Hi guys,

I've just come across this :-

http://www.dslrusers.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=33478

This person has taken a normal off-camera flash cord and with a bit of network cable has extended it...up to 5 metres so far.  Clever way to overcome one of the major irritations with these things (short tightly coiled wires) and for a fraction of the cost of a wireless thingy!!

Has anyone else come across or done any interesting modifications to their equipment to solve a problem, or just make it work better for them?

Or perhaps a homemade version of something that camera companies feel justified in charging us vast sums for.

Time to share your ingenuity with the world!!

:-)

thanx for tip

It looks like a good idea, but I'd rather not cut my off cord cable.

Good thread Nick. I have been saving a few bob here and there on expensive extension tubes with this simple rig illustrated, just the lens and body caps bored out and super glued together, the lens obviously goes on the end of the mount, and the other end fits in the camera body, I have had some great results with it including one shot that made LWiTG much to my delight.

This is a bit prettied up as I was going to post this in my gallery!

Thanks for that 'PD'. I recently bought some Kenco extension tubes ..expensive things considering there's no glass there. Looks like your tube is working well.
Shame i didn't ask the question BEFORE dropping the cash  :-)

Thanks Nick :)...If you didn't already check the image, here is a wee example of the rig at its full potential

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1922781

My SB-600 can be triggered remotely by my camera. So what would be the up-side of using this kind of mod?

 Nice mod.

a mod i have available to me is to have my Cable Release (which is in a permanent state of bare wires now for ease of use / swapability without a screwdriver present) attached to my wireless receiver for a flash (the cheap eBay ones which just have a short circuit switch in them (ie just the trigger, nothing fancy like ETTL)).  I can then fire the camera remotely, bonus is that i have a separate Hotshoe Extension Cable i can then attach to the camera hotshoe and have a flash fired synchronously with the camera going off.  I have only managed to test the setup so far tho (about 20m range) - it rained on the day i was going to try and get some shots of red kites feeding on a carcass and i didnt fancy leaving my camera out in the rain...  Might take it to the park and get some pigeon / squirrel shots at some point tho...

Total setup cost - around £20-25...

hehe yep that was some clever tinkering you managed that day Rich, totally over my head but very useful!

an aside in relation to 3dguy's comment - I think this is one of Canon's biggest ripoffs/failings, in that in order to wireless off-camera flash you gotta shell out nearly £200 for E-TTL to work... as I understand it the recent generations of Nikons all have this transmitting ability built in from the start, which is obviously hugely preferable..!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/terrymcbride/2508953631/
http://www.peeters.com/300d.html

Here are a couple of links to nifty home built releases.
I am going to give the peeters one a go, looks like a good money saver and extremely easy to build.

Call me tight fisted but I resent paying through the nose for accessories :)