YeoPhotoGroup by Keith Robins

£5 flash bracket for brolly lit portrait work.
Take a flat 6mm alloy plate with 1/4 inch by 20 pitch tripod thread screw to fit any camera base and add a 15mm tank connector. Now get hold of a set of pipe benders plus about two feet of 15mm copper tubing and create a double bend. Really tighten the joint as the last thing you are likely to be carrying around is an adjustable spanner when you're out photographing,
Add a hot-shoe to lighting stand swivel adaptor on top, then a specially adapted Vivitar 285HV flashgun (See an earlier post).
The reason I adapted this gun was on account of the flash ended up way too high above the extra small shoot-thro brolly, which comes free with the swivel joint when it's bought from Hong Kong. I guess you could use a normal sized brolly but your flash bracket would need to be that little bit taller - no great shakes there.
I was pleasantly surprised at just how nicely balanced the whole contraption is. Also, for those with access to a length of chromed pipe you could make a really flash looking bracket.
The most difficult part of manufacture was drilling a large enough hole for the tank connector which is some 18mm. A very coarse round file comes in handy for this as alloy tends to clog up finer files.
You have probably noticed an odd attachment beside the tank connector, this was the connector for my mark one version which I've used many times over the last thirty years for portraits and weddings etc. Trouble was it never catered for attaching a brolly, in fact I never even thought of it until I bought this fantastic swivel head flash stand bracket for hot-shoe flashguns which comes with a spring loaded tube ready for a brolly shaft and it's even set at a slight angle so the flash fires into the centre. Plus it comes with a small translucent brolly as you can see here! What more can you ask for?
Note - the Vivitar flashgun which is mounted upside down via a stick-on lump of plastic, (go to another post to see what's involved there).
Tools required are a vice, electric drill, 10mm bit , large coarse round file, two adjustable spanners - I'm a plumber so these were readily available. Bits you'll need are about two feet of 15mm pipe, a tank connector, a strip of 6mm alloy plate, and a 1/4 inch 20 pitch thread bolt which you might be able to get from Keene Electronics who also sell the most comprehensive range of photographic filters ever. Not dealt with them for a few years but they're still going.
If you buy your swivel adaptor from Amazon, which is slightly cheaper, you won't get a free brolly with it. However, one of my older posts gives details of a white milk carton flash bounce card and yet another post shows how to make a small grid which fits neatly inside the flash window of a Vivitar 285HV.
If you've got a cheapo radio trigger you won't have dangling wires getting in the way. And if you do use a radio trigger be aware that they can be rather ungainly as there will be a lot of joints between camera and flash which can work loose and could lead to expensive repair bills, which is another reason why I glued a piece of plastic on top of my flashgun.
I get just as much fun out of making these gadgets and sharing my successes, and failures, as I do taking photos. There is a certain satisfaction in getting great results without spend great amounts. See you all soon with the next money saving post - Keith Robins.