Ring Flash yes or no?

[Papasken]

Hi

I have a Nikon D7000 and a Sigma 105 Macro lens. I believe that the purchasing of a ring flash could greatly improve the results from macro photography.

Can anyone confirm if this would be a good purchase?

If so which one would tie in with my hardware

or if there is a better solution to the above other than change the photographer

 

[philthejuggler]

It is a good way of lighting macro shots in a rather clinical way, or as a fill light. I preferred the results from twin flashguns on brackets - more meaningful shadows.

Phil

 

[Papasken]

It is a good way of lighting macro shots in a rather clinical way, or as a fill light. I preferred the results from twin flashguns on brackets - more meaningful shadows.

Phil

Phil - thanks for the feedback. I am a hobbyist and don't fancy carrying some of the larger macro setups I have seen. I want to keep it simple and I thought a ring flash would be the ideal solution.

Would it help with providing cleared images?

 

[SpikeK6]

Save your maneyon a decent ring flash and just use a normal off camera flash.

Have a look through the Macro section to see what i mean. there is a thread on here called show us your macro rig and you will see what i mean.

cannot find it at the mo will post when I do. here

spike

 

[philthejuggler]

With macro you can delight in capturing sharp images of bugs etc and a ring flash is great for that. For a more artistic approach to lighting a single flash off camera (possibly with a large diffuser) will avoid the flatness.

I'm currently struggling with a similar thing with my safari portrait ringflash - too easy to get lifeless flat results.

Phil

 

[Papasken]

Save your maneyon a decent ring flash and just use a normal off camera flash.

Have a look through the Macro section to see what i mean. there is a thread on here called show us your macro rig and you will see what i mean.

cannot find it at the mo will post when I do. here

spike

Yeah I have looked at many of these, which are wonderful and creative but I usually shoot hand held and weight could be an issue considering I am shaking like a life on a tree when trying to capture smallish bugs.

 

[Papasken]

With macro you can delight in capturing sharp images of bugs etc and a ring flash is great for that. For a more artistic approach to lighting a single flash off camera (possibly with a large diffuser) will avoid the flatness.

I'm currently struggling with a similar thing with my safari portrait ringflash - too easy to get lifeless flat results.

Phil

My problem may not be lighting. I find it difficult to stop the camera shaking when close up to the subject. You can see samples here https://picasaweb.google.com/papasken/SigmaMacro?feat=directlink

Although not entirely disappointed in them and I am improving, I struggling to get focus on the entire subject. I use an external flash on the Hot shoe and thought a ring flash may improve the final output

 

[SpikeK6]

Yeah I have looked at many of these, which are wonderful and creative but I usually shoot hand held and weight could be an issue considering I am shaking like a life on a tree when trying to capture smallish bugs.

I took these lovely with just my 50D and my canon 100mm with a jessops flash attached to the camera with its little defuser pulled down, all hand held, i have shakey hands too but the flash takes most of that away.

I bought a bracket and a lead to use and even a set of kenco tubes but not used these yet.

Just breathe easy and go in slow and you will get them, I even use AF aswell which alot of people do not but I like it.

spike

 

[SpikeK6]

To lower the DOF use a higher F number I shot all above at f16 or higher I think certainly was not lower

spike

 

[Fluke86]

any recommendations on a decent flash with the sigma 105mm? i have the jessops flash (360AFD) mentioned above but for some strange reason it wont go off every time i press the shutter button even with fully recharged batteries with the ready light on, i think there may be a communication problem with the flashgun and my 550d :shrug:

Regards
Shaun

 

[SpikeK6]

any recommendations on a decent flash with the sigma 105mm? i have the jessops flash (360AFD) mentioned above but for some strange reason it wont go off every time i press the shutter button even with fully recharged batteries with the ready light on, i think there may be a communication problem with the flashgun and my 550d :shrug:

Regards
Shaun

Is that after waiting for it to recharge??? Mine will not fire everytime if I do not let it recharge after firing, or is yours just not g=firing no matter how long you leave it??

I cannot comment on other flashes as I have not used any others but I know the canon flashes get good right ups.

spike

 

[Fluke86]

Is that after waiting for it to recharge??? Mine will not fire everytime if I do not let it recharge after firing, or is yours just not g=firing no matter how long you leave it??

I cannot comment on other flashes as I have not used any others but I know the canon flashes get good right ups.

spike

Thats waiting for it to recharge, with the flashgun on the hotshoe, i go into settings and try to open up external flash c.fn settings and the camera says i dont have the flashgun attatched? am i doing something wrong here? im not sure im a total newbie and i dont have the instructions.

I only bought the camera two weeks ago so this is all new to me:amstupid:

Regards
Shaun

 

[SpikeK6]

To be totally honest Shaun I have no idea, you will be better off posting your own post in say the talk basics section of this forum and someone there will be much more knowledgable than me on these matters.

spike

 

[Spanishphil]

Hi

I have a Nikon D7000 and a Sigma 105 Macro lens. I believe that the purchasing of a ring flash could greatly improve the results from macro photography.

Can anyone confirm if this would be a good purchase?

If so which one would tie in with my hardware

or if there is a better solution to the above other than change the photographer

I use a D7000 and Sigma 150 for all my macro shots which is my main interest ( have a look at my website )

I use a Nikon SB600 with a very small softbox on a flash bracket with a flash extension cord. I usually shoot manual flash at 1/32 power f16 which give approx 1/20,000 sec exposure so camera shake is not a problem.

The lighting you get this way is far superior to a ring flash as you do get some modeling. You could use any manually adjustable speedlight preferably highish power so you shoot at 1/32 power giving you a very fast recyle time as well as the high speed light burst, I can shoot several frames a second with my set up. The speedlight is also a lot more useful than a ring light for general photography as well of course.

My set up is used hand held and not too heavy, the Sigma 105 is quite a bit lighter than the 150 as well. If you are a bit wobbly grip a pole in your left hand along with the lens to steady yourself. A pole is better than a monopod as you can slide your hand up and down it easily to get at the bug etc.