Spot Light For SLR Cameras

This is one of my very first DIY project. I had the idea of making this after I shot some videos using a dSLR under relatively low light. Even with high ISO, the video turns out pretty dark since I can't use flash to brighten the video. Off the shelves LED lights for cameras is around $400 (Canadian, 2010) so it is too expensive for me. I'm wanted to make one for under $100.

First up, I need lots of LEDs. I bought 50 CREE high intensity LEDs from digikey.ca for around $30. This is the most important and most expensive part of this project. I also bought a bunch of resistors, a 5V voltage regulator, and a potentiometer from Digikey. Other items I used for this projects are a breadboard, a switch, a battery pack, some wires, glue, duck tape, spray paint, styrofoam and some plywood.

The resistors are needed for limiting the current that goes through the LEDs. According to the data sheet, the LEDs needed 200mA of current. This means that it needed 200ohms of resistance under a 5V power supply.

Based on the breadboard that i got, I decided to use 48 LEDs on a 8x6 grid. I wired up all the LEDs in parallel so all has the same output level. I put the array of LED in the middle of the breadboard in order to make it easier to mount on the enclosure.

Assembled LED array on a breadboard

I made the enclosure from plywood. Its a box with an opening in front and a detachable back ’door’. The bottom of the enclosure has a thin protrusion to mount the enclosure on the camera’s hot shoe. I painted the enclosure black using spray paint.

Mounting the lights and battery pack inside the enclosure is a bit tricky. I used the styrofoam as support mounts inside it because it is easy to cut and mould. I cut a rectangular shape with a rectangular hole at the centre of the styrofoam to mount the LEDs, as well as to make the foam the front element of the enclosure. To cover up the styrofoam, i used a paper painted black and glued it on to the styrofoam.

That is all i did for the light. It worked nicely. I wanted to put a diffuser in front of the LEDs to spread the lights, but I haven’t found a good material to use as a diffuser that wont take away too much light. The light output is pretty low as you can see on the video. It is sort of nice for fill lights though.

Some picture of the finished products:

Finished productFinished Producton a camera

Here’s a video using the lights under almost pitch black conditions