Homemade Reflectors

[white]

If you want your photos to look professional, you have to use professional techniques.

Frequently, DIY tools simply cannot provide professional looking results.

Although it is unclear what professional photos look like, unless you mean photography which includes a sleek watermark (useless) and fad techniques (like color desaturation).

I am more inclined to believe that, at the end of the day, portfolio is all that matters, and if you have hundreds of photos of newborns and couples in cliche poses and zero creative ideas, no amount of professional gear will help you.

Having a professional look can also be intimidating to some people.

<shrug> Some people think they can only do good work with the best equipment, the best light, the best models. Those people are tools.

 

[squee]

My first reflector was a X-Acto fold out display board (y'know those tri-fold boards we used for presentations in high school) covered in aluminum foil. It worked but oh was it embarrassing. I bought a professional to save my pride.

 

[Flash Harry]

Someone told me if you are going to shoot professional you need professional looking equipment. That sold me right there! Go to Amazon. They have them for 8 dollars... You can still bring your homemade one if you feel it works better but at least this way you appear more professional and then you can make a joke about how you bought this, but you like to use your homemade better.....

I totally just bought this off amazon. lol

Boy, do we ever get ripped off in Canada. The Amazon Canada site has the same set, but it's $25. I wonder if I can get the US site to ship to Canada.

Well you definitely won't get a reflector that cost £4 over here, a roll of aluminum foil cost me half that last week, a small reflector, last time I looked was £30, and its a long time since I looked. H

 

[c.cloudwalker]

Frequently, DIY tools simply cannot provide professional looking results.

:thumbdown: Sorry but I have to disagree. That is absolutely not true.

There is a huge difference between looking professional and having gear that does. You can have all the most expensive pro gear you want but if you act like an amateur, you will be perceived as an amateur. And then, you can have put-together-at-home gear and no one will question it because you act like a pro.

The main/only difference between pro/home made gear is the look of the finish but that is easy to overcome by acting pro. Most customers have no understanding of photography and, so, they have no understanding of the gear.

Make your home made gear look good and no one will question it.

 

[Josh66]

The main/only difference between pro/home made gear is the look of the finish but that is easy to overcome by acting pro. [...]
Make your home made gear look good and no one will question it.

If you look at most of the accessories you can buy, they don't look very hard to make.

A flash diffuser, yeah - that would probably be a little tricky for most people (to make one that looked just like the pro ones). Some 'pro' flash accessories are nothing more than some Velcro and a few scraps of fabric though...

Something like a reflector though, it's mostly fabric... The hard part would be finding the materials, and that probably wouldn't actually be that hard.

If you were willing to put the effort in, you could easily make something better than anything you could buy, for half the cost. You could tailor it to your needs too.


DIY doesn't have to equal low quality.