Collin's Tinker Tubes: http://www.deancollins.com/tt-book.pdf Todd Asher's Backdrop Stand: http://home.mn.rr.com/rayzorfist/temp/ Todd's Instructions: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1025&message=4158683
