Barn doors and gels

[CavGez]

I like the accessories for portable flashes to modify the light - barn doors and diffusers. They come with a basic filter set which has a garish red-yellow-green and blue combo.

Before I start destroying them... has anyone modified these to swap in some custom colours?
Or is there somewhere to get just the frame, to put in my own gel?

 

[Garry Edwards]

Perhaps not the best of products, the barn doors aren't deep enough to do a lot, and nowhere near deep enough to cut off the light sharply, and the honeycomb grid could do with being a lot tighter.

But, to answer your question, there are hundreds of different gels that you can fit, for example https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/16261098...a7IVnbS5nMij338VY8hAtwb5HDLO|tkp:BFBMzJz358lg

 

[CavGez]

I guess as its a portable product the barn doors are as big as they can be while being able to fold down. Thanks for your point, I'll keep that in mind if im not getting what I want out of it.

I've got gels, so I'm figuring out how best to mount them. I could put them directly onto the flash head behind the grid, or pop out one of these gels (they seem to be glued on) and use the empty frame and magnets to hold a gel against the BD.

I've got loads of colours cut small which could work for the first option with some tweaking, but it'd a total faff to change out.

 

[Scooter]

The little dots on the barn door frame are magnets. I just cut rectangles of gel and use small picture hooks, or the tiny bulldog clips (or anything with enough iron in it ) over the magnets to hold them in place. (and using one of the frames as you suggest would also work well, and tbh - who uses a theatrical green ? )

 

[CharleyL]

Not the same, but I have some of the Godox barn door assemblies that attach to 7" reflectors. They provide the same colored gels in metal frames for these, but I wanted to be able to use other colors. Tried to get blank frames from Godox through my distributor, but was told that they weren't available. I was mumbling about this to a friend, who happens to be a mechanical engineer with his own shop at home, and he offered to make me some of the sheet metal frames. I gave him one to copy, and he made me a dozen. The face is folded over, so I can temporarily insert a gel and change it whenever desired.

I don't think he wants to go into manufacturing of these, but maybe you have a similar friend or can find someone to copy and make some for you. Someone with the right equipment could easily print out some of those frames for you and then you could use whatever color gel you desire in them. Inserting the magnets would be easy too.

Charley

 

[CavGez]

Cheers for that, a nice solution and a potential small project there. 3D printing would solve a lot of these interface issues and could slot in a gel.
I ended up destroying one so it can snap on with any gel sandwiched between. Not perfect but worked out OK.