DIY speed light modifiers

I've picked up some tidbits here and there regarding DIY light modifiers for use with flash units. Nothing new under the sun here but I thought I'd share what I've done.

I started by attaching some adhesive velcro strips to my flash heads. I use that velcro to attach the different light modifiers. I have changed the "sex" of the velcro since this pic was taken and lengthened the strips. Now the flashes have the fuzzy surface which is as it should be.

As you can see, I've stuck the velcro on 3 sides of the flashes.

Flags and reflectors.

Here's 2 basic ones. A 3 sided reflector and some solid flags. I used black foam core as I find it to be good material to work with and use (plus I had some on hand). Black matte board is probably better than foam core but it's tougher to cut. Velcro is applied to the foam core pieces to allow attaching to the flashes. I suggest using 1" gaffer tape on all of the edges of the foam core.

Here they are mounted to the flashes (I didn't make the softbox shown in the center).

Here's two of the flags being used one as a topper and the other as a sider.

The flags are great at controlling light spill. Of course being so close to the light source, the edge is not that defined so sometimes I use much bigger flags placed further away from the lights.

Snoots

I made two snoots out of black wrap which work great. I picked up a "real" one at a photo store and I don't think it's any better at controlling light. The nice thing about using black wrap is it's easy to shorten the length of the snoot by folding the black wrap back on itself or change the shape at the output end.

Here's 3 snoots of differing lengths and how they control the spread of light.

I was at Home Depot the other day and found something I think makes for a neat snoot that will allow for some light spill. It's a flexible/extendable adapter for rain gutters. It will  extend from 8" to 18". It cost $2.68

Gels

I got ahold of some lighting gels and cut it into strips and attached velcro to the ends of the gel strips. I also have some shorter pieces of gel that can be taped onto the flash or layered with the velcro'd strips. Currently I have 3 levels of CTO, Some CTB, plus green, a piece of green "party" gel and some ND. I doubt I'll ever use the ND but I had the chance to get some and figured why not.

A piece of gel attached to a flash.

Showing 3 different levels of CTO gel.

Edit: I've since bought some gel kits from Here: http://www.photogels.com. Their kits come with velcro dots that attach to the gels. I'd still like to find some kind of clear holders to attach to the flashes that the gels would slide into.

Light grids

Time consuming to make but I think it's worth it. Thanks to McDonalds for donating the straws. Once again I used foam core for the grid frames. I still haven't found black straws locally but the white ones still work.

Here's a few pics of the process. I didn't use the paper cutter at all.

I cut up a photo and placed it inside the frame to protect the flash head. Next time I might use hot glue but the craft glue I bought seems to work okay.

Edit: The glue I used dried out and lost adheshion. So next time I will use a different glue.

I made some mini flags for the grids to further control the light.

While I was shopping for straws I decided to get some colored bendy straws just for fun. It was an interesting experiment. It further restricts the spread of light and the colors of the straws don't seem to have much of an effect  that I can see as yet.

Here's the grids I've made so far.