Let There Be LIGHT! (Building a HUGE Overhead Softbox Diffuser)

today's goal is simple - more light let me  preface this by saying that I mostly have no   idea what I'm doing but I do know that I want  a large light source that's overhead that has   a lot of diffusion diffuse light looks nicer when  we're doing videography and photography and stuff   like that or so I've been told I do have a plan  I have a bag full of materials to build with I   have several very large sheets of foam core board  that we picked up last week so let's see if this works excellent today's video is brought to you  by the Corsair K65 Plus Wireless RGB keyboard   featuring silky smooth pre-lubricated Corsair  mlx red mechanical switches two layers of sound   dampening for softened typing Acoustics AES  encrypted connectivity via low latency 2.4 GHz   wireless Bluetooth or USB wired a multi-purpose  rotary dial with function key Combos and shortcut   commands resilient PBT die sublimated key caps and  of course per key RGB lighting effects which are   endlessly customizable in corsair's IQ software  for more on the Corsair K65 plus click the sponsor   Link in the video description we're going to  try to make the bottom of the soft box about   4 ft x 6 ft roughly the same dimensions as this  main working table where we do builds and stuff   like that and our light source at the center is  going to be powered by these two devices these   are really simple $20 light holders light power  device things and we're combining them with these   really highly rated Philips uh LED bulbs these are  60 W equivalent bulbs they draw actually about 8 w   5,000k in terms of the white level which is pretty  much daylight or very close to it and these have   really high CRI or color rendering index they're  about 95 or 96 in that regard which is really   good for videography and photography because  it provides better more balanced light so with   these two receptacles we'll have eight bulbs  I'm planning to attach these together via their   mounting points here that's sort of how I begin  and then I've just been sort of conceptualizing   ways to build it out from there I did find a  video by a guy who is supposedly a Director   of Photography who does professional lighting who  also did a DIY build of a budget soft box that's   very large just like this that's where I got the  idea to use the foam board for the sides which is   also going to provide a little bit of structural  support and then also to keep costs down the frame   is going to be made of 1x3 pine which we also  picked up last week at Lowe's and those are about   $2.70 each for an 8T length I have several other  things for the build that I'm just going to kind   of lay out for you guys here uh I'm aiming for  about a $350 to $450 total cost for the materials   which is a fair amount of money but I think the  end results hopefully going to be comparable to   stuff that costs a lot more than that I will post  links in the video's description to the stuff that   I have chosen to use this is our actual diffusion  panel this is from newer newer so this came from   Amazon and it's supposedly a diffusion silk and  this is actually quite long it's 12 ft long but   hopefully it's also wide enough for our purposes  cool yes it's wider than the table the table's   about 3 and 1/2 ft wide so that's about the width  that we're aiming for and then we're either going   to go the full length of the table or perhaps just  a little bit shorter than that some Hardware here   for additional support on the corners these are  just little corner brackets I'm especially hoping   that these will help with the vertical part we're  going to taper the upper part of it in towards the   light source and uh that's going to be probably  the most challenging thing then for securing   that poster board we're going to be using screws  but we don't want to screw straight into poster   board cuz the screw could pop out so we have  some very large washers they do have poster   board that's dual-sided that has like black on  the outside and white on the inside but to get   the larger sheets that we needed to get we had to  go to the Art Supply Warehouse to pick them up in   person cuz we have like 96 in Long sections I had  some people recommend using a myar on the inside   which you can get in really thin sheets which is  fairly inexpensive that's probably maybe a better   solution than what we're going to go with I've  have chosen to use aluminum tape cuz I already   had this partially used roll it's 4 in wide it's  highly reflective and I do have a couple backup   rolls of this cuz I like tape and aluminum tape  like this is pretty fun we don't want this thing   to fall apart so we will be using some wood  glue for the corners we're also going to be   using my nail gun if it works we might switch  to screws as well and then I would like the   thing to be smart and I'm really hoping that  these work so that's another thing we're going   to be doing is testing the Smart Wi-Fi outdoor  dimmers today it's basically like a smart plug   uh that's going to connect to the Wi-Fi once I  get that all set up again using home assistant   but these are actually meant for like outdoor  lights which means that they can dim now you   don't want to dim something that's plugged in  like like if you had a computer or something   like that plugged in but to dim lights and  to dim LEDs that are listed as dimable the   main reason I want to make this a smart light  is so we don't have to like climb up there to   reach any switches or anything like that and also  that's going to allow us to remotely adjust the   lighting to our needs we need to figure out how  big that upper frame is going to be so uh we have   these standard p hes that're made for mounting  rigging and stuff like that we're going to fit   one end in there then we want the other housing  to