DIY Photography has introduced an inexpensive kit to build your own ring flash adapter out of paper and plastic.

http://www.diy-lighting-kits.com/ring-flash/

I built mine up this afternoon around the a700 w/VG and an F56 flash gun. The a700 w/VG is about 3 5/8" between the lens axis and tripod mount, or about 1/4" too high above the limit for the adaptable camera mounting bracket (which is sold separately, BTW). I'd recommend fitting the kit to a body without the VG if this 1/4" would bother you, but you should know that it's not the most imprecise part of this project. The F56 is a very snug fit, too, though if you have difficulty fitting your flash gun, you can always snip the corners of the cheapo adapter. I recommend wrapping the metal adapter bracket with tape where it makes contact with your flash gun and camera. Pictures will come later.

Here are some of my first results with the flash adapter.

F56AM in adapter at half power, 5400XI over my left shoulder at half power, twelve feet away, zoomed to 85mm for rim light.

Hi Kevin,

I like the lighting and the amount of light which actually doesn't wipe any of the details of the side of your face (the bristles of your beard and etc.)

What bothered me is the ring flash's reflection that's fully visible on the pupil of your eyes. Maybe it's just me but it really can't be ignored by my brain whatever I try to not see it there...


Thanks for sharing the experimentation.

Yildiz

I did similar stuff few years ago, but I included a mirror to direct the light from the flash attached directly to the camera. Recently I have many DIY projects using optical fibers to build different light modifiers. A recent one is a macro ringflash adapter for sony Nex5:

You can see here additional werk photos and some results with the rig:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fiberstrob ... 491664288/
Few days ago I finished another project for my alpha 100 with 100mm macro, and it works really nice with the onboard flash (I can reach f18 at iso 100, depending on the subject and distance). IThis picture was stacked from 4 photos lit by the ringflash adapter:


And one standard photo:



Cheers

Marcell

My ringflash version from 2007 (check the options for adjustability ):

Hi Marcell - very interesting DIY conversions - really like the result on the orchid shots - very nice

Seconded. This (macro photography) interests me much.

So, would it be the consensus of this group that ring-flash-generated catch lights should be edited out?

Hi KB, I'm not sure. Possibly, with the subject looking straight at the camera the catch light in the middle of the pupil, looks odd. I've seen ring-light catches that looked ok, but I think they were not in the centre of he eye.

The catchlight is so small it doesn't seem all that bad with a human eye, but I wouldn't use a ringflash to take photos of people anyway, to me it's a macro light first and foremost for taking photos of small things.
Greg

I think it's disturbing only on the first picture. I guess it was really close hence the complete ring is visible. In the second photo it's quite OK.

Here is my try:

That came out quite good Marcell, great exposure to my eye anyway.
Greg