“DIY Macro Lighting LED Ring” by DIY Photography runs through the making of a homemade macro photography ring light for under $20.

To build the ring light the author used LED car headlight rings mounted on a modified lens hood to make the contraption. One light was mounted about halfway inside the lens hood and the other successively larger ring light was mounted on the end of the hood. The size of the LED rings you choose will depend on which lens you are making the light for — you need to make sure the smallest ring light is larger than the diameter of your lens. Attaching the battery power source to the lights requires soldering.

As some commenters on the posted noted, the light in the sample photos is quite hard. But all-in-all this is a very cool, and very cheap, hack that will probably catch the interest of many DIY photographers.

Link via “Make a DIY Ring Light for Better Macro Shots” by Lifehacker.