basically be right here this is our 1x3 Pine   we need to support this somehow so we think  we're just going to put the bar right across   it so we're going to cut this short enough that  the other piece when it fits right on here will   basically butt up right against that all right  seems to have worked let's do 228 28 in by 1T 14 we've drawn up a schematic uh more  importantly though a cut list so now we   have all of our Cuts done our longer pieces  our shorter pieces and our especially short   pieces all right so here is our upper frame  just sort of laying things out here Cross   Beam in the middle for the lights to attach to  and we're going to nail and glue all the joints guess I'll just go for it right [Applause] glue feels pretty solid here's Paul like a little kid  holding this school project very proud   very proud good job all right let's do the  big one one of the big ones more gluey glue so what's going to happen is PA's going  to push it that 's going to fall it's   going to cross a catastrophe I think's  going to flip over and stuff watch see   it it's getting close don't be wishing  hateful stuff on me Joe a few moments later what did you predict Joe you  abandon your post Joe so clearly   we need to angle this so that have a  little bit more support there we go oh man turn around now I fall I think it's funny cuz I actually like I  don't like like the song I like it in that sort   of like I think it's a very prime example of that  style of music that was popular in the ' 80s at   the time and everything now it's probably going to  be stuck in my head Paul secretly likes the song   tot little Eclipse of the Heart and he likes Creed  it shut up that I'll fight you about so we're now   installing these little corner brackets uh we got  four for the base piece and four for the upper   piece and I was trying to decide whether we should  put the bracket outside of the vertical supports   or inside the vertical supports like that uh We've  Ended up deciding we're going to put the bracket   on here we'll put this outside that is going to  make a little bit of Gap uh between this vertical   support piece and the frame but as long as it's  doing that same gap on all four sides it should   still be okay and this will also help to sort of  hold this in place while we assemble the frame and   we've realized we can assemble the lower part of  the frame out here but it's probably going to be   too big to get through the door so we're going  to need to bring it inside to mount the upper   part where the lights are going to be mounted  once we figure out the exact uh angle we need   for the supports for that piece I'm also drilling  pilot holes for this because the screws that came   with it not very strong in fact one broke broke  off with with very little effort just a moment ago it's not going [Music] anywhere all right look at that it's a frame I've  been framed that's a stupid joke this is the base   of the thing kind of uh came together pretty  much as planned I think now we need to figure   out exactly how much higher up the smaller  frame is going to set so we can figure out   the angle for this struts or supports or whatever  the we're going to need have four beams that come   up there to kind of hold that in place then we  get to start uh mounting the outer pieces with   the foam board cool day two since we're figuring  things out as we go here the next step was to to   take some measurements I had to measure the door  here to see if it would be wide enough to fit the   entire frame through after it was assembled and  I had to measure the distance between the ceiling   and the current upper frame that I have built in  the garage to see how low this thing would sit   especially if I wanted to have it space from  the roof by maybe a foot or so I also decided   to rethink how this thing would be hung from the  ceiling I was originally planning to hang it from   the upper frame but the lower frame seems much  more sturdy especially the corners here where   we have the metal reinforcements and the strap  pieces going from the lower frame to the upper   frame were the biggest question in my mind because  those needed to be strong enough to support the   entire lower frame if the upper frame was what  it was being suspended from fortunately I have   some of these little eyelet Rings uh left over  from a previous project so I'm going to mount   four of these at Each corner at the sturdy part  of the frame making that decision meant that the   upper frame could be attached by a little bit  simpler of a method so so rather than putting   the supports at the Four Corners I put them in  the center which is not as sturdy but it was a   lot easier in terms of getting everything set up  since I was doing a lot of eyeballing to get the   upper frame exactly where I wanted it fortunately  when I measured how high I wanted it to be and I   needed something to set it on top of I discovered  that the thermal take Tower 300 case box uh was   actually the perfect height so no thermal take is  not sponsoring this video at all this was pretty   random that that worked out but that allowed me  to position it in the center I used some of the   long sections of 1x3 to help center that a little  bit more marked out the center points on the upper   and lower frame IE ball that to line those up  and then cut all of the support pieces to the   angle they needed to be with my miter saw and  then secured those with the glue and the nails   as we had the rest of the frame fortunately it  is very sturdy it is absolutely not going to be   perfectly square or anything like that and yes  there are probably much better ways that I could   have aligned this and mounted it but this was at  least successful and if any of you guys in the   comments section do like professional woodworking  uh feel free to lamb base me and let me know how   I should have