Flexible hoses

One of the most important components of a good fiberstrobe adapter after the fiber itself is the flexible hose. My very first DIY fiber optic project failed mainly because the arms I used were not flexible enough and adjustment just didn't work. This was my first version from 2007:

The concept worked somehow but adjustment of the arms was PITA, so I stopped using it. One picture below was taken with this prototype:

For a while I put the developement of this kind of adapter on ice and focused more on ringflash adapters. Later on I saw a very elegant solution for macro snoot on an underwater photography forum (www.wetpixel.com). This gave me an idea to re-make the first prototype and later on the fiberstrobe V3 was born:

Same idea but this time it really worked well. Adjustment of the arms was easy and arms stayed in position allowing the precise adjustment of the light. So the key of the success was to apply a proper flexible hose (filled with optical fibers inside). I used loc-line products, which is originally designed to machine tool industry to vacuum or to stream coolant to a proper position. It's perfect since we want to stream or light from the flash also to a proper position.
Loc-line is a perfect choice for your DIY projects and I can recommend modularhose.com as a very good on-line vendor.
However, in Europe I haven't found a good distributor with easy on-line shopping options, so I looked for alternatives. I found the following companies producing and selling similar flexible pipes:

ARIANA

FlexoLine

MaxiFlex

I haven't tried any of them yet but I ordered hoses from ARIANA for my next project. I will report on the quality soon. By the way, it will be a really cool project, so stay tuned.

LEGO meets loc-line and optical fibers (and they all go underwater)

I couldn't resist and bought a MeiKe cheap UW housing for my nex-5. It's specifically designed for the 16mm pancake lens, hence the whole set-up is really small. First I thought that I will use for available light photos mainly in pool or for snorkelling.
This housing also accommodate the on-board flash (actually it’s a small add on GN7 flash), but due to it's position first I thought it's useless.
Later on came the idea to split and channel the light via optical fibers to a better position. I had many non-underwater project combining optical fibers and loc-line flexible arms.

My only problem was the attachment of the arms to the housing and here came the LEGO to the picture. So I stole some bricks from the collection of my son and glued it to the housing and created this:

So it covers the front and prevent any front lighting but channels the light to the side in the arms.

Recent underwater adapters are mainly using this concept to create snoots (AKA fibersnoot) but I decided to spread the light a bit instead of focusing it:

The same LEGO concept may also work for DIY optical triggering of external stobes.

Picture below shows the rig in work (taken in the mirror):

I tested only once (actually today) in a local lake with not so good visibility and the results are not bad (but don't expect spectacular pictures mainly due to the conditions, lack of good subjects and skills of the photographer). But at least the flash didn't cause any backscatter.

DIY fiber sync cord

The nex-5 is not really good for strobist applications. I bought a Yongnuo YN460-II to use as a wireless strobe with it but the results were very hit and miss. To use it outside in bright condition was hopeless. Few weeks ago I saw a thread on dpreview http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1042&message=41594135 with some nice macro applications. Scott, the OP even referred to my blog :-)
He used a fiber optic cable to sync his nex with a yongnuo.
Using this idea I also created my version using lego bricks, cardboard and duck tape and some 1mm diameter fiber. This is the first version:

It worked well in the room and also in the forest but later on under bright sun it failed due to the light leakage. The other problem was that the fixing with the rubber band covered the buttons on the back. I created a new way of attaching the fiber to the sensor of the flash using  velcro:

Now it synchs correctly even under direct sunlight and the buttons are free to operate. So far I have only few photos with this set-up (using rim lighning of course):