The second DIY project I’ve done recently is a flash sock. Now, it’s a little silly that I did a DIY for something that costs as little as $10 (some are listed for $30+ which I think is also silly), but I had the materials on hand and I didn’t want to wait for the sock to come in the mail.
What I used:
- For the exterior, diffuser part I used white felt and white plastic from a picnic spread. I’m sure you could fuse plastic bags together and do the same thing. Although, you would want to make sure they were plain plastic bags.
- For the interior reflective top I used the shiny metal bag from a Pop’s cereal bag
- I used elastic cording to attach the sock to the flash and white thread to sew it all together.
I ended up hand sewing the sock together, which wasn’t hard but a little more time consuming than if I had done it with a sewing machine. Despite the freakish appearance my camera takes when I use the sock, I really like how the photos turn out. Check it out:
The flash sock helps to avoid over-exposure and softens all of the hard edges usually created with the flash. It’s also interesting to observe that my sock warms up the photos ever so slightly. Interesting, hu?!? While my flash sock works on my pop-up flash, the sock idea is really optimized for an external flash.
Do any of you readers have an external flash that you love, or know of one I could get on the cheap? I’ve been thinking of getting one, and would love some pointers from users/camera enthusiasts and not salesman.
