Tutorial Details
- Completion Time: 3+ hours
- Difficulty: Advanced DIY Skill Required!
- Requirements: Various Kit (See Below)
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
Do-It-Yourself projects are now the new thing to do in your spare time. In this DIY, you will learn how to create a fully functional thirty inch ring light that only costs a fraction of the price of buying one new. So get up off the couch and add a another light to your studio arsenal!
Supplies and Tools
Here is a list of the supplies you are going to need to pick up from your local hardware or home improvement store.
- 1 8×4 sheet of 1/2 inch plywood
- 40 ft lawn and garden extention cord
- 12 keyless light fixtures
- 12 full spectrum 60w coated lightbulbs
- 1 can of flat black high heat spray paint
Total amount spent – $63.00
Here is the list of tools that I used for the job.
- Battery powered drill
- Skill saw or circular saw
- Box cutter knife
- Jigsaw
- Router
- Hole-saw
- Straight edge or long ruler
- Some extra wire or string
- Screw driver
- Wire strippers
- Tape measure
- Sand paper
Step 1
Take your sheet of plywood and cut it in half to make two square sheets.
Step 2
Measure in fifteen inches from a side of the plywood and put a screw half way into the plywood. This is going to be the center of the ring.
Step 3
Wrap some string or wire around the screw, stretch it out to the end of the plywood, wrap it around a permanent marker and draw a circle. Shorten the wire by 6 inches and draw another circle. This will be the cutting lines/guides for your ring.
Step 4
Take a straight edge and mark lines every 30 degrees from edge to edge through the center of the circle. This will mark the spots for your light fixtures so they are evenly spaced.
Step 5
On the lines marked in Step 4, measure 3 inches in from the outer ring line and mark the center for your fixture holes.
Step 6
Take a 3-inch hole-saw, line it up with your center marks and drill out the twelve holes for your fixtures.
Step 7
Take a jigsaw and cut along the two cirlces marked in Step 3.
Check Point
After following the first few steps, your plywood should look something like this. If it doesn’t, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to help you out!
Step 8
Take your plywood and paint it black. Spray paint is best for this, as it saves a great deal of time over brushing it by hand. You’ll the need to wait for it to try before continuing.
Step 9
Position all twelve light fixtures over the holes in the plywood and screw them down. Make sure that the two center screws on the back of each fixture are easily accessable for wiring.
Step 10
Take your extension cord and cut off the female plug. Use your box cutters to cut away about 5ft of the insulation to expose the inner wires. Take your wire cutters and cut out the ground wire from the uninsulated section.
Step 11
Make a mental note that the end of the wire is going to be Point B, and Point A is the part of the wire right after the insulation ends.
Step 12
Starting from Point A, strip three-quarters of an inch of insulation from both black and white wires.
Step 13
Take your black wire and wrap it around the gold screw and tighten to ensure a good connection. Take white wire and wrap it around the silver screw and tighten.
Step 14
Continue counter-clockwise to the next light fixture, repeating Steps 12 and 13. Make sure you give the wire some slack between fixtures so that the connections are not strained.
Step 15
When on the twelfth light fixture, cut off the excess wire, leaving enough to wire the twelfth one.
Check Point
Now that the wiring is taken care of, your ring light should look like this.
Step 16
Repeat Steps 2, 3, 7 and 8 on the second half of the plywood to make the back. The back will be used to cover the wires, will make it look better, and is generally a good precaution to keep your lighting rig safe.
Touching any exposed wire while the rig is connected would be extremely dangerous. Make sure that everything is secured, and safely contained between these two rings before plugging it in!
Step 17
Take your router and route out the middle of your back peice about a quater inch deep and two and a half inches wide.
Step 18
Line up the front ring and back ring. Put two screws in between each fixture an inch from each side to ensure a solid construction.
Step 19
Take your sand paper and sand around the edges of the ring to make it nice and smooth.
Step 20
Screw in all your light bulbs into the light fixtures. I’m using fairly standard bulbs here, but you can experiment with different strengths and colours for all manner of different effects!
Step 21
Plug it in to make sure that your light is working! If everything has gone to plan, you should see your hard work illuminate beautifully.
Conclusion
I hope that this tutorial wasn’t too confusing to follow. This isn’t an incredibly simple DIY project, and you do need some existing knowledge to make it a success. With some trial and error, hopefully you’ll be able to get there yourself!
