LEGO meets loc-line and optical fibers

I couldn't resist and bought a MeiKe cheap UW housing for my nex-5. It's specifically designed for the 16mm pancake lens, hence the whole set-up is really small. First, I thought that I will use for available light photos only mainly in pools or for snorkeling.

This housing also accomodate the the on-board flash (actually it's a small add on GN7 flash), but due to it's position first I thought it's useless.

Later on came the idea to split and channel the light via optical fibers to better positions. I had many non-underwater project combining optical fibers and loc-line flexible arms:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fiberstrobe/s...57625456171059/

and there are many DIY and professional applications on wetpixel using this combination. My only problem was the attechment of the arms to the housing and here came the LEGO to the picture. So I stole some bricks from the collection of my son and glued it to the housing and created this:

So it covers the front and prevent any front lighting but channels the light to the side in the arms.

Recent underwater adapters are mainly using this concept to create snoots (AKA fibersnoot) but I decided to spread the light a bit instead of focusing it:

The same LEGO concept may also work for DIY optical triggering of external stobes.

It might be used best for compact cameras.

I hope you can use some of these ideas

Cheers

Marcell

Picture below shows the rig in work (taken in the mirror):

I tested only once (actually today) in a local lake with not so good visibility and the results are not bad (but don't expect spectacular pictures mainly due to the conditions, lack of good subjects and skills of the photographer). But at least the flash didn't cause any backscatter.

here the light could be more even:

and also here I would like to have more light on the tail of the pike:

Overall it's not perfect but much better than the flash alone. It might work better with the 30mm macro lens.

Cheers

Marcell

Nice work. I love seeing Lego crop up all over the place.

Nice work. I love seeing Lego crop up all over the place.

Ah Jesper, thanks for the first comment. I thought that this little DIY project will be completely unnoticed.

OK, it can't compete with an external flash (note that the lego connection can be also used for fiber optic triggering of an external strobe), but it may improve the quality of the light coming from a compact camera, without the bulk (and cost) of an external strobe.

Especially in macro mode.

What was interesting is that despite the murky water and bad visibility there was no backscatter in my pictures.

Cheers

Marcell

Very cool DYI project. I enjoyed the non-underwater setup and the slideshow, very creative use of lighting.

Very cool DYI project. I enjoyed the non-underwater setup and the slideshow, very creative use of lighting.

Thanks. It seems to be that the new forum engine shows the flickr link as a slide-show. I tested again the rig recently and it seems to me that this small flash has noticable effect only on very close subjects. But for close focus pictures, the concept works. Some new photos:

Cool hack!

super cool job

v cool