Here's a quick pic from my photoshoot with Lydia Yap, featured in the March issue of Modified Motors in Ireland. The shoot spanned 5 pages and also included another shot on the cover.
I'm always interested in equipment that enables me to do what I want wherever I want. I've been reading a lot recently about ring flash adaptors for speedlites on websites such as the Strobist. Lots of people were raving about them, but I hadn't seen anyone in the commercial world try them out. At the recent SWPP convention I thought I might as well pick one up and try it out on a shoot.
As I write this there are 2 choices. The RayFlash, and the Orbis. Both work in a similar way, taking the light from a single speedlite and reflecting it into a ring shape around the camera lens. I opted for the RayFlash for the simple fact that it's supported by the on-camera speedlite. The Orbis needs to be hand held, which I didn't like the idea of - although there are plans to release a bracket for this.
First impressions are pretty good. It's fairly well constructed. It's very light, but then it needs to be to prevent from damaging the head of the speedlite. It fits onto my Canon 580EX II very securely using the locking mechanism on the top. My only real gripe is that due to the weight and the slight play in the speedlite head, it doesn't sit perfectly around the lens. This is fixed by resting my hand against the back of it whilst shooting to correct it. My hand is usually in roughly that position anyway to support the lens, so this really isn't too much of an issue.
In terms of performance, I was really impressed! Obviously, as it's only powered by a speedlite it's not going to be amazingly bright, but it's bright enough to achieve f/8 at ISO200 for a half length portrait.
The RayFlash will never out-perform a proper ring flash, but it definitely as an application in the commercial world as it's immensely portable and gives a perfectly usable light output.
Here are a couple of sample shots and a video of it in use...
