Photoclubalpha

With apologies to Wormy 1, I realized I might have hijacked his thread so I decided to start afresh.
Daiid, you mentioned that in some cases ring flash works very well and in others it doesn't. Could you tell me when it is appropriate to use one, if that is possible?

With best regards,
Sury

Macro, Close ups, portraits... just to name a few.
E.g. using a ring flash in portraiture reveals beautiful circular/ring-like light in the eyes of the subject (much more pleasant than standard light. IMO).

Dr. Harout,
My question was aimed at David's comment to my post in Wormy1's continuous focusing on single shot thread. I realized that I have diverted the discussion to macro and ring flash etc., and decided to start a new thread. My question actually is: When a ring flash is advisable and when it is not necessary while taking a macro shot?
Thanks for pointing that ring flash can give more desirable catch light when taking portraints. That is something that certainly piqued my curiosity.

With best regards,
Sury

in an old thread that surfaced on DPr a flash from a german company has surfaced that works with Sony ADI/TTl I even found a review online that compared it favourably with the more flexible Sigma unit. this one thogh should be about 2/3 of the price of the siggy, but it doesn't look like any of them have made it out of europe. David was once going to try and get a Sigma for a review maybe he would have better luck with this one?

Doerr Foto Combiflash

http://www.doerrfoto.de/Produkte/Articl ... group=1887

The only time I use my ring-flash is for taking hand-held close-up/macro shots when the ambient light is too low for a high enough shutter speed (even allowing for the SSS advantage). I find it very good for that, enabling me to get sharp shots when without it I would certainly fail.

I use a very basic manual/auto (no camera control) flash unit in manual mode on my a900. Usually somewhere about 1/200th at f11 with 200 ISO. It cost me £30 as new from an eBay seller. A couple of test shots, using "intelligent preview", soon establishes the correct settings which I find hold reasonably well for an entire session.

Can you provide some product details of the flash you bought, if you don't mind?

Sury

rogprov wrote:The only time I use my ring-flash is for taking hand-held close-up/macro shots when the ambient light is too low for a high enough shutter speed (even allowing for the SSS advantage). I find it very good for that, enabling me to get sharp shots when without it I would certainly fail.

I use a very basic manual/auto (no camera control) flash unit in manual mode on my a900. Usually somewhere about 1/200th at f11 with 200 ISO. It cost me £30 as new from an eBay seller. A couple of test shots, using "intelligent preview", soon establishes the correct settings which I find hold reasonably well for an entire session.

It's a Cobra. See here ...

http://www.amazon.com/Cameta-Digital-Fi ... B000NWU2BM

Which seems a good buy in your country.

Also marketed under several different badges.

I think what David was getting at was that sometimes the light from a Ring type flash can be very flat, coming from all directions at the same strength at the same time, so you can get some tiny highlights but almost zero shadows. The Minolta Ring Flash had four switchable 'on/off' flash tubes, so you could leave one or two off to give light just from side to side, or top to bottom, but probably a better idea is to tape some tissue over two of them instead, that way you can have reduced softer light coming from two directions.
Using flash for extreme macro can be tricky, because with tubes and especially bellows you can end up with f-stops like f45, f64, f90, f128 etc. just because of the extension....not that I would bother all that much with that type of macro myself, too much mucking about, would much prefer to do medium distance (up to a meter approx) tele-macro of small night time critters, IF SONY FIXED THE MACRO FLASH SYSTEM BACK THE WAY IT WAS I could, you can't take the twin flash into a tangle of undergrowth at night, it will get snagged for sure.
Greg

Greg,
This comment made by David in Wory1's thread on continuous shooting in single frame, and I quote "In the past I've found true ring flash to be a mixed benefit. With some subjects it is unmatched, with others it produces a disappointing quality of light. The Minolta four-tube solution was one of the best. I keep my Minolta unit in the hope that a way to use it properly will be found." prompted my original question.
I was told by a friend of mine that ring flash is a must for macro photography worth anything. Though I have taken some close ups (I presume macro -> 1:1 or greater).

Sury

I sort of tend towards the belief that 1:1 is most definitely Macro territory, and that is about the borderline of requiring extensive extra support equipment, eg. focusing/framing rack on the tripod, extra support rods/brackets, dampers, extra light (ring flash, twin flash etc.) specimen mounting table and supports, all of it requiring the patience of a saint, and dogged determination, but above all that type of photography is all about studio type work, it's all in the setup, it's a very committed photographer who takes all that stuff out into the field. But anyway the Metz ringflash might be quite ok for extra light, or the Sony (originally the Minolta Macro Flash Set, now only half of the system remains, thanks to Sony) twin flash would do for studio type work just fine, probably, (have not used it myself though), it might need strategically mounted small reflectors and/or blinds etc. to prevent lens flare.
The latest craze is stacking, (you need frame stacking software that discards the oof stuff), you take a series of frames 'overlapping' (hopefully) the micro focus depth of view as you rack in, or out on the subject, (you need a planetary drive microscope rack), this can result in some very good work indeed.
Greg

Greg,
I am a weekend warrior wanting to try different things. My passion is for photography and does not permeate to particular genre. So I am very happy with getting close to 1:1. I tried stacking using both CZM and trial version of Photo Acute but with very little luck. I did use a x-y macro rail to keep the reference same and move into subject to take photos with different areas in focus. More likely than not, it is my technique than the SW that needs improving, given some fantastic stacking examples on fred miranda site using CZM. I have rest of my life to keep trying.

With best regards,
Sury

Yep I agree, dabbling, experimenting, it's all part of the photographic voyage of discovery.
I got close to 1.5:1 out in the field and acceptably sharp except for a couple of small oof spots, I was test using an extension tube with the KM100 macro, a tripod was absolutely essential but the problem with tripods is they are really unhandy when trying to photograph live tiny things out in the field. Luckily my manfrotto ball head has a decent enough friction control so you can set it sortof stiff-ish but still not locked, that combined with using the tripod as a bipod so I could rock it back and forth towards and away from the subject on two legs....it worked reasonably well enough to get the shot.
Greg

Greg,
How does one gets beyond 1:1 with extension tubes? What is the significance of the numbers on the lens
other than as the indicator of length (height) of the tube in terms of magnification?

With best regards,
Sury

An extension tube doesn't actually magnify like an add-on + filter does, but it allows you to get closer than the normal minimum focus distance of the lens, I had preset the 100mm macro to 1:1 and fitted with the 50mm extension tube (with AF turned off), then all I had to do was move the camera into position until the subject looked sharp and press the button....
You can work it out by dividing the tube length by the focal length of the lens to get the magnification, ie. 50 divided by 100 = 0.5 and the lens was already at 1:1 so I added that 0.5 on and got 1.5:1 the subject was about 5/16" ish long and the image in the VF was about 1/2" ish so I think that was confirmation.
There is some more on the subject here http://photographic.com/lens-tips/172/index1.html and I'm sure if you did a search on the web you would probably find a lot more.
Greg

Greg,
Thank you very much for that explanation. I will certainly update my knowledge using the link you provided and on the web.

With best regards,
Sury