Anyone ever build their own ring flash?

[nat869]

Ok, perhaps a strange question. Someone posted a cool link to a LED ring flash. It sure looked cool and it got me thinking, hey, I can build that. It might not be as nice, injection mold plastic housings, etc, but it could be functional. I also thought that an easier project might be a ring of LED's shining continuously, mounted in a lens hood. That might give some good light for macro work and with the white balance adjustments that can be made with raw files, it would not matter too much if the color was not perfect out of the LED's.

Anyone do anything like this? I work as a mechanical engineer and have my own home shop (which is full of projects I already don't have time for) and can check with the Electrical Engineers here for stuff, but if someone has any better ideas I would love to hear it.

[iwatkins]

I've seen plenty of ring flash projects for studio use, i.e. for portrait use. These usually consist of a large reflective doughnut with a pair (or more) of cheap flashguns being fired into them.

I've also seen a few macro ring flashes being made but must have had maybe a few circles of LEDs, which are not going to be as bright as a flash. You can get some very bright LEDs, but they drain down batteries very quickly.

Me ? I would look for a quality flashtube(s) and electronics to drive it. The casing, mounting and battery system you could then build. Still think you could save a lot of money over retail products.

For a lot of macro work you need a lot of light if you want good DOF and still fast shutter speeds (e.g. insects on a flower etc.). In my opinion, continous lighting from LEDs won't cut it and would probably freak any living thing you want to shoot before you trip the shutter.

Cheers

Ian

[DocFrankenstein]

The LEDs are not gonna give you f/32 at 1/1000

You need a flash.

[cmM]

http://www.noestudios.com/photo/ringlight/
I plan on building one some day :)

[FlyingPete]

The LEDs are not gonna give you f/32 at 1/1000

You need a flash.

Those Luxeon 5 Watters will get you close, 120 lumens per LED, a ring of those close up will give a flash a run fors its guide number! Not cheap though, probably cheaper to buy a real ring flash :(

[nat869]

Interesting. How many lumens does a typical ring flash put out? There are more and more affordable high output LED's. I wonder if a big capacitor could get more output with its discharge.

[ron chappel]

Those LED's are indeed abit exxy$.
I wonder if it would be easy to build multi head ringflash made out of flashtubes from disposable cameras?

[FlyingPete]

You can actually by Xenon strobe bulbs as a 'shelf' item, might be onto something there, control would be an issue though.

[nat869]

Those LED's are indeed abit exxy$.
I wonder if it would be easy to build multi head ringflash made out of flashtubes from disposable cameras?

That is an interesting idea.....worth looking into.

[PEACHMAN]

I have been looking at the flash rings made by phoenix on the internet..at $85 how can you build one cheaper? Anybody know anything about these??

[GyRob]

i got a ringflash from 7dayshop.com around £54 about $102 the canon one NOT for digital - if you blank of the 4 small contacts ( i glued them in ) leveing the bigest single contact it works fine - for macro it gives about f16 /f22 10" away so 5feet away gives about f5.6 this is on the 20d that has a 250v trigger voltage so it carn't hurt the camera, dont know about othere camara's though
Rob.