lively99

Does a camera ring work great for lighting?

Drbobcameraguy Loc: Eaton Ohio

Depends on what you are doing. They work great for some types of macro and not for otheres. They work great for snowflakes

stogieboy Loc: Marlboro, NY

Generally, anything close up will benefit from using a ring light. I use one for macro photography.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Yes - depending on the situation. If you notice eyeglasses - or even eyes - of some people on TV who are using Zoom, you can see the reflection of those lights in their eyes. One person even commented that she was looking at the reflection in her glasses on the monitor.

Powergroove75 Loc: Coeur d'Alene, ID

They are designed for vloggers and are great for makeup tutorials and some macro lighting, but they have a specific purpose. If you plan on shooting selfies or close ups of faces and don't want any shadows.... They're great.

timcc Loc: Virginia

Can work well for hand-held macros, but you have to watch for reflections of the light ring.

bleirer

As long as you know that the light coming straight on won't have interesting shadows and texture the way sidelight would. Though for macro you can remove them and hand hold to the side. Or maybe you are supplementing other light and the ring light is just fill.

lively99

Thank you so much. Thats what it will be used for. Can they be used with any camera as i have a canon 1100d

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

Personally, I find the ring reflection in the eye VERY unnatural, phony looking! but that's me

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

A ring light is basically a coaxial light source when it is mounted on a lens and NOT used off-camera. In certain kinds of close-up or macro photography, it does have advantages but not always.

When it is mounted on the lens it is as close as you are gonna get to shadowless lighting. In the early introduction of ring lights, they were usually used in medial, forensic (evidence) and certain kinds of technical/industrial photography where shadows would cause problems by obscuring certain details.

In medical and intra-oral dental photography, coaxial lighting is needed for photographing dental conditions and dental work in the mouth or for recording detail in surgical fields or body cavities. I use it for photographing printed circuits and small intricate mechanisms where one component casting shadows on another would obscure details.

In certain kinds of closeup work where a rendition of texture or modelling is important, the flat light resulting from coaxial lighting can be a disadvantage. In cases like that, you have two alternatives. You can opt for another off-camera ligh source (or simply use the ring light off-camera) or acquire a different kind of ring light that uses separate smaller flash tubes on the circumference of the unit's housing instead of one circular flash tube. In such a unit you can switch off one side of the ring and thereby retain a bit more modelling. You can simulate that effect by blocking off one side of the circular tube.

I'll attach some images done with the multiple flash tube ring lights and standard circular-tube units. The printed circuit is shot with a standard ring light, the lizard is done with off-camer lighting.

For portraiture, I am not a big fan of ring lights. Some fashion and headshot shooters have used larger shoot- through ring lights for a flat but stylized style, however, I find the central catchlights in the eyes to be distracting and unflattering.

Nowadays, with Covid and folks telecasting from home, we see lots of ring-lighting. The idea was to furnish an easy DIY setup kit whereby a cellphone or simple video camera would be placed in the center of a larger continuous LED ring light- Sometimes a second one was used off-camera. The lighting is not as flat but especially distracting if someone is wearing eyeglasses.

agillot

just for macro .

Sidwalkastronomy Loc: New Jersey Shore

I've used one for 30 yrs for intra oral photographs. no problems love it

1grumpybear

Your portrait is a great example of what a ring light can do. Ring light works great for portraits and shots you don't want shadows. With portraits the pupil is small and you get great eye color, none of the red eye. I made my own ring light about 10 years ago used side emitting LEDs.

Nicholas J DeSciose

Large ring lights are used for lighting women on television. 20 to 30 inches. There’s an entire industry built around this type of light for television in motion picture. There are 1200-2400 Watt second Electronica flash units these are mainly used for beauty shots they’re very powerful and of course very expensive and must be used with huge power packs

bleirer

I have used led type ring lights for closeup/macro, for example wildflowers. I'm talking the kind that screw onto the lens filter thread. If I don't like the lack of shadow and texture I unscrew it and hand hold it slightly left or right to cast a shadow or pick up texture. Nothing wrong with that especially in the field where other lights might not be in the backpack.