Macro Photography: Right Light vs. Right Flash; LED vs. Fluorescent

<p>For macro photography,<br>

(1) Ring Light or Ring Flash, which one is better<br>

(2) Some ring lights use LEDs, some use fluorescent bulb. Which one give more even color spectrum?</p>

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<p>For years I have been using a simple Tensor brand light. Actually two. These are just automobile DC bayonet bulbs with transformers. I don't know the color temperature, but it looks close to sunlight to me. Good enough for my sometimes uses and cheap. I bet we can't offer any more thoughts without knowing what you are photographing and with what camera and lens equipment you have available. I don't personally use flash because most of my closeup and macro is indoors near a power supply. Where do you shoot? . If you want to be really portable, fussily color balanced without post processing corrections, and have some adjustment in shadows and light ratio, consider the macro light attachments made by the manufacturers themselves. For even but rather flat and consistent lighting, I see good work being done with ring flash. It is the kind of documentary lighting we would find in dental and medical photography for example.</p>

<p>I like a more versatile and stingy approach. In macro, you need a lot of light power,directability, and ability to get really close to subject. And sometimes a reflector or tent depending on the subject...books have been written as you know. LEDs sound promising and they are getting good at making pure white LEDs. As for fluorescent, I have even used an AC powered Ott-Lite brand that is essentially a reading and sewing lamp-but not for real tight macro where one needs a lot of lumens for depth of field and large f stop. It also depends is a good old standby answer, but in this case it is still valid...</p>

<p>I hope someone that does a lot of product work chimes in, because my macro is never that fussy. Good luck,frankie. Keep us informed on what you choose and employ. Sorry I could not be more product specific.</p>

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<p>Ring Light or Ring Flash, which one is better</p>

 

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<p>Both leave much to be desired, because they create a very flat and unnatural-looking light. A conventional flash mounted on a bracket (possibly with a diffuser) is a better option for macro. That said, ring flash is better than ring light, because a xenon discharge flash gives a much better quality light than nearly all flourescents and all LEDs.</p>

 

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<p>Some ring lights use LEDs, some use fluorescent bulb. Which one give more even color spectrum?</p>

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<p>"White" light LEDs give some of the worst quality light imaginable. They're not white by any stretch of the imagination; they're merely a mixture of two or three monochromatic wavelengths, which can apparently fool some people into thinking they look white. (They've never looked white to my eyes, more a sickly bluish-green... which, in fact, most of them actually are.) If you spend your pennies carefully and choose the best fluorescents imaginable, there are apparently some which are rated as being "98% of daylight". If they're <em>really</em> that good, they should be OK.<br>

Personally, though, I'd feel better off with a good old-fashioned xenon strobe.</p>

I was going to post yesterday (what David said about blueish "white" LED light) but ran out of time. Note that indoor marijuana growers use a combination of ROYGBV rainbow lights to duplicate full spectrum. I know this not from personal experience but from various web sites. Full-spectrum fluorescent lighting has improved markedly in the past decade, as it has declined steeply in price. It is still not as good as sunlight, but might be the next best thing.

<p>Depending on how you go about taking your macro shots can influence your lighting. Except when I drag out my extension tubes and bellows for the DSLR I find most shots are easier to take with a long-zoom fixed-lens camera**. Here I use a moderate close-up lens to enable the zoom when at telephoto setting to focus reasonably close and use the narrow angle of view to get the tight framing. This in turn influences the lighting as there is plenty of room for an ordinary flash unit coupled with a reflector on the other side of the lens. The ordinary flash unit has plenty of power to permit the use of small apertures, in fact you could need to diffuse the flashlight somewhat to reduce its power. To avoid spilling light all over the place it is simple enough to make a cardboard snoot. From a depth of field point of view there is little difference to working at wide angle or telephoto for a given image size so the advantages of using a long focal length lens make it the way to go IMO. It does depend on how big a subject you are shooting. The above works well for big close-ups as opposed to true macro [or same sized] or greater magnifcation.</p>

<p>**for the DSLR user the solution is to use a telephoto or long focus lens with extension tubes rather than large and expensive close-up lens, along with a focusing rack of some sort. Be aware that placing an extension tube between a zoom lens and camera can upset the focusing, doesn't affect the IQ in the end result, just how you achieve it :-) </p>