While heading to school today, I thought about flood lights, spot lights, etc. I was thinking of how much I'd be willing to spend for a used one but... an idea of making a "home made" flood light occurred to me and it was in my head all day long and I was very anxious to get home and actually try it out. I didn't have access to a lot of materials so my options were very limited.
The first thing I had to look for was a light socket before I could begin anything else. I found an old lamp hidden underneath the crawlspace and figured it was adequate. Dissecting the parts began and about 10-15 minutes later, I had gotten the socket assembly out. I couldn't just clean up and call it a day. I needed the light to be spread out instead of being focused on one spot.The next thing I did was make a "dome" assembly. Unfortunately, the first thing I saw was a box of unused boxes. Yes, I made the "dome" out of that and that took about 20-25 minutes to complete. I didn't pay attention to detail AT ALL so I didn't give a damn if the cuts I made were straight. After the dome was finally taped up with a million pieces of electrical tape, I proceeded to put tin foil in the inside to increase the lighting power. Of course, I took some pictures!
It's pretty obvious that it doesn't look pretty at all. It's outfitted with black electric tape all over the place, generic brown box and it probably makes it the ugliest flood light out there. I didn't care, it did it's job (sort of) and that was my main goal.
Bike with garage lighting
Bike with flash & garage lighting
Bike with garage lighting, no flash & flood lamp
It looks so beautiful.. kinda. You can instantly tell the difference and I got the result I expected when I started this "project" out.
Goalie mask with flash & garage lighting
Goalie mask with garage lighting, no flash & flood lightOverall, I'm pretty happy with my accomplishment. Sure it's not the most effective lighting solution out there and isn't on par with the ones (flood light) you buy at the camera store, it cost me $0 and it did the job. It's not a permanent solution to my lighting woes but it'll prevent me from getting annoyed with shitty illumination until I can afford a proper flood light.
As an easy out solution, I could have just taken a clamp on reading spot lamp that was in my brothers room. It delivered the same illumination and took about 10 seconds to set up. That wasn't possible because my brother started to rage quit. He doesn't even use it, I don't get why he got so mad about it.
None of the shots were "creative", I just wanted to show what I had accomplished. If you want to know how my creativness with the pictures failed, I shot in auto. That didn't work out too well so I had to settle with Program Mode (semi-auto)
Bike with garage lighting
Bike with flash & garage lighting
Bike with garage lighting, no flash & flood lamp
Goalie mask with flash & garage lighting
Goalie mask with garage lighting, no flash & flood light
$24.95USD for Flickr "Pro" is not cheap! If it was around $10USD (per year of course), I would have gotten it already. $24.95USD for that, no thanks. I'd use it for something else - like donate it to the typhoon victims in Manila, Philippines. A few people that I know on the personal side (relatives, family friends) have been affected one way or another. I can live with the upload limit they put in place. The photo stats and all that good stuff is cool though. Just not worth $24.95.
