A recent post on the Macro Nature Forum (macronatureforum.com) provided some suggestions on how to make a plamp for use in photographing flowers or holding a flash or diffuser. I decided to give it a go.
The Wimberley Plamp is a very useful accessory, and I have coverted one for a while. In Canada they retail for around $50 and although that isn’t too bad, I balked at buying yet another accessory to carry around with me and worried that it would just end up gathering dust. But a DIY one…that I could take or leave as I wanted and not think that I’d wasted $50 if I didn’t use it very much.
So with the DIY idea in hand, I headed to Canadian Tire to pick up some supplies: GripTwist, cable ties, and some clamps (4 of various sizes that I thought would work well with two different tripods). The GripTwist is basically an industrial strength twist tie made out of slightly spongy material that is supposed to be able to hold weights of 45 kg. Each pack comes with four ties: 2 x 86 cm and 2 x 43 cm.
Plamp supplies
So, with four GripTwists, I thought I might be able to make 4 plamps, but the single strand was just too weak to support any weight. So, I took the two red twist ties and the two black twist ties and wrapped them around each other (the black twist tie I then folded back around itself to make it even stronger). I attached the clamps to the end using the cable ties. I left one clamp off the end of the red twist tie after realizing that it was strong enough to wrap around the top of the tripod leg and and hold in place.
I attached a small diffuser to the larger twist tie and a macro flash to the smaller one and set up my tripod. To make sure they would hold, I left them up all night and there was no noticeable downward drift in their position.
Total cost: CDN$20 for two DIY plamps.
I plan on giving these a field test out in the mountains this weekend.
Michelle Gilders' Photography 