Customizing the Creative Light Speedring to Hold Two Strobes

http://www.creativelight.com/content/speedrings-1

Above is the speed ring offered from Creative light. The one in question is model number 100831    Nikon/Canon. It costs about $100 and most pro shops offer it.

Also buy two of these: http://www.tiffen.com/displayproduct.html?tablename=stroboframe&itemnum=300-SHO. They are about $18 each.

You also need a piece of aluminum or steel approximately 6×1-1/2×1/4 inches.

You’ll need have access to some basic shop tools like a drill, vise and file and a nut and bolt.

It also assumes you already have strobes and radio remotes.

This a simple thing. I built mine in about 15 minutes. I eyeballed where the holes should be drilled by putting the shoe mounts on the bottom of the strobes and marking where they should go. However, drill the first hole where the mounting bold will attach the plate to the speed ring. Bolt the plate down securely and then make mark your holes for the strobe mounts. I also drilled some extra holes in case I wanted to move the shoe mounts to the middle for one strobe. You’ll have to decide how you want to do this based on the strobes you want to use and what other equipment you want to mount on the plate. Perhaps you have an extra shoe mount and want to mout that on the bottom of the plate.

Attach the shoe mounts to the plate and place the strobes into the shoe mount and adjust the angle of the strobes so the beams criss cross each other.

I’ve been experimenting with ways to fire two strobes with one radio. I bought a simple headphone splitter at Radio Shack. Oddly, it works perfectly sometimes and other times not at all. I’ve tried several types of these and have not found one that works well at all. I may end up building one myself. I think the key is that headphone splitters are stereo and the cords are mono. I think a mono splitter wouldn’t be hard to build at all. Otherwise, you’ll need two radio for two strobes. You’ll see I use a simple rubber band to hold the radios on the strobe. It’s ugly, but it works very well and the price is right.

The foolproof way is to use two radios. But, this is expensive. Luckily, I have plenty of them already, otherwise, I’d work very hard to build a cord that fired both strobes from one radio. Even cheaper, build a sync cord to fire both strobes and don’t use radios at all.

My favorite is the medium Chimera, but I’ve used a small box, umbrellla and even a large octobox with this speedring.

I can carry all this equipment with me almost anywhere I go. I don’t need outlets and extension cords. I don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on a battery powered strobe.

I used one strobe and a medium Chimera softbox placed to my left to light David at Smith Rocks near Bend, Ore. It’s a very simple, portable setup that only took about ten minutes to execute.