23 February 2011

Building a Diffusor for the MJ-850

OK .. there is one problem when using a cheap LED lamp for lighting on photo and video shots. The lamp is using a frequency to switch on and off in modulation to establish de different brightness levels. This rapid on and off interferes with the focus and light measurements my camera is taking, resulting in not being able to finish the apperture cycle.

Everything is working brilliantly as long as shuttertimes remain below 1/100th.

So I started a small personal project to see if I can also create a diffusor for the MJ-850. Currently I settled for a lid of a plastic container and some rubber bands, but I cannot take that into the deep. The setup actually works, though.

Resulting in some good macro shots of a nice little Hairpin Nudibranch, found in the swimmingpool:


So the start is done, at least. I will be posting progress on the blog as well.

Update: 5-5-11
The diffusor worked .. the lamp quit on me. After "developing" the first "prototype" I took it with me to Egypt to be used on the night dives. Results are very good! I got a nice and even distribution of light, even the simple rubberband solution functioned, and I was able to switch between having the diffusor on or off. Publishing photos of the results:

Walkabout by a featherstar
Nice and evenly distributed, suited for close-up with nothing more than medium setting of the lamp. In both cases no camera flash was used.

strolling about
Showing the effect of the lamp from a different angle (to far down) so you are able to see lighting effect.

No comments:

Post a Comment