A few short weeks ago, I was shooting a night time IHSA playoff game at Normal Community West High School and ran in to a fellow shooter and friend. As I made my way around the field to say hello and chat for a couple seconds, I noticed something that made me take a second look. On his flash unit was an extender. I'd heard of Better Beamers before but had never seen on in person, still haven't. His unit was a dozen or so years old and while it used the fresnel lense technology like the Better Beamer, it was made by someone else.
Inquiring about just how much it would help and what if any side effects there were, I decided to look into one. Online, I found a couple different variations with the Better Beamer being the more popular. Next I visited a couple of photo chat rooms to get an idea of what people thought that had used them. They are used a lot in nature photography and I found some using them in sports photograpy. The biggest compaint I could find was escaping light. The Better Beamer uses two side brackets to hold the fresnel lens out in front of the flash, but has no top or bottom sides. So, while the light making its through the lens is magnified and does add benefit, the escaping light was lost or in some scenarios left unwanted side effects.
I didn't really like the price and the DIY guy on my shoulder convinced me to look around to see if I could find the material to make one.
The fresnel lens is most common in pager readers. They are thin sheets of magnifying plastic that you hold above a sheet of print to enlarge the print to ease reading. They are available at most department stores (Kmart, Walmart, Barnes and Noble, Etc.) I found them for as little as $2.70 for a full size sheet to nearly $8.00 for the same size. When I found them for less than $3 apiece, I bought a few.
Next I needed something to make a bracket. Well, they say you can do anything with duct tape... A roll of black and a couple page size sheets of foam core and I was ready with the knife.
Trimming the fresnel page down to about 3x5 inches seemed about right. Trimming the foam core was a bit trickier so that I could make it into more of a retangular funnel so the size would increase from the flash head to the fresnel lense. Add the duct tape to put it all together and it was complete.
That weekend, as luck would have it, the 2nd round playoff game was once again at the same location. I took my blaster and it worked! I think I saved my self about a full stop at mid-field range. The only drawback with this was it was just too large, enough at the flash end that it slipped around a lot on the flash head.
Back to the drawing board - and the local lumber/hardware store. I cruised every aisle looking for something that would be more of a tubular bracket that I could reinvent to make it work. Well, ever wonder why they have grocery store items at those places? Not me, not anymore. Wandering past the plastic garbage cans and liners, I stumbled on plastic food storage containers. Finally deciding on the medium sized (approx. 6x6x5) square ones. A package of 4 - I don't remember, but I'm sure it was under $5 for the package. Complete with lids!
Well, the rest was pretty easy. Cut a hole in the lid, centered and about 1/2 an inch smaller than I cut the fresnel lens material. a little black tape inside and out all the way around to hold it in. An H shaped cut on the back with the total outside dimensions just the size of the flash head (I actually put a wrap of gaffers tape on the flash head so it wouldn't get marke up). The H cut allows for 2 flaps, one on the top of the flash head and one on the bottom. These are used with either tape or a velcro belt to hold the unit in place.
Here are photos of both units. I have yet to test the 2nd version and wish I had a longer "container" to use, but I'm confident that these will be useful both bouncing light for basketball season and for field sports in the spring and fall.
DIY Flash Extenders - Images by Alan Look
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