Anyone used a cheap LED ring flash?

sinar

sinar

Messages
231
Name
Julie
Edit My Images
No
Hi,

Does anyone have any experience with cheap LED ring flashes?, they sell for about £20-£30 on ebay.

After a disappointing experience shooting insects with my Olympus E-PL5 and Olympus 60mm F2.8 macro, i think the problem is that i need additional light.

I had to boost the ISO really high to get a small enough aperture for enough depth of field, so they were quite noisy.

Money is a bit short at the moment, so i'm wondering if a cheap ring flash would help in any way, letting me stop down to F16 or F22, using base ISO.

I'm guessing they are not great, and it might be better to keep saving up for a Olympus FL-600R and use it with a macro flash bracket which i have.
 
Re-reading your post can i ask, what macro flash bracket do you have ? Can this be used with any flash unit ? Might be worth looking at a homemade rig of some sort with a cheap flash unit. Info please.
 
I have a very old Kirk macro flash bracket, like this one:

http://www.kirkphoto.com/Universal_-_Macro_Flash_Bracket.html

I used to use it with my Canon 10D and canon flash, it was a bit unwieldly compared to proper macro flashes, but it worked really well.

I used it in a similar set up as this:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RmKatecVD...lcug7wwM/s1600/Macro_flash_setup_IMG_0219.JPG

I"m thinking i just might get a cheaper regular flash gun and use it with my old bracket instead of getting a cheap LED ring flash, or, i have a Nikon SB900 so i might see if there is a way to use it with my GH2 and EPL-5 in some manual mode.
 
A much better idea really and will give you much better results than the LED RING.
Your SB900 would work but as you say in manual mode.

Its a shame that Olympus cameras are very poorly catered for when it comes to flash. The 3rd party manufacturers just dont make them unfortunately. Years ago I used ,and still have, a brilliant Olympus C750uz compact/hybrid. It was only 4mp (a lot at the time lol) but its lens was superb and the metering was great but the built in flash was pretty useless and the only option for dedicated external flash was Olympus' own which for spec I felt were overpriced. It stopped me buying into an Olympus system at the time. Shame really.
 
Last edited:
Gazamonk said:
A much better idea really and will give you much better results than the LED RING.
Your SB900 would work but as you say in manual mode.

Its a shame that Olympus cameras are very poorly catered for when it comes to flash. The 3rd party manufacturers just dont make them unfortunately. Years ago I used ,and still have, a brilliant Olympus C750uz compact/hybrid. It was only 4mp (a lot at the time lol) but its lens was superb and the metering was great but the built in flash was pretty useless and the only option for dedicated external flash was Olympus' own which for spec I felt were overpriced. It stopped me buying into an Olympus system at the time. Shame really.
Click to expand...

I think Olympus cameras can use panasonic flashes too, seems the top of the range flash is about £300, which is about the same as the SB900, not sure how they compare spec wise though, I just can't afford that at the moment.
 
I own one but haven't used it a lot, it would double my shutter speed in a dull room however, and would be great with manual stop down lens.

maybe radio trigger and a yong nuo flash?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top