DIY Versabounce

One 9" x 12" sheet of black felt. Can be self-adhesive or not, but glitter is not necessary or helpful.

One sheet of foam. 2mm thick is fine, white works great. Metallic silver (shown) is more durable, though oddly not much brighter.

One small bottle of foam glue. It looks like Elmer's white glue, but there's something in it that makes foam stick. Elmer's doesn't work well; I've tried.

You'll need 24 squares of hook tape. That's the rougher half of velcro.

Peel off label from felt.

If using self-adhesive felt, peel off backing.

White foam is a cheaper alternative to silver metallic foam, but it will pick up dings and dents faster.

Remove label from foam sheet, and turn over onto table. Make sure your table is covered to keep it from getting dirty during the next few steps.

Apply glue as evenly as possible to the back side of the foam. (white foam doesn't matter which side)

Use a paintbrush or a business card to spread the glue evenly, and edge to edge.

Lay the felt over the foam, then pat it down smooth as possible. If you mess up, peel it off, apply a bit more glue to the foam, and try again.

The foam and felt aren't always the same exact size. If you want nice flush edges, you'll have to trim a little off each edge.

You can use a rotary cutter or ruler to score each edge before doing the actual cutting with scissors. If you have a guillotine trimmer, you can just cut it right through.

Score a line down the middle of the foam.

Cut the edges off with a pair of scissors. Don't use your finest scissors for this; glue has a way of mucking up scissors.

Cut the sheet in half.

You should now have two pieces roughly 4" x 9" in size, with one matte felt side and one reflective foam side.

Add six squares to the foam side. One square goes on each corner, then one square in the middle of each short side. Flip the card over and repeat on the black side.

Tilt your flash head straight up, then swivel it 90 degrees to the front. Make sure you have the Quick Strap already installed. (instructions are on this site) Alternatively, you can stick loop tape directly on your flash, though I don't recommend that.

Attach the center square to the back side of the flash.

Press each side to the side of the flash, forming a shovel shape.

You now have a very large bounce card for your flash. If you're only using it for a bounce card, you could probably cut off three or four inches and still get comparable results.

Here's a picture using direct, undiffused flash. Not bad, but notice the hard shadows behind my neck.

Here's a shot using the Versabounce. Shadows are diffused to almost nothing. Now you could get similar results with just ceiling bounce, but in high ceiling areas, this card should still do really well.

Strobists, you can attach the black side on side, and have a barn door. On rim lights, this controls flare. (light going into the lens and washing out the picture) On key lights and fill lights, this can limit the light to the background. You can use it with or without most umbrella setups. DON'T USE THESE WITH AC POWERED STUDIO LIGHTS. They will melt or catch fire.

Roll them up, and you have a short snoot, nice for putting the spotlight on a face, or creating a background lighting effect.

Roll them lengthwise, and you have an even tighter snoot, which actually increases the light output by focusing it.

I hope that you have enjoyed this tutorial. Shoot me a comment if you liked this, or have found another use for these I haven't thought of.