fiberstrobe V3 does science

When not dealing with fiberoptics my daily job is microbiology and molecular biology. A colleague of mine asked me to take a better picture of his agar-shakes used for cultivation and isolation of specific microorganisms. The V3 version of the fiberstrobe flash adapter seemed to be the best option for the lighting. Here is a selected photo and the V3 adapter in action:

Self-portrait with optical fibers

I wanted to upgrade my avatar and tried something closely linked to the "fiberstrobe" concept. I'm also a Star Wars fan, so lights coming out of my fingers (via optical fibers of course) seemed to be a good idea.
This is my favourite from the series:

I'm away for two weeks, but after that I will post some new pictures with the twin flash adapter.

Cheers

Marcell

Few pictures with the twin adapter

Hack a day posted about my new twin flash adapter, which caused a big traffic on my blog
http://hackaday.com/2012/07/17/optical-fiber-twin-flash-adapter/
I got a righteous critique about the lack of photos taken with the new rig. It's mainly due to the bad weather here in Leipzig. The wind is the biggest enemy of the macrophotographers. The rain can be OK but not when it's combined with wind. So I can post only some photos taken inside my flat. Nothing really fancy but they prove the concept:

This picture was taken with bare end fibers without any diffuser. You can see from the shape of the shadow that the light is coming from the two upper corners. The rest of the pictures were taken with standard diffuse light:

Twin-flash adapter step by step

 This post is also an entry to the "How I took it contest" of http://www.diyphotography.net/

The idea to create an adapter mimicking a twin flash came from the V3 design. This adapter included 4 flexible arms and it's attached to a bigger cobra-type external flash. Although the ring-flash adapter works well with my mirrorless camera (nex-5) I wanted something more versatile option. In addition, I always wanted to try a twin-flash but the price of the commercial products just distracted me. So I decided to create something similar. I had to find some solution for the support of the flexible arms, because it was obvious that a small flash of a mirrorless camera cannot hold it. So I designed a plate that will hold the arms and cut out it from fiberboard. Something more sturdy, such as aluminium plate would be even better. After drilling holes for the arm and the screw for the camera I painted it black:
 

This time I wanted to use ariana arms (see my previous post about flexible arms) but the local supplier I tried brought me loc-line. I used an Y-piece in the design but I had some difficulties to push through the fibers. You may try T-piece, and order all pieces in black version. The orange one looks a bit stupid:

It looks like that when fixed to the plate by screws (it was custom made and quite expensive):

After gluing the end of the fibers in the middle to a plastic piece (for details, check my previous post) and the next day I trimmed back and polished the ends. Depending on your flash powering the adapter, you may use some cardboard to attach the branch of fibers in the middle to your flash. I used a big plastic syringe (60 ml), because the head of my new flash is round shaped. I used for this final step hot glue to fix the blue plastic piece to the tube cut out from the syringe and aluminium folie to pad the tube inside and lots of duck tape to cover it outside (prevention of light leakage is very important). See the final form of the adapter below:

Alternatively, you may look around in the kitchen for some hard paper roll. The plastic material of the syringe was difficult to cut. You may attach any kind of light modifier to the end of your twin-flash adapter:

How it works? Like a twin flash:

In addition, it can create some very special light effect like this sea urchin lit from inside:

With this set-up:

The other advantage of this twin-flash adapter that it can be folded in many ways and it can be used even with wide angle or fisheye lenses:

Cheers

Marcell

Fiberstrobe V5 twin adapter

I've just finished the new V5 twin-flash adapter:

More details are coming soon!!

Ringflash adapter re-loaded

In a previous post I gave a detailed description about how to build a ringflash adapter:
http://fiberstrobe.blogspot.de/2011/05/how-to-build-ring-flash-adapter.html
Few days ago I received my new flash for my mirrorless camera (NEX-5). The small flash came with this camera was very weak, but this new one has a guide number of 20, which is enough for most of the macro work. I've accommodated the end fitting to attach it to the new flash:

Minor modification was to add few fibers to direct the focus assist light to the ring for easier focusing also in the dark.

You can see a branch of fibers just below the sony sign. The new flash could feed many more fibers but I was lazy to rebuild it again.

Initial tests are very promising. At iso 200 (base iso for nex) it's no problem to achieve f25 (we would bump into the diffraction limit earlier anyway). I tested briefly outside but it works very nicely and provides a nice even light:

Now, I'm working on a twin flash adapter project. It will be also powered with the new flash. It looks cool, so stay tuned.

My new flash has arrived

Finally I can start some really cool project to support my nex.