Just noticed that this image had gone over the 1000 views on Flickr! Still a bit sad that it’s a diy thing and that it’s not because of the quality of the image but okay…
I got some sheets of honeycomb from saxonpc, which is actually not real honeycomb but looks more like glued straws. Only these are way more solid than my own glued straws so I’m pretty happy with this.
Fairly simple: just cut out with a sharp knife, add some “hobbyrubber” to fit it to the flash. I’ve made it so that there’s room in front of the grid to insert a second grid.
Only thing was that the SB28′s diffuser sticks out quite a bit on the top of the flash so I had to make a little cutout in the grid.
Yes, dear friends, I have switched to the dark side! Well, at least, a bit. I have bought myself a nikon light saber flash. It’s an SB28, they usually go for around 100 euro’s but this guy had dropped it and the foot broke so I got it for ~40. I thought I could fix that and at least create a strobist capable flash. I don’t care about the other stuff with this one. When it arrived I was so surprised at the size. It’s way smaller than my other flashes, and comparing to the Canon 540EZ’s it’s a midget and they’ve got the same power… The reason I needed a new flash was that I had fried one of the 540′s (I had 2 of them). So now that I fixed the SB with some help of a piece of PCB, I am very pleased with this little one. Maybe I’ll try to sell the 540 and buy another SB28. Bonus that you get is the pc sync port, this will come in handy.
There are some downsides though… I don’t like the soft touch keys, and I know of someone else’s that are busted. The flash test button isn’t easy to operate and I’ll get loads of questions from people that aren’t aware of strobist why I’m using a nikon flash with a Canon camera 
So, in the pictures there are some details on the repair of the SB and the size comparison.
I was asked by Mitros to shoot for their 10 years anniversary a series of photographs on the seventies areas of Nieuwegein. These are very different, some very green and some very gray. These will be used at a conference on these areas Friday 4th of April.
At first the assignment was very clear on what they wanted; a shop owner in front of his shop, recreation in the park etc. However, during the assignment and after some first results they asked for more “artsy” or abstract images. There was not enough time to do all the stuff in the more abstract form but I got some of it redone. In the end they chose 10 images to be printed on 3mm Forex (a plastic) at 50×75 cm with a black border.
Okay guys, DIY-ing is fun, I admit but it can be dangerous. I made the DIY packs and recently fried one of my flashes 
I had put the connectors to the battery on the wrong way! mmm… what’s that funny smell. Just a word of advice: be careful!
And no, this ain’t no april fools day joke. I just wish it was…
A while ago we met with a couple of photographers, models and bands to go shooting in 013 in Tilburg. Great location, great people and loads of fun! Without further comments… just check out the pics!
During the Brussels strobist meet we encountered some low-light situations (gearing towards no-light). The camera’s didn’t really like that and I got thinking about getting an ST-2. But as usual this requires money and why spent money when you’ve got about 6 focus assits in the house? Every flash I have has a focus assist. But what if you don’t want the flash to fire? That’s one thing none of my flashes can actually. So I could’ve taped over the head of the flash but I decided to try and mod my 430EZ. The 430 is not suited for strobist stuff since it has a un-disablable (is that even a word?) sleep function.
First thing I did was to put a post-it on my camera hotshoe to disconnect the centercontact. Just to check if by disabling this the flash wouldn’t fire. No surprise, it didn’t and the other function were still working. (Still amused by the puzzled look on my brother-in-laws face when he took my cam to take a pic and was wondering what the post-it was doing there)
I also decided to add a hotshoe to fit my ebay triggers. Otherwise you’d have to attach the trigger by wire to the pc-sync port and you’d have to find a way to attach the trigger somewhere.
As for how I did it??? Just look at the pics, they explain the rest I guess.
Overhead Cabin,
originally uploaded by o7photographs.
Just posted this one on flickr, no time to process the other stuff from monday & tuesday’s trip to the uk but this one I liked very much!
I was in the airplane experimenting with white balance settings and found this view of the roof to be quite interesting to shoot. So I know have it in a range of different colors. 
edit: it made flickr explore! check it out here!
I have two Canon 540EZ’s which have an issue with low battery power. If the batteries aren’t fully charged, the flashes will not sync under 1/30th. At least not with the cactus remotes. To bypass this problem and in addition get a shorter recycle time for the flashes I decided to switch to DIY external battery packs. These are so called Lead Acid batteries or SLA’s with a voltage of 6 Volt. I got mine at a model building shop, I decided to go for the 3 Amps version which is still pretty big and heavy but not too big and heavy in my opinion. 3 Amps should last quite a while. It uses wooden dummy penlites so you can always use normal penlites if you want. I think they’ll come in handy at the dutch strobist meet in march. Check out the pictures to see how I did all this.
(click the title to view the images)
