Not that I own a ring flash unit, but I can borrow one and after discussion on lighting methods and robbiejam asking about it, I got hold of it this weekend and did a bit play about.

The unit it question is a Canon MR14-EX. At nearly £400 it is, believe it or not, the cheaper of Canon's 2 macro flash units, the other being the twin light unit MR-24EX. Both units are designed to fit on the front of Canon's macro lenses, but adapters are available to fit other lenses.

The problems with using the built-in flash units of cameras for macro work are various and most folk have come up against them by now. Taking the flash off camera, if you have that option - a speedlite with a shoe cord or wireless firing - solves some issues, but now you are a bit directional and wanting reflectors or light cubes to get back on track. The macro flash brings 2 tiny flash guns right where you want them - at the end of the lens - and they are fitted with diffusers to help with contrast issues.

So, would it ever be worth the money? The macro flash does suffer from light fall-off much more than desk lamps (and of course there is no light fall off if you do it all outdoors). What I mean by that is that while the fly is correctly exposed, a grey background comes out black, a white background comes out dark grey and so on. The one added dimension that flash gives you is the option to balance the very short intense strobe of the flash with the ambient light. It gets so the difference in exposure between 1/60 sec and 30 sec is negligible - the flash is the same length in both and has dominated proceedings. The ambient light is just compensating for the darkness of the background caused by the light fall-off. You can experiment with different shutter speeds and see how the fly looks with brighter and darker backgrounds.

I was reminded of all this when I set it up today and had a go with it

The other thing you will need to watch when you are messing about with flash is flash synch speed. That's for another episode, save to say you need to be aware of it and what you are doing with it or you will find yourself saying "WTF?" a lot

OK, to the results...

I used the same 'cheeky tail' fly that I have been using as a model recently as it has a nice range of hues and tones and the tricky reflective jungle cock to deal with. All shots done with a Canon 7D and Canon EF 100mm macro lens using evaluative metering (when not in manual) and all with -2EV flash compensation (that was after trial and error).

First up, using aperture priority at f22, a grey background and fixed-synch (1/60 sec)...




Second, all the same as above, however, taking synch out of auto forced the metering to take the ambient light into consideration and, being very dim until the flash fired, it gave it a 30 sec exposure




So, having a feel for what was happening by now, I took it into full manual and gave it various shutter lengths of which this was fairly typical at 4 sec.




Aware of how dark the grey background was tending to be with the fall-off, I tried a pale background. This is it at 1/60 sec, so essentially the same as the first shot:




The shots all look OK apart from the blummin' JC cheeks - don't know if it was just the angle of the one facing the camera, but it blew out the highlights in every single shot. No doubt the Nikon men will come in and tell me it wouldn't have happened with a Nikon

Anyway, I think I like the look of the 4 seconds of ambient light shot - which as usual shows that manual is best

Is it worth the money? You decide. Here's the one I did a while back using the two £5 B&Q desk lamps fitted with milk carton diffusers...




Maybe not quite the presence of the 4 sec ambient shot, but at least the JC cheeks aren't blown out!

Col

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My hovercraft is full of eels

Nice one Col. Good work. Confirmed what I already suspected... nasty and unnatural. Wouldn't give you £40 for it, never mind £400. Your ambient, and desk-lamp lit shots are streets ahead. I guess the ring-flash must be good at something though?

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Fly Clips & Stands

Don't let the Nikon men fool you in any high contrast scene you can only meter for the part of the scene you wish to get the correct exposure on, unless your want to go down the HDR road. You don't need a macro flash setup. Take your pictures outside in overcast conditions were you will get better results.

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Aaah, I see. Thanks for that.

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Too much Saturn, not enough Moon.

Buzzers 2012


Fly Clips & Stands

I hear they make excellent cup holders.

Nice work as usual Col, does kinda confirm to me flashes and flies make poor bedfellows. Agree that your milk carton setup is much better, and considerably cheaper.

I'm surprised of the poor results from your ring flash. I have the Nikon SB-R1 macro lights (used with SB-800 speedlight) and I'm pretty sure I could get more accurate colours, I may give it a go sometime.

You still can't beat natural light though

I have an aftermarket ringflash for my old steam-driven Nikon Fe2, it was a Jessop's re-labelled job. It worked okay for what it cost & did allow you to work inside away from breezes and the like.

It did take a lot of messing around & wasted films to get acceptable results though. The lighting was inevitably fairly flat, which is the way they're designed to work.

However better results were obtained when 1/3 of it was masked with black insulation tape & a small off-camera flash was used some 2 ft. away from the unit. This set-up would give a degree of "modelling" but was a bit "hit & miss". You had to wait for the film to be returned before you could see the result.

I also used a 2 flash set-up on occasions, 1 on a bracket & a second smaller one hand held on a cable when the camera was tripod mounted. That worked okay, but was only really needed for smaller flies of say 16's & below.

It's OK - I do have a rudimentary knowledge of the principals of exposure. I was actually having a friendly banter-like pop at Nikon men (should have added a few joker emoticons), who sooner or later come in and tell you about how their gear is better... and, well, what do you know, right on cue... sorry garyj, someone had to do it

As for taking them outside.... YES, WE KNOW!!!!!! Some of us live in second floor flats with no garden and our only chance to do fly photography is at night when it is dark. Sorry, but we have stated this often enough elsewhere - I didn't think there was any need to state it yet again. Anyway, we need an alternative light source to Mr Sun. We continue to try to find out what the best source is.

From all the negative feedback it looks like ring flash (or more specifically Canon ring flash ) is not the answer. Bear in mind, this was a first attempt with it for about 2 years and I had the flash on the auto ETTL setting. It could be that with a bit further trial and error I could produce better results. I don't think these are too bad myself - just an issue with the reflection from the JC causing burn-out. What do folk see as being wrong with the colours - they look fairly accurate to me.

Col

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My hovercraft is full of eels

... here are a couple more attempts.

After a bit experimentation... went to manual and reined-in the flash power to 1/64. Needed to back-off the aperture to f13. Also had to bring my 2 wee desk lamps into the wings to add a bit to the ambient 'fill'. Gave it 4 seconds.

Cheeky tail...




And in case folk were being put off by the colours (those are the colours - it is a very green blue peacock feather!) or the JC cheeks blowing out...



Not much wrong with those shots. Just the 300-odd quid versus a tenner situation. Er, that and the fact I ended up using the desk lamps anyway...

Col

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My hovercraft is full of eels

Thanks for that Col - the macro ring flash can defo stay in the shop!

I'll stick with my current setup (Canon 40D, Tamron 90mm macro, Nikon SB24 flash gun triggered with eBay special poverty wizards) and concentrate more on getting my head around the fundamentals of macro photography rather than gadgets.

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Started: 19/09/2010 | First fish: 11/12/2010 | Biggest fish: 8lb Brownie