done this rather than what I did  the upshot is that we now have this nice sturdy   frame to work with we are ready to start mounting  the outer pieces the foam board that we got but   before that uh we get to test out a new power tool  this is the Hammerhead uh it's a multi-tool this   one's pretty basic and pretty inexpensive I had  the options of like buying a real one like the   Makita ones to use with my Makita Batteries which  should be over 100 bucks or just getting like an   inexpensive one uh that was highly recommended  by Amazon of course so this one's like this is   less than 30 bucks for this thing they're pretty  cool though they have attachments that can go on   that so this makes like a little saw and you  can saw stuff it's got a wider rounder one   for my understanding these attachments that  come with it are not that high quality which   is why I got this uh extra ones you know cuz  you want to have more in case they break or [Music] something damn to like sh guys all sucks at [Applause] woodworking we're pretty much in  the only area in my garage that has enough   floor space to set this thing on and get some  of this work done we need to make some long   straight cuts on the foam board uh I need to cut  a strip off to use for the fold down flaps we're   going to put on the side and rather than marking  it with the pencil and then cutting it somewhere   else uh we're just going to try to cut it in  place right here so I got a fresh new blade   on my box cutter and I hope this goes smoothly  because we've only got two of these pieces and   we need one for each side so we have flaps that  we're going to fold down on the sides so we can   create a bit of a shroud and control the light for  some specific scenarios but we need a way to hold   those in place and also a reliable way that they  can fold up and fold back down be able to be held   in place when they're folded up and also ideally  be able to fold up and down many times without   just bending the uh foam board and potentially  damaging it over time so I got some piano hinges   here long thin hinges I'm going to go with two  of these on the short side and three of them on   the longer side we can drill these straight into  the wood uh for the upper part but for the lower   part that attaches to the corkboard actually have  some nylon rivets that should fit through here so   that'll be interesting and I hope that works  too but when we fold the flap up in order to   hold it up against the frame uh we're going to  use some velcro but we want a lot of velcro and   want it to be held securely not just with this  adhesive strip so so as I put some screws into   the upper part of the frame here I'm also going  to screw through this velcro strip to hold that   in place along the entire length and I hope this  works I feel like I've said that a lot on this video that's fairly sturdy I thinking there's  two ways to do this one is to try to measure   everything and then cut the pieces out  of the foam board and then lay it on or   to do it how I'm doing it which is to sort  of apply the pieces and then cut it to Sid   and I hope this was the right call so we need  to fold this here I'm going to fold it around   the corner and I'm hoping that's going to help  keep things supported and together and everything [Music] [Music] there we go [Music] perfect Bend Bend St there  we [Music] go it's amazing   it needs a neck tie and a ball tie or something it  does look like a little bit like a you know it's   more of a formal soft box okay day three this is  like day three or four or something we're spending   a lot of time on this so I've decided to cut a  couple corners to get things finished off and   functional and then we might make some upgrades  in the future the final four steps involve lining   the inside with the reflective aluminum tape  mounting the light to the top securing the   diffuser to the bottom of it which we're going to  do with staples for now we have enough to possibly   redo that in the future I'd like to do it with  velcro in the future but we're running out of   time to do stuff like actual sewing and then  the final step will be to mount it up to the   ceiling sorry I should have said Five Steps step  four will be to mount the flaps on the sides step   five will be to mount it to the ceiling for that  purpose we have just stopped by Ace Hardware to   purchase some chain and we also got some updated  eye screws because wanted something that was a   little bit stronger and that was also going to  go down into the wood w a little bit further   and now comes the slightly more precarious part  uh I need to set up four mounting points on the   ceiling I've already got two from the previous  lights that were up there so I'm going to mount   this hopefully across three beams uh so that I  can put some hooks on the bottom and because I   don't have a really tall ladder I'm putting  my ladder on top of the sit standand desk   frame the sit standand desk frame is supposed  to be able to lift or drop like 250 lb so even   though we might be kind of right at its limit I'm  hoping if I'm not actually using the motors while   I'm on this that it will still be okay but you  know things could easily go wrong a few moments later ow ow that landed right on my toe ow that  hurt oh good we're filming H ow okay I got all   this footage ah that was pain that was painful  so good thing I took my shoes off oh yeah you   don't want to scratch the table man your token  heel but for this a scratch I mean come on yeah   exactly day four we moved on another step by  mounting the lights a little bit lower than   they would have been originally I just use a few  pieces of wood there to sort of create place for   that Center Pole to stick through by lowering them  I'd say about 3 or 4 in the lights are going to be   a little bit more down in the reflective area  here so