Beginner Meike FC-100 LED Macro Ring Flash Light -what other use's????

teddyt

teddyt

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Name
Graham
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I have just brought this and while I am waiting for it to arrive what else would it be useful for apart from Macro(why I got it)
flashring_zps9rovzhvw.jpg

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It has 4 modes , flash, flash left half ,flash right half and on full time has EV to +/ - 1.5
reviews though goodish dont show much of how it performs....I know some use it as a video light?? and I want it for Macro stuff, just dont know what else i could use it for????
 
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Some people use it for fashion photos, see below :-
http://www.thephoblographer.com/201...hers-introduction-to-ring-flash/#.WFARx312DNw

http://ilovehatephoto.com/2014/07/02/how-to-shoot-like-terry-richardson-part-1-the-look/

BTW a lot of macro photographers hate ring flash and use other flashes. However some top photographers use it
see
https://www.flickr.com/photos/78925926@N08
and
https://www.flickr.com/photos/roboelman
I use one because I can't adapt anything else for closes up like this (I am not technically proficient enough)
EF7A0156mite by davholla2002, on Flickr
or
EF7A9726Psuedoscorpion by davholla2002, on Flickr
 
First point of symantics; there's 'macro' photography, and there's 'close up' photography. Strictly, it's not 'macro' unless the subject is smaller than your film frame / sensor; ie 24x36mm full frame, 16x24 'crop',So if you are getting anything bigger than a 1p piece all in the picture, you aren't doing 'strict' macro photography, as the lens is working at less than 1:1 reproduction; you are doing 'close up' photography; which changes things slightly, because you can do genuine 'macro' photography at a fair range, without getting that close.

The 'ring-flash' then was a solution to a problem of close up photography, where a traditional on camera flash, usually critisised for 'ordinary' shots of creating a rather flat and unflattering light; at such close range, isn't lighting the scene evenly, and likely the lens is casting a shadow accross the shot! Meanwhile, on camera flash will tend to be quite strong, to light up a person at perhaps twelve feet range; check the inverse square law, and as you reduce the light to subject distance, brightness increases proportionally to the square of the distance... double the flash range, you 1/4 the light intensity; halve the range, you quadrouple the intensity.... so when shooting at a few inches, even a pretty weak flash can be a bit strong, and that square relationship means that contrast, as range changes across the frame can be rather high.
Ring flash, then mounts the flash right at the front of the lens, so the lens wont cast a shaddow, and with light from top bottom and sides of the lens, 'may' providing the scene's main plane isn't inclined too much, be a little more even. BUT, they tend to be rather weak and have a pretty low guide number, so they often wont provide much light at much over a foot, and you get the opposite effect, of far objects in the scene dissapearing into a very dark background.

As has been said, many close up photographers don't like them; just like conventional on camera flash, they produce a very clinical light, lacking contrast or texture detail, or 'modeling'; so they prefer to use more conventional studio light arrangements 'in miniature', modeling the subject with multiple light sources and reflectors, diffused to suit. So ring-flash is only of limited use even in its 'natural habitat'. Beyond that, how you might use one is pretty much an open book; there's certainly scope for creativity with one; same as a conventional flash, BUT results will depend pretty much on appreciating 'light' and lighting arrangements in general, to get 'pleasing' results with one.

Personally, for 'close up' photography, particularly your slot car shots, I wouldn't have bothered with a ring flash at all; and to learn about lighting, I would have bought a 'table top studio', that usually has small modeling lights that can be arranged with the scenery and reflectors like you would larger 'people sized' set ups in a full size studio.

For your Scalextric photo's, that would probably be the more appropriate set up for the job TBH. especially if you're aim is 'realism', trying to capture them like full size cars.. I mean.... it's not often you have a 20 foot wall of lights, six foot away from the subject iluiminating a real car, which is the 'scale' effect of a ring-flash! And techniques of lighting up a model car or doll in a table top studio translate directly to full size studio set ups; so you'd likely get more 'learning' from it than a ring, as well as more 'better' shots from teh versatility. But as I think Phil mentioned; you don't even need a 'propriety' table top studio to do table top photography; and a couple of angle poise lamps and a roll of lining paper, and other improvisations are probably as good or better... but whole genre, really isn't about the photography, but about the modeling, and creating the scene, making the scale models, dressing them, making the accessories, setting the stage, creating the background, and putting the whole lot together to create a facsimile of reality that 'fools' our perceptions and plays on them... which is so much in the sticky tape and paint brushes, rather than camera filters and flashes......

