New DIY grid spot

About a year ago I had made a grid spot based on a David Hobby suggestion- black straws are free. I spent a couple weeks collecting free clean black straws based on this theory... Cutting all the straws up was a pain but I finally glued it all up, and had at it. It worked great. I even used the existing half side of Velcro on my strobe to help keep the grid spot on. (also used to help keep gels on for common lighting conditions)

Then about two months ago, the straws started to drop out. Seems the glue I had used was not consistently applied.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

I had liked the used of this device and wanted to NOT spend a bucket load on other devices like the Honl line. Good products but not good for my wallet. I tried to find coroplast at local hobby stores, no luck, and at office supply stores, also no luck. Yikes.

Then I located a store on line via Amazon. However my buddy John pointed me to a cheaper option from Beacon Graphics. Alright! I could get several sheets of coroplast for less than the cost of one Honl grid spot. I can get more cardboard for free and the gaffers tape I have will last forever.

I got the shipment Monday and had some time this evening to whip up the new version.

Great!

I even used an old FedEx express shipping box to surround the new grids. It was WAY much easier to put together. I followed, roughly, the instructions I found at the DIY Photography site. The resulting test shots were telling.


My old straw based grid spot:

My new coroplast based grid spot:

Seems the channels of the coroplast are more squared and the resulting pattern is a reflection of that. No HUGE problem, but something to be aware of when snapping.

I think I am also going to make a shorter grid spot. The current one is 2 inches deep from front of the grid to the back. The next one is either going to be 1 inch or less. Maybe... lets see how much use this one gets first. Any longer and it just becomes a snoot.