I think it's going to give us a little   bit better bounce now we're going to move on to  the step where I'm totally cutting a corner and   that's because our our diffusion the sheet silk  whatever thing that we have here is actually 12   ft long and because the overall soft box is  less than 6 ft long we have enough of this to   use twice so our first application here is going  to be semi-permanent what I would like to do is   line the edges of this with velcro so it could be  attached but also removed in case we need to get   in here to change a light bulb or something like  that but because this project is already taking   way more time than I anticipated we're going to  use half of it to mount with these lathe screws   uh which have a nice wide secure part for the  top that'll hold it in place and since we're   mounting to Wood which is fairly resilient uh  we should be able to get away with installing   this for now and we'll probably be removing it  in the future and maybe doing an upgrade to add   the velcro along the edges with the second  half of the diffusion silk so as the screw   is screwing in starts to bind the fabric and  twist a little bit here so Joe had this great   idea he said Paul why don't you back off screw a  little bit after it's pierced the fabric that'll   sort of undo that binding then when we go forward  again doesn't bind nearly as much or if it does   we can always back it off just a little bit  more try to get this nice and smooth [Music] yay not [Applause] [Music] bad perfect we've reached a very important stage in our  build process and that is finally going to   hang this thing from the ceiling of course my  ladder only goes up so high and because we're   hanging this over the table I can no longer  precariously prop the ladder on the table in   order to get higher up so with uh a little bit  of guidance from me Joe went ahead and assembled   this thing uh drilling a hole through a broom  handle attaching a hook so we can hopefully use   this to grab the chain or to grab the corner of  this to get it higher up until we have balanced   it from all four mounting points that's the  plan at least uh let's see how it goes ready yeah well that took a lot of work we are pretty  much done I'm not going to say we're completely   done but we're done as far as this video is  concerned because uh we need to get back to   making videos about building computers and stuff  like that there's a couple things that I didn't   quite use uh one were these black blankets these  are actually welding blankets which I got because   they're like completely fireproof and stuff there  is a little bit of light leakage on the top of the   soft box so my plan was to potentially lay these  across there to sort of block in all the light if   we ever got to the point where we really wanted to  like shoot something in here where we completely   controlled the light we would want to have that  and then the other thing that wasn't added was   the Grid or the flaps on the side that we could  have come down to help control light spillage and   focus everything right on this area on the desk  we did install the piano hinges for that so even   with the light mounted up here I think I should  still be able to attach these so hopefully that   will come with an update in the future probably  not another dedicated video on the softbox but I   will be continuing to do upgrade projects on  the area that I shoot here in the garage and   we got some backyard projects coming up real  soon too we got these little vinyl rivets too   to hold those on so I'm curious how that will  work but that is going to wrap it up for this   you guys thank you very much for watching for  staying tuned as we sort of struggled through   the process and figure out how things were going  to work out as we went overall I'm super happy   with the finished product it's giving some nice  even light up here I have it wired up to the   ceiling plug that's connected to the switch  over there so I can actually just switch it   on and off uh coming in and out of the garage and  it's providing a lot more light out here than it   was before I don't know if you can tell from  the beginning of the video to now or not but   hopefully it looks better it is a little tough to  put an actual price on the entire softbox because   we use some Hardware that I had here already  we use power tools and stuff like that that I   already have uh that you might not have access to  but overall we're looking at about a $4 to $500   price for this very large roughly 4T X 5ft soft  box if we were to attempt to purchase something   like this it would be much more expensive than  that and of course having it custom built would   also be very expensive of course we also have to  keep in mind the amount of time that was spent   so it's a bit of a trade-off but hopefully this  means as we continue to do build videos out here   they're going to look really nice but let me know  what you guys think in the comment section down   below hit the thumbs up button on this video  If you enjoyed it because it took us a lot of   time to put together and of course subscribe  to my channel if you're not already for more   Tech videos coming at you real soon and don't  forget to check out my store at Paul's ar.net   where you can buy Shirts Mugs pint glasses and  all manner of high quality merchandise thank   you very much again for watching this video  and we'll see you all in the next one [Music]

Channel: Paul's Hardware

Views: 42,646

Keywords: computer, PC, PC gaming, personal computer, computer hardware, paulshardware, diy studio lighting, overhead softbox, large overhead softbox, diffuser, huge overhead softbox diffuser, diy, wood, foamboard, foam core board, home studio lighting, youtube lighting

Id: a1meEozRHIM

Length: 23min 23sec (1403 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 16 2024