Here are the plans that I drew up for my Wrap-around flash diffuser. It is designed for the Canon 430EX Speedlite, but can easily be altered to fit most any flash. Sample photos to follow below…Hope this will help those interested in macro photography and I hope my design can help someone else get better lighting in their images too.
I shoot with a Sigma 150mm f/2.8 Macro lens at the closest focus range of the lens in most cases. (About 9 inches +/- from the subject)
Looking inside…I used a piece of aluminum foil placed in the center of the inside layer of vellum.
As for the slots in the vellum…when I was “tweaking” the diffuser I found that cutting the slots in the vellum allowed me to shoot with the flash at a lower power, which as we know means faster recycle time and longer battery life for the flash. The light coming through the slots is a “bounced” light, it tends to be softer and more pleasing.
So, the slots are to let more light through than the vellum allowed…and that light is also being reflected back into the top part of the diffuser by the piece of foil before exiting the slots in the vellum. So the foil is serving a dual purpose in that it stops the “hot spot” and bounces the light before it exits the vellum slots….This is my thinking behind this diffuser design and your mileage may vary….
It’s surprising to me that after decades of people building their own homemade flash diffusers for macro photography, no company has ever decided to manufacture one and sell it.
Brendan, @cygnustech on Instagram (unfortunately he only makes the deals via Insta DM’s) does his own diffusers and sells them.
I bought his older model earlier this year, though haven’t had a chance to put it in proper use yet, but so far the results are amazing.
He mentioned not too long ago that he had another model either ready or coming up soon, not sure which, but I’m sure he’ll mention it if asked.
I know at least few macro photographers who has bought a diffuser from him and are satisfied with the results and obviously you can see the quality from his own photos :)
IF I’m not mistaken, Nicky Bay, well known macro photographer from Singapore, helped Brendan design his first diffuser model, so there’s that too.
Also, if you’re interested in making your own, Florian @macroflodzl on Instagram also, has made some guides to make same type of diffusers that he uses himself.
Thanks for the comments.
Here is another more simple design that I made before the diffuser in the first post. A prototype of such.
Inside
This diffuser gives pretty decent results also. It does need a little more flash power so that contributes to slower flash recycle time when shooting burst of multiple frames.
