DIY Diffuser for the Olympus FL‑LM3

I first wanted to write “DIY diffuser for the FL‑LM3 for macro”, however, a diffuser for this super small but mighty flash unit is useful for many purposes.

Anyway, what you need:

• a soft white plastic bottle from, soap, milk…
• scissors
• a roll of duct tape
• a marker

I used a rectangular soap bottle,
but it can also be done with a round plastic bottle.
You can also use plastic bottles with a color other than white, that way you can add a light efect to your flash, for example with an orange plastic bottle.

First I had cut a piece of about 100mm from the bottom of the bottle for the diffuser. Sorry, I made the cuts before I thought of doing a DIY on this 🙂

Then I made cuts about the width of the flash diagonally to the outside and about half the bottle

I caught the flash up to the flash edge between the cut plastic flaps, then I also pressed the sides against the flash and marked the edges at the top with a marker. Then I trimmed those sides as well.

I used a piece of duct tape of about 50mm on the side, then lined the top and bottom up with the side and taped it down.

Do the same on the opposite side, the result is a rectangular opening, then I also firmly taped the top and bottom with duct tape

A piece of folded plastic can possibly serve to hold the diffuser extra tight on the small flash, if you need even more friction to connect the flash and diffuser, you can also wind an elastic around the top of the flash.

Your Olympus FL‑LM3 diffuser is ready!
You can use it in TTL mode, but also fully manual, in which case you control the flash strength in camera – very useful in macro !

Add a JJC  FC-03 TTL Off Camera Flash Cord, and you can use and target this DIY diffuser in any direction. Olympus also has such a cable and some other brands, but they do not have the four flash contacts that are needed to power the FL‑LM3 flash !

La Gallerie

The photo gallery of Open Source Photography, Olympus micro 4/3 system, Vintage Lens Photograpy, Film Simulation, PictureFX, HDR – Photographer : Marc R.