Make your own “Ice Light” for under $20

 

 

An Ice Light is an incredible piece of lighting technology: a dimmable, even, LED light source with a built-in battery that's great for portrait photography. But at $500 a pop, it's probably a bit out of reach for many people. Simon Ellingworth at DIY Photography, however, has put together a terriffic guide on how to make your own LED light on the cheap. Sure, it might not be nearly as well built, or have the same amount of control as a real Ice Light, but for less than $20, you can have a tool that does something remarkably similar.

The DIY version involves picking up a cheap, extremely powerful LED flashlight from Amazon, and then mounting it in plastic plumbing pipe, with some tinfoil capping the end. The bright light from the torch is then diffused throughout the tubing, creating an even glow along its length. The most expensive piece of it is the flashlight, and the rest should just set you back a few bucks.

It's not rechargable, it's not adjustable, and it's probably not precisely temperature controlled. But it's a DIY project that'll probably take around 20 minutes to put together once you have all the pieces, and will provide a remarkably similar effect on a budget.

And if you don't like how the photographs look, you can use it for an impromptu lightsaber battle.