Cheap ringlight to experiment

Just looking for suggestions on a cheap (or good diy) ringlight to experiment with before sinking some money into it.

(before you jump on my back I did a quick search but couldnt find any good info)

Thanks!

awww . . . no one?

specifically wondering if anyone has any experience with eBay/Amazon knock off ringflashes.

Hi there,

I'm not sure what you consider cheap and I'm not sure if you're only looking at ring flashes but I recently built a really nice continuous ring light that I like very much and it gives me much better and cooler results than any of the inexpensive ring flash adapters for Speedlight's.

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=952908

If you really want a ring flash adapter then my recommendation is the Orbis Ring Flash. I find it to be much better than the Ray Flash or any of the Ray Flash knock-off's.

I 2nd the orbis, especially with the bracket (or make your own).

The ray flash is slightly more portable but i don't like the idea of blocking the AF light which is very important for me.

Csae wrote in post #11322572
I 2nd the orbis, especially with the bracket (or make your own).

The ray flash is slightly more portable but i don't like the idea of blocking the AF light which is very important for me.

Not only that but the Ray Flash doesn't produce very even light without a modification and the stress on the flash head and 'wanky' off center jiggling of the Ray Flash never worked for me.

Thanks for the suggestions! I'd love to take on a project making my own, but continuous won't work for me unfortunately. I'm looking to use the ringlight in a 6-7 strobe setup and mixing continuous and strobe can be bad from what I've seen . . .

Unfortunately, for as much as the orbis is, I would just splurge (relative to my budget for this, that is) for an AB Ringlight.

css7493 wrote in post #11324426
Thanks for the suggestions! I'd love to take on a project making my own, but continuous won't work for me unfortunately. I'm looking to use the ringlight in a 6-7 strobe setup and mixing continuous and strobe can be bad from what I've seen . . .

What exactly are you trying to accomplish with the ring flash?

Well right now I am experimenting, I have an upcoming job, however the date is not set yet.

I am shooting a bat mitzvah in June and she wants to do a 'Glee' poster for her Save the Dates.

See other thread

I've received a lot of good advice, and am trying several different setups, but I think I am going to lean towards a setup simlar to this.

I also have a beauty dish I am going to be experimenting with, but I'm generally just trying to learn all I can about lighting and am not discounting any options!

css7493 wrote in post #11324973
Well right now I am experimenting, I have an upcoming job, however the date is not set yet.

I am shooting a bat mitzvah in June and she wants to do a 'Glee' poster for her Save the Dates.

See other thread

The shots in the link are not resultant from the use of any ring flash!!!
It is very obvious that there is a highlight side of the face and a shadow (or fill) side of the face, in the shots portrayed in https://photography-on-the.net …hp?p=11175682&p​ostcount=1 ... a Main light and a reflector, or a Main light and a Fill light,
and these shots are examples of 'short' lighting or 'broad' lighting on 3/4 shots, and full frontal shots.

And you would want to use a LARGE ring flash (or a beauty dish) for headshots taken with full frontal lighting, not the smallish ring flash which was originally developed for macro lighting.

I appreciate the input. I am aware those photos themselves were not taken with a ringlight, like I said I was just wanting to experiment. I found the Jill Greenberg diagrams and decided I wanted to try something like that out with a ringlight or beauty dish.

I recently started experimenting with an ABR800 ring flash. I did most of my experiments with the reflector/diffuser attached, as that's how I'd use it a good part of the time, and some with the 30" moon unit attached (and attaching it was no fun at all!). First experiments used just this as my single light source. I varied my distance to subject to see the changes in light falloff and catchlights in the eyes. For the second round of experiments, I had another light as my main light and used the ABR800 for fill. It seems to work really well for this in the studio, where I just set the ABR800 to slave mode and used PW's to trigger the main light.

I made a DIY ringflash out of two bowls, and some vend shaft.

The two problems with the DIY solution (Which is fairly easy to make) are the diffusion material, with the compensation for the stronger light @ entry point and the light loss. Depending what you use how well you make everything.

You'll notice the orbis has a stronger diffusion where the flash is placed.

Ultimately, the ABR800 would be my choice over the Orbis, simply due to power. But, i couldn't picture myself running around with an abr and a tronix in a club, the new minivag might change that, but..... A orbis+speedlight however, would also go much lower and closer to ambient. Other then a club type shoot, i'd always use the ring as fill and have a key off camera with studio lights, where the speedlight wouldnt be powerful enough.

There's a "cheap" macro ring flash on amazon for $34.97. http://www.amazon.com …TF8&qid=1290541​968&sr=8-2

A macro flash will be useless in any of the scenarios presented by the OP.

If my memory is right, there is a thread here somewhere that showed how the poster attached two speedlites to his lens to get a ring light like affect.

Or, if you have 3 or 4 of them you could get a speedring and mount them on it and stick the lens through the middle. The advantage using the speedring, is that you probably could rig a bracket to either hold it on a light stand or attach it to the camera.

Adorma, and B&H both have a wide selection of speedrings available. The bigger the center opening the better for your experiment.