Can anyone recommend a good grid that would fit my standard Canon flashes for portrait work? I'm not a DIY guy so don't go there please.
From David Hobby ".. grids will give you a very tight spot of light - tighter than a snoot - with nice edge gradients."
I'm thinking of getting a Honl http://www.honlphoto.com/servlet/the-23/HonlPhoto-1-fdsh-8-Speed-Grid/Detail as I have a snoot from them which is made very well. But 1/4 or 1/8...
It really depends on how narrow you want your beam of light to become, or what you intend on using it for. I have never used a grid on a flash, only on a monohead, and on a monohead you measure the grid in degree's not in fractions so I am not sure of the difference between those two sizes. If it was me I would go for the 1/4. It would be much easier to alter the grid to make your beam of light narrower than it would be to try and make it wider.
I saw one on Strobist somewhere and decided to try it myself. It consisted of large drinking straws and doublesided tape all wrapped with craft foam. I'll see about digging out a photo of it and posting it. You really don't need to be terribly handy to make it and it only took a pair of scissors and 15 minutes...
i made mine from black straws from harveys, i wrapped some paper around the flash head and just stogged it full of straws - it works great!
Grid is a great game, i have it for the 360 tho not the ps3. If you have live we should race sometime...oh...lol...wait. wrong section. move along...nothing to see here.
Are you a car guy? I have a intercooler coupler I had from my Honda that I used. 2"-2.5". It fits over the flash head perfectly and gives me a perfect circle with a nice edge gradient at about 8 ft. Just use a piece of non-transparent paper rolled up for now.
