As I mentioned a couple of posts before, one of  the most common ways to build a DIY grid for small flashes is to use the “glue it straws” way. “The glue it straws” way was cover in this post DIY grid , basically you cut some straws into small tubes and arrange them in a box and glue them together into a box shape, about the size of your flash head, very simple .

There are a couple of advantages to that method –

• It is very cheap to make this diy grid, it will cost you less than a dollar  to make one.
• The materials are very handy, a piece of carton and some straws from the local store and you are of to go.

There are some disadvantages too –

• Its a hard task to get those straws pieces the same length and to glue them all in a fixed and aligned together in the same position/direction.
• You are very much fixed to narrow angle grids and if you want a wide one (40 degrees and more), you’ll find it extremely difficult to do, as you’ll need to cut the straws very short.

As I was looking through Ebay for some gel filter holder solution, I entered this store called the strobist corner (visit link at the bottom), among some good value gel filter kits, there was this diy grid material! simple and good stuff. I got the basic kit , it includes 3 different grid material pieces for different effects 15,25 and 45 degrees, it all costs about 10$ (Honl will cost about 30$ for just one piece…).  Thats all, you don’t have to cut straws any more. The basic kit comes without grid flash holders, so in the video below you’ll the most easy way to “connect” it to your flash head using handy sticky Velcro .

I’ll also post about my first impressions and photography examples using this kit, as I have an impression its a great way to use grids!!!

diy grid flash holder (youtube video)

strobist corner

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Remember the photograph from the teaser?

You want to get started?!!

Here’s what you need :

• carton board (I used the leftovers from the DIY SoftBox project)
• a good pair of scisors
• one marker pen to mark the misures
• Big Ruler (40cm or more)
• Strong scotch tape
• An utility knife
• Black corrugated plastic sheeting (thats how think it is called-please inform me otherwise)

So lets do it!

1.What we’ll need to do first is to cut 4 pieces from the carton board.

• Two pieces will be the top and bottom sides of the grided softbox-size 20cm*20cm.
• Two pieces will 1cm shorter and will make the left&right sides of the the grided softbox

Here is the diagrams for the two types of  panels you’ll need to the:

2.Now mark those sings on the squares you made (sorry that my look like a mess,but you’ll find your way to make the best marking for yourself):

3.Cut the 4 panels that you’ll use for the grided softbox:

4.The next step will be to cut a lot of strips from the corrugated plastic sheeting.I cut 2 pieces 20cm wide and 100cm long and cut the 20cm wide and 3cm long strips with the ruller I have:

When finished uoy’ll have a lot of those stripes,don’t worry the leftover will use as from the soon to come DIY small flash grid.

5.Lets start glue all the strips together.I glued groups of 10-15 strips until you will have a pile 20cm hight.Let the glue dry for some minutes.

6.Go on and use the masking tape to attach 3 side of the panels together-I glued together the bottom/top panel with the two side panel.Put good quantity of glue on the panels edge and on the pile of strips and glue it all together:

Once again,allow a couple of minutes for the glue to dry.

7.Wrap it all together and you’ll get the best ever DIY softbox + grid you could imagin!

And we are done!!!

Here is a quick setup to test the DIY softbox + grid:

Do it now and let us know how you used it!

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