Pics from Henessy's MO ring flash

[nightwolf75]

*disclaimer...this is a loaned set from henessy on the promise of doing a quick review for him. however, i didn't promise must say good things tho... might as well say this upfront on the interest of fairness... *

rather than clogging up the MO thread, i've decided to start a new review thread here. for the early adopters, pls add your pics/comments here and not in the MO thread.

again, this is not a scientific review.. this is more like how i found the flash when using.

those who have no idea what ring flashes are see here. most major camera makers have their own dedicated ring/macro flash (strictly speaking, ring flash and macro flash are different... but heck, who's counting...). nikon has their R1C1, canon has their Macro Ring Lite MR-14EX and sony has their Sony HVL-MT24AM Macro Twin Flash Kit. 3rd party makers, we have Rayflash, Orbis and AlienBees, among others.

for me, i shoot people. a ring flash is great for those shadowless close-ups that is so beloved by fashion shooters (of which, i am not). so, i was quite interested in the MO ringflash, which, IMO, essentially is a cheaper version of the Rayflash and Orbis. however, i do not have either of these as they are way too expensive to even start considering as i do not think i would use it often. hence, this MO ringflash interest me.

my first opinion is that this thing is HUGE. a disinterested party (ie my wife) saw it, and went like...'who would want to carry it out??'. this is how it looked like on my D300+grip, with a 35mm/f2 lens (yes.. it is behind the flash... and yes, the flash is dat big. u will have to trust me on the fact that there is a lens behind...) and a SB800.



from a visual inspection, the inside of the flash uses plastic (?) mirrors to re-direct the light from the SB800. i'm not sure how Rayflash and Orbis do it for theirs. this is how the MO ringflash look like when lit up.



so, does it work? to a certain extent, it does perform according to its price bracket. while it does allow my SB800 to TTL, i found that the exposure is a wee bit too harsh for me when shooting up close and personal. also, i found that the exposure slightly varies from shot to shot. but, when i get it right, the effects are actually quite good.

this is my son shot with the flash, at abt 30cm away (give or take a bit). only resized the pics. nothing else was done. Exif is still present.



IMO, a bit blown on his right cheek.

then i decided to set the flash manually to 1/64.



a little bit under, but better than blowing it cos i can recover the details in photoshop. (ignore my wife's leg and my girl peeking out...)

...tbc

[nightwolf75]

...cont

for those who use it for product shoots, this would be a cheap option for you. i don't shoot macro/products. never got the hang of it, nor the patience to do it. so pardon me if the following shots are not up to scratch.

i took a couple of things at hand and popped them into my light tent. same set up as shooting my son.








overall first impressions - not too bad. IMO, this MO ringflash falls under my 'mai hiam buay pai' category. it does what it is supposed to do for its price bracket. probably one can get pretty good results in manual flash mode. if you are an occasional user like me, or just want to try wat a portable ringflash can do at an inexpensive entry point, this ringflash is a good option. those who are heavy-duty users, u might find this flash cramping your style.

again, this is not a scientific review. i probably will have a better idea on what it can/cannot do after using it for a couple of days.

[jopel]

do you have sample for macro - insect

[ortega]

i want to see the round shadow on background, fashion

[vince123123]

Oh, I saw this in HK when I was there recently, and I thought it was a new product :P Looks like here also have already. Was wondering if it worked.

[nightwolf75]

Originally Posted by jopel do you have sample for macro - insect

i only shoot bugs with sheltox...

Originally Posted by ortega i want to see the round shadow on background, fashion

eh.. dat might be a bit too much to ask from the ringflash, IMO...

btw, forgot to add - i am doing this as a personal favour to henessy becos he was kind enuf to offer it to me when i asked. this product is not endorsed by CS in any way, just because i happened to be a mod as well.

[Henessy]

Thats really fast! Thanks for willing to help me to do a review.

