I know what you're thinking. "That idiot Sorrel is writing about another DIY ring-flash?" The answer is "yes," but I guarantee this is both the coolest ring flash you have ever seen, and also the only one that looks like a kind of cyberpunk schoolgirl, complete with fiber-optic pigtails.
The project was carried out by Ole Wolf, who painstakingly put together this rather precise setup. It uses 150 fiber optic cables, fused together at one end separated into a ring at the other. The ring is made from acrylic, and has 150 tiny holes drilled in it in concentric circles, which are themselves offset to give a more even light.
Fiber optics are designed to transmit light, and therefore are way more efficient than even the best commercial ring flash adapters. And because the cables come in a relatively small bundle, the light from your camera's built in flash is plenty.
Wolf's design is simple but effective, and manages to convey almost all of the flash's light to the subject. It has another advantage, too: because the light is coming from the built in strobe, it is measured and controlled by the camera's brain. Wolf suspects that slight inefficiencies in the adapter might cause a "miscalculation of the target flash intensity," but as far as I know, DSLRs calculate the flash exposure on the fly, with pre-flashes and clever tricks. this should mean you get perfect exposures.
So there you go: yet another DIY ring flash. But it's cool, right? Also, it should work just fine without fusing the fibers together at one end, so next time you see an old fiber optic lamp at a yard-sale, snap it up. Now you know just what to do with it.
DIY Ring Flash with a 150-Element Optical Fiber Whip [Blazing Angles via Hack-a-Day]
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