# Ringlight



## fritzmccorkle (Nov 7, 2005)

are any of you using a photographic ringlight to take your pen photos?  i don't own one currently, but have in the past.  it seems like an ideal tool for this.


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## Daniel (Nov 8, 2005)

Fritz,
I don't use a ring light, but I do try for the same effect with reflectors. for now I am toying around with stopping the light from different directions with black cloth. one thought I do have about it is that I tend to want the light just a bit stronger on one sideof the pen than the other. just enough to give a hint of a shadow on one side. I'm not sure if a ring light would work for that.


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## wayneis (Nov 8, 2005)

If you mean the rings that attach to the camera with the little lcd lights then the one that I have is not really bright enough or I just haven't played enough yet.  I have one for my Nikon 880 thinking that it would be good for pens but its not really what I exspected.

Wayne


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## gerryr (Nov 8, 2005)

Ring lights were originally developed for medical photos.  They provide extremely flat, even light of relatively low intensity.  They were designed for extreme closeup shots and were never adopted by product photographers.  They work very well for shooting things like coins or stamps.  They were also VERY expensive compared to other artificial light sources.


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## fritzmccorkle (Nov 8, 2005)

yes, i bought one for use in medical photography.  i also used it for some dental photography.  i've seen what i think wayne is talking about with the little LED lights.  i wasn't familiar with those.  i think they are new.  the kind i'm talking about is an actual flash.  they work really well if you're close to the item because the light is right there on the lens.  daniel, what you're talking about is called a "scrim".  reflectors are used to throw in extra light.  scrims are used to block out extra light.


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## Daniel (Nov 8, 2005)

Fritz,
I sort of combined two thoughts there. I try and get something like the Ring lighting with reflectors in that I am trying to get the light all around the pen. I am also trying to avoid the ring light flatness by keeping a bit of the shadow somewhere.
I realize I was not real clear. my posts tend to get very Loooooong and I do try to avoid that. usually at the cost of clarity.
but in a nut shell. any light that gets to all sides of the pen would be good in my experience, but dead even on all sides would not. since yesterday I have been wondering if a ring light would make a good fill "Flash" or light. creating highlights that show the finish better without causing hot spots. I have noticed that if I take a picture outside on a cloudy day. patches of clear sky will show the finish very well. anouther hard one to explane without getting long.
I have thought of trying to get the same effect on the finish with a seperate regular incondescent bulb burning off to the side. I'll let you all know if I come up with anything. not much time lately to experiment.


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## fritzmccorkle (Nov 8, 2005)

daniel, not to fear.  your post made a lot of sense to me, i was just putting the name to what you're talking about.  i have a light tent, but didn't really care for the way it softened everything too much.  you can use a little light on the inside called a "kicker" to give a little sparkle which sounds a little like what your'e talking about in this post.  i wish i still had that ringlight.  would have been fun to try out.


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