So, whilst you might use a ring flash in many other instances, or more or less conventional situations; I still don't think it was particularly appropriate for your slot car photo's, or for learning the craft. they are so much a 'one trick dog', and you are starting from a point of ignorance, where results will only be achieved by trial and error, and the ring isn't very helpful to teaching very much... other than sticking your lens two or three inches from a butterfly or flower and getting a pretty 'sterile' shot of it, and relying on the subject to be interesting enough to carry it.

Here and now, rather than looking for 'other' uses of the ring-flash.... Personally, I'd suggest you'd do better, grabbing a couple of table lamps, some Blue Peter make and do materials, and reading up on studio lighting; make some 'snoots' to direct light, or diffusers to spread it; dig out some old christmas wrapping paper or tin foil to make reflectors and get 'warm tone' or 'cold tone' effects; and go see how changing the number or possition of lights, how moving them closer or further changes intensity, how using a snoots or barn doors to change directionality, or and how adding or taking away reflected 'fill in' or using a diffuses changes the 'modeling' of shape and form from casting or eliminating shadows ... which is all the 'basics' of artificial lighting; master that lot, then you might be able to exploit the unique features of a Ring, both in close up and 'creative' situations, but here and now... IMO it is of very very limited use, for very much at all, including a lot of the 'macro' photography, you were probably convinced you needed it for!
 
MMM very interesting Mike, and I have finally got what 1:1 means now:ty:. I do have a table top studio with lights. Used it when I first started taking pic's but got fed up with it as the coloured cloths for backgrounds were crap!!:grumpy:.So hid it away and forgt all about it.
but will drag it out again... As for close up/ macro I have tried the ring flash and when set to always on, it is quite useful. However I can not work out how to sync flash with camera, always comes out nearly white??? its me most likely , but the mickey mouse manual is useless:LOL:

Have made snoots out of pringles tubes and had some success with those(y)
 
teddyt said:
Have made snoots out of pringles tubes and had some success with those(y)
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Drinking straw grids are also handy for table-top stuff (y)
 
please .... tell me more:wideyed:
 
Thanks Alastair, guess the wife will be cleaning glue from everywhere tomorrow:banana:
 
AH HA!! nice one Steve
 
Not a mattter of getting bored steve just the beating I'll get of the wife for all the mess I will be making in her kitchen.

To cold for the shed now, oh and made my pringles snoot same as your:clap:
 
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teddyt said:
Not a mattter of getting bored steve just the beating I'll get of the wife for all the mess I will be making in her kitchen.

To cold for the shed now
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LOL, sometimes I take the freedom of being single again for granted :)
 
