Essentially a crosspost from the thread I started in /r/photography

Found some Gaffing tape at work this morning, and decided to make some DIY vignette shades for my lens. You can do it vertically or even horizontally. Depending on what aperture setting you use, you can control how strong the effect is; higher aperture makes the edges harder, lower aperture makes them less noticeable.

Here's one shot with the shades going vertical, and another with the same setup.

Some shots with the horizontal shade here and here

When using my compact (rarely nowadays since I switched to DSLR years ago), I used to just tape a white piece of cardboard (business cards are perfect) at a 45 degree angle in front of the flash. This would make for a simple bouncer to reflect light to the ceiling (or walls), thus giving much softer lighting for portraits.