Interactive Butterfly CD
Butterflies of the
Carolinas & Virginias

I just recently purchased a Canon 180mm macro lens and needed to make a bracket to use my 540EZ flash with it on close-ups. So I pooled my aluminum scraps and started on this project. Since I work with aluminum storefronts I had the tools and knowledge to work on this without any problems.

First I had to figure out where I wanted the flash and a way the bracket would be the most useful and not get in the way of shooting. Since the lens tripod mount is a bit away from the camera body it made sense to mount the bracket to it. And a big advantage to this is you can rotate the camera on the lens tripod mount to shoot vertical shots very quickly and easily.

Knowing that I`d be using the flash both handheld and on tripod I decided to use a tripod head quick connect. I had to remove the cork on the quick connect and plan on grinding away a bit of the die cast so I can get a slightly better bite with the 1/4-20 threads on the quick connect to mount to the lens tripod collar to the flash bracket. It was a great plan to do it this way as the lens tripod collar on the 180mm macro lens and 100-400mm IS both use the same tripod collar. Changing lens is a snap, you just remove the lens from the collar and mount the other lens to the collar.

I cut the material from some thin 3/32 inch thick 1 3/4 inch x 4 inch aluminum storefront tube with a circular saw and a carbide tipped blade to 1 1/4 inch wide. I bent it in a vise very slowly by hand as the aluminum seemed to stress a bit at the bends(may change this later if it proves to weak to already bent aluminum and screw L angles together to the same dimensions).

After bending the main frame I placed under the camera and guessed how long the legs of the U shape I just made would need to be and cut them with a hack saw. Then I drilled a 1/4 inch hole at the bottom to place on the tripod head quick connect and left about 1/2 inch to bend upwards at a angle to prevent rotation on the quick connect.

The top bracket was hit and miss and I ended up with a L angle 2 1/2 inches tall and 3 1/2 inches long. I drilled two 1/4 inch holes to mount the flash cable to about 3/4 inch from each end so it would take a flash both up right and straight on for macro. Then drilled 3 sets of two holes 5/32 inch for the thumb screws to move in and out the top bracket.

For mounting the flash cable to the bracket I used a thumb nut and cut off a nylon bolt 1/4-20 thread and screwed it into the thumb nut so the nylon threads on the flash cable wouldn't`t get messed up if it got a bit of rough handling, as the nylon threads would break off or flex and not break the flash cable mount. Then I inserted the nylon threaded thumb bolt thru the hole for flash mounting and used a steel C ring to hold it in place. You could make 2 of these so you could mount the flash either way as shown at above right.

So far I used it for one roll of film and it seems to work just fine. The butterfly photo at right is one of my first tests with it. I found this Question Mark on a limb that was violently blowing in the wind I set the tripod under the limb to steady it and the butterfly landed on the tripod.

Tools used:
Circular saw with carbide blade
Hacksaw for after thought cuts.
Cordless drill
Vise to bend angles
File to smooth up the edges
Tape measure
5/32 inch drill bit
1/4 inch drill bit
8/32 tap to thread small thumb bolts

The entire setup without the flash, camera and lens.
Can be used horizontal and vertical by just rotating
the lens in the tripod collar.
Set up to use for macro close-ups. Note the top bracket can be
moved back 1 1/2 inch and 3 inches as needed. Also the flash can
be pointed downward for real close subjects.
Set up to use on further away subjects like birds. A quick change
to the 100-400mm IS lens and your set for a quick fill flash.

Question Mark, Polygonia interrogationis (orange form) Orange County, NC on 02/20/01 handheld with flash bracket and 540EZ flash.
The camera settings were f11 at 1/200th second using
Kodak E100 VS slide film