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by Steve Mason on Thu May 03, 2012 1:19 pm
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This looks like a decent inexpensive ringlight. Maybe too inexpensive...
There's a Nikon and Canon version. No TTL, manual only. Comes with a bunch of different sized rings.
Sells for about $90.00 CDN locally here.
I'm wondering if anyone has tried it.

http://www.aputure.com/blog/2012/03/16/amaran-halo-ring-flash-led-released/
Steve Mason

by E.J. Peiker on Thu May 03, 2012 2:00 pm
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Looks pretty cool!!!

by Steve Cirone on Thu May 03, 2012 2:06 pm
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Looks to be a bargain. Canon's Twinlight and Ringlight, and Nikon's R1C1 are more in the $500-$800 US range with all the goodies.

For the price it is worth a shot.
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by E.J. Peiker on Thu May 03, 2012 2:32 pm
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Steve Cirone wrote:
Looks to be a bargain. Canon's Twinlight and Ringlight, and Nikon's R1C1 are more in the $500-$800 US range with all the goodies.

For the price it is worth a shot.

Yeah but they are total TTL, can be slaved, etc. This is 100% pure manual but I really like the LED concept here.

by ChrisRoss on Thu May 03, 2012 5:40 pm
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There's no information on duration of the flash function, I'd suspect that it wouldn't be as good as a regular flash at freezing motion, you'd be relying on it being bright enough to use a high shutter speed.
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by Royce Howland on Thu May 03, 2012 6:48 pm
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Note that you can't compare this head-to-head with the traditional macro flash units from Canon, Nikon, etc. In addition to the lack of traditional features that E.J. mentions, LED lights like this are not primarily designed as strobes (although some of them can indeed "flash", as this one does; it's just not clear how fast it strobes). Rather they're designed as continuous lighting. Either for video use, or as Chris says in still shots with a higher ISO, or higher shutter speed, or stationary subjects at any speed (e.g. still life or product shots).

Continuous LED lighting is becoming a more & more popular alternative to large location lighting, and even small flash units, for various reasons. They're cheap, they're usually very light & durable, it's easier to meter & set up shots ("what you see is what you get" exposure plus visible modeling light through the viewfinder), they run cool, they run a long time on small rechargeable power cells, you don't have to worry about triggering & syncing them, etc. Kirk Tuck, among others, is using and writing about them a lot; he recently put out a book called "LED Lighting" and his blog has an increasing amount of discussion of this option.

I haven't seen or used LED ring lights but I did just buy a pair of Fotodiox Pro LED-312AS flat panel units, in part after reading Kirk Tuck's material. I think a LED ring light could be pretty useful for a number of things.

I wouldn't worry much about the price of this unit being "too cheap". LED's are cheap, undoubtedly being manufactured in China at the lowest possible cost (where most LED units are coming from these days). There's not much to the unit that would cause it to cost a bunch. I bought my pair of Fotodiox panels through amazon.ca. They have twin banks of 144 LED's, continuous color temp dial-in between 2300K - 5600K, continuous illumination level from 10-100%, came with 2 Sony-type camcorder rechargeables plus a 2-bay recharger, a small ball mount, etc. All for only about $150 per unit. So this ring light unit seems reasonably priced in comparison...
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by john on Thu May 03, 2012 7:08 pm
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I have a similar product that doesn't do flash but just continous lighting. Works sort of OK unless there are any reflecting objects (dew or water droplets for example) in the frame in which case you see all the individual little led's reflected. Mine doesn't throw that much light and I don't think I'd purchase another one.

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