[nightwolf75]

Originally Posted by Henessy Thats really fast! Thanks for willing to help me to do a review.

no problem. just let me know how long i can hold on to it.

one more pic to add. those early adopters, pls add yours in too with ur comments.

for the heck of it, u can use the ringflash with a 70-200mm lens.... tho the whole setup is a little to heavy to hand-hold for longer periods of time.

shot my girl at 200mm @ f2.8 (sorry ortega... still no circle shadow)

[ortega]

Originally Posted by nightwolf75 eh.. dat might be a bit too much to ask from the ringflash, IMO...

isn't that the main reason for this product?

http://www.expoimaging.net/product-d..._Flash_Adapter

[vince123123]

Actually I think I see the ring flash-type shadow there in your last shot. What a ring flash does is not a circular shadow, but a thin shadow ALL AROUND the subject, just like what you see in your last photo.

[ellery]

Bro did you do a 3/4 body or full length test shot ? The shadow riming that a true ring flash give is not very evident in your test pics. There seems to be inequal light throw ie light output is stronger in the top half than bottom.

Cheers

[nightwolf75]

Originally Posted by ellery Bro did you do a 3/4 body or full length test shot ? The shadow riming that a true ring flash give is not very evident in your test pics. There seems to be inequal light throw ie light output is stronger in the top half than bottom. Cheers

see if i can get a chance next week to try... my kids dun exactly stand still long enuf for me to take pics...

any early adopters? pls add your pics/comments too.

[Del_CtrlnoAlt]

wanna do a shoot out with a alienbee bo?

[Henessy]

Originally Posted by nightwolf75 no problem. just let me know how long i can hold on to it. one more pic to add. those early adopters, pls add yours in too with ur comments. for the heck of it, u can use the ringflash with a 70-200mm lens.... tho the whole setup is a little to heavy to hand-hold for longer periods of time. shot my girl at 200mm @ f2.8 (sorry ortega... still no circle shadow)

Actually you may have it until jan as I will be overseas from sat for a week.

[uranium2k]

Here's some from me:

[Drudkh]

Omg! Wow! That's a giant add-on!

[noxon]

Here's a macro using the ring flash, pretty even lighting

[unseen]

I get a VERY bad colour shift using the ring flash.

My colours has a huge red + magenta shift, and the colour temperature is also very different. I have had to spend 30min manually shifting and changing the colour balance just so that I can shoot jpg with the ring flash. I'm rather paranoid about using it to shoot jpg still.

Not sure if it's something wrong with my purchase, will contact Henessy again regarding it.

--------------------------

Also, let me change a VERY wrong perception of this ring flash.
It allows TTL, so... IT DOES NOT CAUSE YOUR FLASH TO BE OVER OR UNDER if you're using ttl.

the flash will light up (and hence the product), causing light to fall onto the subject. The camera will meter Through The Lens and change the flash ev accordingly. You do not need to make adjustments. That's what TTL is all about.

Nightwolf, i think your LCD/monitor is not calibrated properly. I can see all the shades, nothing is blown.

[noxon]

Mine seems fine, i shoot on AWB and colours are not off.... Also the TTL is somehow fooled, sometimes i can shoot with 0 compensation but sometimes i have to +1/3 or even +1 (especially at the 1-5m range), whereas using direct / diffused flash the TTL works fine.

[viix]

My input for the ringflash after extensively using it.
I purchased the RF155 to use on a D90+SB800 setup.
I had some mounting issues with the setup when mounting it with large lenses. With 67mm filter diameter lenses, the Ringflash's inner bottom ring was touching the base of the lenses. It was no go if you attempt to mount a 77mm lens.

I informed Henessy about it and thought the next larger size might work.. but later discovered the 160 would be too low. I only need 15mm clearance so I looked closer at the ringflash. I discover the flash mount was a slip in plastic so decided to reverse mount the entire setup and wala! Problem solved! The Ringflash now sits centered with any lens, no issues with 77mm filter diameter lenses either! Also, the ring flash is now firing perpendicular to the lens! Initially it was drooping downwards but reversing the flash attachment and now it fires straight on!

TTL issues are there when firing subjects closer than 1 meters (approx). The flash fires with a little over exposure on wide focal lengths and I had to under expose the flash output by 1/3 stop. At 50mm onwards, it fires perfect.. No issues on TTL when firing at subjects more than 3meters. Overall, at 100, it's pretty worth it for macro and as a secondary fill light when shooting portraits..