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In brief, here's the concept of a ringlight: The flash tube is arranged concentrically around the lens, so, from the lens's vantage point, there is no shadow, since every shadow is "erased" by equal light from the opposite side. Here's a basic, older non-dedicated ringlight that can be had for less than one hundred dollars and is usable on any digital SLR with a lens diameter of 58mm or less:
Brilliant! However, no shadow means less contrast and less feeling of depth. Ringlights are cool, and they have their place (dentists love them), but I'm not personally convinced they yield the quality of light most people really want in “natural-looking” macro images.
BTW, Nikon has a sophisticated lighting rig that mounts multiple independent flashes around the lens. You can vary the output of each and retain full auto-exposure. Very cool, and rather pricey. Actually, the Nikon macro flash rig (model R1C1 Wireless Close-Up Speedlight System) is not a ringlight, but due to its multiple flashes in close proximity to the lens axis, provides many of the functional benefits of ringflash with less downside, since each flash tube can be operated independently while retaining auto exposure.
So, if you're the nutty professor type, you may be thinking of something like this:
The perversity we see here is a two-flash setup. The ringlight, curiously, functions as the fill light, and the main flash (right side, with swiveled head) is the key, or main, light.
The bracket, which is an old Sunpak, lets me position the key light right where it's needed. The key light's zoom head is zoomed to its widest angle to spread the light about.
Using this rig I find that shadows are still visible, giving nice modeling and natural rendering.
The ringlight (an old, non-dedicated Sunpak), which is mounted to the D70's hotshoe, is triggered by the camera. I have an optical slave mounted to the end of the ringlight, which triggers the key light.
My daughter says the rig looks like Ghostbusters. My wife keeps encouraging me to shoot in the backyard, not the front yard.
And it works pretty darn well. The goal here was to have the ringlight provide fill light--just enough to soften shadows, while the primary light source took care of the bulk of the exposure. In the end I’ve essentially retired this rig, although it may be reborn at some time if I want to disturb the neighbors.
Next: Wiring your Flash
Copyright 2006 Eric Delmar