I'd love to see your DIY mods for modifiers! Grids, flags, reflectors, anything....you name it, post it here.
Wish I had one to contribute, but I don't which is why I'm asking YOU. The simplest one I can think of is something I saw on a Joel Grimes tutorial where he covered all but about two inches of a standard reflector with gaffer's tape. He left a vertical opening and placed it close to his subjects face to give a unique look.
I'm glad you started this thread. Most threads are just "what to buy?" threads and there's very little discussion of experiments with light modification.
I was after very soft light and wanted to use some inexpensive slave flashes and equipment on hand (umbrellas & diffusers). I poked a hole in a pop-up diffuser, slid it on to the umbrella shaft and mounted the flashes as I would normally for the umbrella.
The light is doubly diffused since it goes through the diffuser, bounces off the umbrella surface (silver in this case) and then goes back through the diffuser. This configuration behaves like a large softbox (though very inexpensive -- about $50) because the diffuser keeps the light which is reflected off the umbrella surface from "spraying" into a large angle and the surface is very uniformly lit. Also, since the flashes are outside, they can be optically triggered very reliably.
Although not the finished (attached) product here, I needed a silver dish for more higher contrast. So I tried my hand... It's stellar and works better than I thought.
