Last week I was doing some research on lighting when I stumbled across Chuck Gardner’s portrait lighting tutorial, full of practical and straightforward information. One of the things Chuck mentions is that diffusers (like the popular Sto-Fen) don’t work well without a low ceiling to bounce off of. Instead, a better option is to use a reflector that will bounce all of the light forward, but off a bigger target — making the light softer and more diffuse than if it had come straight out of the flash head.

Chuck has an excellent page on making a DIY flash diffuser, but he doesn’t give an exact template to follow, since all flashes have slightly different dimensions. However, he does have a nice set of photos documenting the process, so I was able to follow his instructions and create one that works perfectly with Nikon’s SB-600 flash. (It might work with the SB-800 as well… anyone know whether their flash heads have the same dimensions?)

A DIY flash diffuser for the SB-600

To get started, download the template and grab a piece of black mat board (with a white back) from your local craft shop. The template is pretty simple — cut on the solid lines, fold on the dotted ones. For the most part you can follow Chuck’s tutorial and my pictures above, but here’s a rough overview:

• Cut a half-inch-wide band of mat board and wrap it around your flash head, then staple. The rest of the diffuser will attach here, and this band will hold the diffuser on to the flash.
• Tape the template to the white side of the mat board and cut along the edges. A rotary paper cutter works well for this.
• Using an X-Acto knife, make the two vertical cuts that start at the bottom of the template. These should go all the way through the mat.
• With the template still taped to the white side of the mat board, use the knife to make little punctures along the diagonal dotted lines that start where your vertical cut stopped and that go downward toward the outside of the template. These punctures will tell you where to score the board for folding later.
• Remove the template, flip the mat board over, and re-tape the template to the black side. This time, use the knife to make little punctures along all the dotted lines except for the two diagonal ones you traced on the white side.
• Take the template off the mat board and set it aside. Using a ruler and your knife, trace the punch lines you made and make shallow cuts that go roughly halfway through the board. Do this for all the punch lines on the black side, then flip over the board and trace the two diagonal punch lines on the white side. These cuts will allow the board to make sharp folds without excessive bending.
• Fold along the lines you cut; the cuts you made are always on the outside of the fold. You’re making a convex shape that wraps around the white side of the board — look at the pictures above to get a better idea of how to fold.
• Tape the bottom of the reflector to the outside of the band you stapled earlier. Chuck’s page has good close-ups of this.
• Bend the top flap of the reflector down and bend its wings to meet the sides of the rest of the unit. Use tape to hold these in place.
• Use tape to go over the rest of the cuts and folds on the black side of the board to keep them from peeling. I also used a small amount of tape along the front edge of the reflector to keep the board from splitting with time.

Voilà, you now have a flash diffuser for your SB-600! Give it a try — it should look better than direct flash, and it should help in situations where you don’t have a low ceiling to bounce off of.

I’d love to hear about any modifications you come up with — there’s always room for improvement!