Neewer 48 Macro LED Ring Flash Light Review
- 10 years ago
Macro is my favorite part of photography, and for years I've longed for Nikon's close-up speedlight kit, but the basic kit costs several hundred dollars, and I've never been able to justify spending that much money. So I shoot with my Nikon 60mm macro lens and use my Nikon flash off-camera connected to the camera body with a sync cable. It's awkward at best, so I was very interested in trying the Neewer 48 Macro LED Ring Flash Light.
It was very easy to set up. I first put 4 AA batteries in the power controller, and slipped the controller onto the camera's hot shoe. Then I screwed the 62mm adapter (one of the sizes included in the kit) onto the lens' threads, and pushed the ring light onto the adapter. It was that simple, and the camera was ready to shoot. I turned on the power controller and shot a few small items. With the ring light turned on continuously, in effect, it was existing light photography, but with more illumination than the normal ambient lighting provided. The ability to dial the intensity of the light up or down gives a lot of flexibility in your photography. With the instant feedback of digital photography, it's easy to experiment with the different lighting effects.
The problem was when I used the ring light in flash mode. All Nikon DSLRs use a series of tiny preflashes to determine the flash exposure. The Neewer ring light does not have this feature, so to use the ring light as a flash, you'll have to use manual exposure and some trial and error to get the exposure right. (That's the way we had to do it when I got into photography in the 1960s.) Another drawback to flash photography with the Neewer ring light is that the duration of the flash is much too long to stop rapid motion. One really nice feature, however, is the ability to use only one side of the LEDs. In this mode, the ring light can be rotated to any orientation to make use of shadows instead of blasting everything with light.
For either flash or continuous light mode, you can try the colored diffusers that come with the ring light kit. They give some interesting color effects, although my own preference is to add color effects during photo editing.
For me, the ring light gives a lot more capability and flexibility for macro photography. With the small apertures that I typically use for macro, I either have to use flash or crank up the ISO and live with the increased digital noise. With the ring flash, I'm looking forward to doing more creative photography of the little critters like insects and spiders that I love to shoot.
For anyone who wants to try something different with their macro photography, I recommend the Neewer 48 Macro LED Ring Flash Light.
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It was very easy to set up. I first put 4 AA batteries in the power controller, and slipped the controller onto the camera's hot shoe. Then I screwed the 62mm adapter (one of the sizes included in the kit) onto the lens' threads, and pushed the ring light onto the adapter. It was that simple, and the camera was ready to shoot. I turned on the power controller and shot a few small items. With the ring light turned on continuously, in effect, it was existing light photography, but with more illumination than the normal ambient lighting provided. The ability to dial the intensity of the light up or down gives a lot of flexibility in your photography. With the instant feedback of digital photography, it's easy to experiment with the different lighting effects.
The problem was when I used the ring light in flash mode. All Nikon DSLRs use a series of tiny preflashes to determine the flash exposure. The Neewer ring light does not have this feature, so to use the ring light as a flash, you'll have to use manual exposure and some trial and error to get the exposure right. (That's the way we had to do it when I got into photography in the 1960s.) Another drawback to flash photography with the Neewer ring light is that the duration of the flash is much too long to stop rapid motion. One really nice feature, however, is the ability to use only one side of the LEDs. In this mode, the ring light can be rotated to any orientation to make use of shadows instead of blasting everything with light.
For either flash or continuous light mode, you can try the colored diffusers that come with the ring light kit. They give some interesting color effects, although my own preference is to add color effects during photo editing.
For me, the ring light gives a lot more capability and flexibility for macro photography. With the small apertures that I typically use for macro, I either have to use flash or crank up the ISO and live with the increased digital noise. With the ring flash, I'm looking forward to doing more creative photography of the little critters like insects and spiders that I love to shoot.
For anyone who wants to try something different with their macro photography, I recommend the Neewer 48 Macro LED Ring Flash Light.
Get Cheap Price On Amazon:
http://amzn.to/1qHDw6O