I currently have the Sigma EF-500 DG Super flashgun. For diffusing I bought one of the Stofen Omnibounce flash difffusers which is a small white plastic cup which fits over the front of the flashgun. Unfortunately, last time I used it out & about at a music festival it appears to have slipped off the flashgun & I’ve not seen it since.

I tried to get a new one at my local photography shop, they said they’d ring me when one came in, but they never did.

I had a ‘flash’ of inspiration & decided to make my own.

In order to make a diffuser like this you’ll need the following:

• 2 pint plastic milk bottle
• 8-10 inches of velcro
• small piece of stiff card
• 8" sq tin foil 

This is what I used to make my diffuser, a 2 pint milk bottle. I don’t drink milk so I don’t know whether it’s the same for all milk bottles but this one came from Morrisons, it has a handy ridge around the handle end which I’ve outlined in black pen in the picture. Using this ridge as a guide I cut around the ridge with a scalpel & discarded the lid/handle end. This leaves a scoop-type end to the plastic which is the end that goes over the flash head.

In order to fix the diffuser to the flashgun I’ve fixed some velcro around the carton. I bought 1M strips of sticky-backed velcro in my local branch of Wilkinsons. It cost 99p.

I’ve used one longer strip of the hook side of velcro & stuck that the the outside of the carton. I then used 2 shorter strips of the eye side of velcro & stuck those to each end of the hook sections, fixing them to the inside of the carton. 

As an addition to the diffuser I have an optional reflector which I can fit inside the diffuser if I want some extra light. I fix this with an additional piece of velcro just inside the main part of the carton, you can see it in this next shot, it’s white velcro in this shot.

Next I made the reflector which fits inside the diffuser for extra oomph. I made this with some cut offs of mounting board, but any card will do. I measured out the rough area inside the diffuser. I made the back plate & top plate which are the same width & then added two side panels which are about an inch wide. I stuck them together with tape to form the shape you can see in the photo & then covered it with tin foil from the kitchen, fixing it down with double-sided selotape. I added some Velcro to the back of it to hold it in place when it’s inside the diffuser.

Here you can see the refelctor & how it fits inside.

Once the build is finsihed you can then fit it to the flashgun:

This is the completed article. It gives a nice height above the camera. You can use it in either portrait or landscape mode, but if you use it in portrait mode the diffuser has to be fitted to the thinner edge of the flashgun to enable the flashgun to be swivelled. The downside is that the light then comes from slightly off centre unlike in normal landscape mode.

So that’s it, total time to make is under half an hour & the total cost was about 30p.

So what results does it give?

Well, the idea of any diffuser is to diffuse the sharp harsh light of the flashgun to give a more pleasing effect, this is especially important for people & portrait shots. We don’t generally want harsh shadows on skin.

Unfortunately, as I lost my Stofen, I can’t do some test shots to compare them like for like but I think it would probably compare quite favourably, considering I could make 50 milk bottle diffusers for the same price as a Stofen.

 Here are the test shots I did. All shots were taken on manual settings in RAW. They have not had any enhancements other than slight sharpening in Lightroom, the exposure & colours were not changed at all.

In each set the first shot is straight flash, second is with the diffuser without the reflector fitted & the third is with the reflector fitted. All taken with Canon 20D & Canon 50mm 1.8 Mk II

1/250 f5

1/125 f5

1/125 f2

Well, I hope you’ll agree the 30p Milk Carton Diffuser seems to make a pretty good job as a flash attachment.

If you have any questions or suggestions for improvements, please let me know.