If you have any questions about the process, or purpose, of a particular step, just drop a comment down below and I’ll be glad to answer your questions!
Enjoyed this Post?
Subscribe to our RSS Feed, Follow us on Twitter or simply recommend us to friends and colleagues!
By Matt Taylor
How to Take Great Photos
Whether you've got a simple point-and-shoot, or a professional camera, you'll learn the basics of what every photographer needs to know to make their shots count!
Join our newsletter!
U-Design WordPress Theme only $35.00 
Modernize - Flexibility of W ... only $35.00 
Tinkerbell portrait retouching - More
Photo Basix
Just getting started? Start with our basix tutorials on the fundamentals. View All Basix Tutorials
Create a Tutorial, Get Paid!
Have something to teach the world? Want to earn money doing it? Tutorials, screencasts, and articles published here on Phototuts+ are largely contributed by readers just like you! We'll pay you great money for good content. Find Out More
I love the effect it puts in your eyes. Really cool
Hmmm… I can’t see any pics in this post. Is it me or there’s a bug?
Your pictures/screenshots are not displayed! Not in msie8 or ff4beta2…
I wonder how I fix it in front of the camera. Any solution on that before I go to the hardware store and start building this marvelous creating?
Hah, good eyes! And nice tutorial.
The pictures on this article don’t seem to be loading up.
It all depends on where you are. Are you going to be using this in a studio setting? I was in my garage, so i just hung it with some wire to a wood beam. If you have a sturdy tripod you can attach a small piece of 2×4 on the bottom of the ring and then screw a tripod clip on that to secure it to the tripod. Hope this helps =D
Matt, what Camera are u using? The Outcome looks very nice! I like it! Maybe I will have to improve my DIY Skill, but I’ll defnitly give this a try!
Thanks 4 that
I have a nikon D90 using a 50mm prime lens at 1.8 for most of these shots. =D thanks alot
I have been thinking about grabbing a 50mm but just haven’t yet. Dunno why, really…but NOW…now I think I just HAVE to go get one…along with all of the supplies to make this sooooper cool toy! Never used a router before, but I’m willing to give her a whirl! I think I am in love with the whole effect. Nice job. Awesome tut. Thanks so much.
why not just use a circular florescent light?
Why not just stick with diffused, directional light? Why not use one of a million other lighting methods? Obviously the photographer is going for a certain effect here (particularly, the “glam light reflections in eyeball” effect). To get that effect requires single points of light in a circle, which you would not get with a circular florescent light. Duh
I can’t see the photos for every step to build this Ring Lightning think. is it the link well posted?
thnx
Good Job Matt! this looks great. Great use of easy to get supplies! One of the best articles ive seen yet! hehe
One more question: Are those light bulbs white balance at an specific K temperature? I only find bulbs that are cooler and greenier.
The light bulbs are reveal high dynamic range light bulbs from like lowes.
lol I rather buy it than make it, would you sell the one you made to make this tutorial? xD
Why not save yourself the time and spend 2 minutes adding rings of white dots to a photo with photoshop? I get that it is fun to work on nifty projects just for the pure pleasure of it but the end result in this case just seems to not be worth the effort. Why not make an infinity mirror instead if you want to make something that will have a higher cool factor? Or for that matter, turn this project into a giant size infinity mirror since you would usually expect to use christmas lights for that project.
Not trying to rain on anyones parade, just expressing my opinion.
You can use this thing also as a nice, diffused light source – and that’s something you can’t process with Photoshop.
Great source of information and tips. Thanks
In the final portrait, what other lighting did you use? Or did you only use the ring light?
Matt, really nice job indeed! I have few questions to ask you.
a) What exactly light bulbs you used to take that fantastic face shot? I see the “full spectrum” light bulb on your supply list, and the standard light bulbs in your process. Is standard light bulbs sold in your area came with full spectrum? Is it yellow or white? The standard light bulbs sold in my country are not full spectrum and produces flatten image. I’ll have to import them and the tax is really expensive
b) I will use this setup to take a video footages. I’m worry if the light is too bright and causing damage to the model’s eyes. Do you have any recommendation?
c) What shutter speed, F/stop, and ISO you took the facehot photo with this light setup? What is the distance between the lights and the object?
Moreover, I think the donut-shaped is hard to mount. It would be a lot better if the ring light has a rectangular shape with big circle hole in the middle