teddyt said:
MMM very interesting Mike, and I have finally got what 1:1 means now
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The term 'macro' is essentially a legacy of medium and large format film photography where the lens was actually 'enlarging' the subject in the image captured on the film, and with 5x4cm medium format film, or 1x8" large format 'cut sheet' film. When the 35mm format gave amateurs access to interchangeable lens camera and the versatility to attempt more challenging 'stuff', that tiny 24x36mm film frame, practically denied 'true' macro photography, as anything bigger than a 1p piece was always going to have to be 'shrunk' to fit in the frame, same as taking a picture of a person... hence it became synonymous with small object and 'close up' photography, where any 'enlargement' of the original subject is in the reproduction, not the capture... so, making a 12foot tall advertising poster of a grinning girl selling toothpaste or uplift bra, would be as much 'macro' photo as taking a photo of an any, and printing it A4.... It is a bit of pedantry, but, like so much photography, confusion is caused in the fuzzy edges, and that bit of understanding, of the mechanics can be useful in working out what you are doing and dealing with problems.
teddyt said:
I do have a table top studio with lights. Used it when I first started taking pic's but got fed up with it as the coloured cloths for backgrounds were crap!
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Intent of those, is to provide what is essentially a neutral back-ground, for the subject, which is likely to be something like a coin or piece of jewelry or small artifact, that doesn't intrude on the artifact and provides a clear edge definition. The 'set' provided expected to be used to take shots of things for perhaps sales brochures or maybe collection catalog etc, where you really want to isolate the subject and focus attention on the subject.
What you were doing with the scalextric cars, is much more evolved; you dont just want to show the model, you want to show that model in 'context' and a context that's not that of a toy on a table top, which is what it really is, but to emphasize the models 'aunthenticity', how like a 'real' car it looks, so you need to give it a context that looks as 'realistic' as the model does, and provide a setting that you would expect to find a real car in.. you dont tend to find real cars in a room draped in black velvet .. unless you have wandered into a Kia advert shoot!
So, THAT is where you start to get creative, and crack out the Blue Peter make and do to create a 'setting' for your model as realistic as the model, and the 'craft' is in knowing how 'real' you have to make that setting, and where you can 'cheat' the camera; exploiting shallow DoF to blurr a printed photo backdrop or where you cant... and you need to print that photo-back-drop with enough 'depth' and shoot it at the right incident angle that it retains that depth, to look 'natural'.
It's an absolutely fascinating arena to work in, where my daughter, primed with A-Level Art & Photography 'buzz-words' would call it "A Specialisation of Mixed Media Montage"..... which offers tools and techniques that open up the scope to 'build' a final image enormously.
EG: to get a 'natural context' for your model car, you don't have to build an equal scale model stage set... you could go take photo's of the real pit lane at a real race track, you could then use one of those 'stock shots' to create your backdrop, but to add scale elements, say model road cones, or a burning ball of cotton wool.... and then you could shoot your model car 'green-screen' and montage that into the final image as an element in photo-shop. Ie compile a montage of elements, that are real, and real scale, with others that are models, to create an image that 'looks real', but in which none of the individual elements actually existed in reality or similteniousely in reality as portrayed....
TRICKY bit in any montage, even one as simple as using a photo backdrop, is the LIGHTING. Lets say you used a photo of a pit lane as your back-ground; that back-ground picture taken probably in early afternoon, the sun overhead, the pit garages in deep shaddow; and you put your model car in-front of it, and light it with a single light source, that's not directly overhead, you get contradictory shaddows that can be quite subtle, but jarring to the eye and cause query that denies the reality of the scene, and makes it look 'wrong'.
Which brings me back, it's not just in the lighting, and learning the basics of studio lighting to best flatter a subject... in this area it's also in that set dressing, and then even more, in the 'continuity' and making the elements 'blend' naturally, or only causing incongruity where you WANT incongruity.... playing with the viewers perceptions, making them believe what you want them to believe, think what you want them to think, question only what you lead them to question......
It's almost pure art, in the conception, and just as difficult playing with 'photo-reality' to imply a reality that is only assumed.
Take the example of the Cottingley fairies; {Film, Fairy Tale, a True story 1997}, when two young girls and a box brownie took photo's of the fairies at the bottom of their garden that kept the world guessing for almost a century!
What caused such consternation to authentication in that case was that they used a Box Brownie; a camera, which was factory loaded with film, and returned to the factory to be developed,hence there was no opportunity for the photo's to be faked in processing, whatever the camera saw 'had' to be 'real'... but was it a 'real' fairy?
Eventual admission by the surviving sister after the other's death, was that the fairy's were just paper cut outs, they had made in their bedroom and stuck to twigs and sticks and bits of cotton, in a stage set they had made BluePeter style in the loft with leaves and wood and things found in the wood behind the house!
It's a very charming little story, as well as a good case study, in photography, but more pertinent to you doing scale-model photo's, in how much is in the concept and the planning, then the stage sitting, making the scene, and how little, is in the camera... box brownie ISTR didn't have ANY settings, other than a shutter release! the hours that went into those 8 photos were in the painting and gluing to make the scene infront of the camera, not in the lighting, not in the gadgets around the camera, or in using the camera itself.
But, universal to all photography... no like background? Use another!
teddyt said:
However I can not work out how to sync flash with camera, always comes out nearly white???
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'sync'?
I confess, I've always struggled with flash photography. Basic principle, as far as I can recall is that the flash is doing the job of the shutter; so on my old film cameras, camera would be set to 1/60th or slower, to avoid curtain masking.. shutter starting to close before the flash has finished, so only exposing half the frame..... you then set the aperture to balence the flash's Guide Number, based on distance from subject to flash... if the flash wasn't on camera, that lead to some complex calculations, ISTR, but on camera or close, flash usually had scale to tell you what aperture to set for any flash to subject distance...... though rarely much under 6feet.
'Syncronised' flash units, with variable GN power settings, that could talk to the camera were uncommon even in the 90's, but principle is the flash tells the camera what aperture to set for the flash power; and or the camera tells the flash to back off the flash power for the aperture and focus distance..... which is all very clever, IF the camera and flash talk a common language...... AND you are using an 'auto' mode.... which using extension tubes you probably aren't and whether the flash can talk to the camera or not,you probably have to go back to basics and work it out by guide number and tape measure, and fire on a slow enough shutter or 'bulb' shutter open. so refreshing my own memory..... Distance = Guide No / aperture @ ISO100; So if flash has a GN of 4, and aperture is set to f4, Distance is 1m..... f16 would give you 1/4m or 25cm.... etc. Ramp the ISO, so you need to reduce aperture or distance. Basically 'shutter speed' becomes an irrelevance. But if you're whiting out.... you're too close or using too wide an aperture or too high an ISO.
 
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