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Product Review: Page (1) of 1 - 10/01/09

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Ray Flash hot shoe flash ring-light adapter

Its not just for fashion photography, the Ray Flash works exceptionally well for macro work, commercial product, other uses

By Robert Jensen

Designed to work with several on camera hot shoe flashes from Nikon and Canon, the Ray Flash ring light adapter is much more affordable, and portable, than the typical ring light made for studio strobe use.

Ray Flash
The big selling point with the Ray Flash is its portability and cost. Its MUCH easier to carry around than your standard studio ring flash with its dedicated power supply and cables that seem to always be in the way and it costs much less than the cheapest studio ring light adapter.

Who is the Ray Flash for?
Whether you're shooting a beautiful model, macro shots of flowers, or product photography the Ray Flash is something you should take a serious look at.  Its light, easy to use and while not exactly priced as an impulse buy item at $199 it is good price for such a useful photographic tool.

In use
Attaching and using the Ray Flash is just about as simple as it gets. The Ray Flash slides right over the front of your hot shoe flash and fixed in place with a twist of the locking dial. I would recommend that you take care to support both the Ray Flash and your flash head to avoid unnecessary strain on either unit.

There might be one more step for some of you, depending on the make and model flash you're using. On my Nikon SB-900 the RF slipped on perfectly, except the ring part of the flash wasn't parallel to the plane of the lens.  The folks at Ring Flash took note and now include two small rubber-like wedges. Just slip it in on the underside of the flash head then mount as normal.  If you don't want to go to the bother you can do like a lot of folks who've already bought the Ray Flash and just adjust it up a bit with one of your fingers holding onto the lens.

Use the supplied wedges to keep the Ray Flash head aligned with your lens, or just straighten it out using one of the fingers of the hand holding the lens.

TIP 1: When using the Ray Flash remember to keep your model close to the background for that 'ringlight' look, a light shadow surrounding your subject.

Tip 2: Tape neutral density filters on one side of the ring flash to create more contrast in your macro shots. Use color filters for special effects.

One warning, since the Ray Flash blocks the flash's infrared focusing beams you could run into situations in low light where that camera's auto-focus won't work.

Tip 3: To counteract that loss of the IR focusing aid you can try a tip that's been around for decades, use a flashlight to illuminate your subject just enough for the camera's AF system to work, or as an aid for focusing manually.

Wish list: Rather than using the rubber spacer to keep the flash head parallel to the face of the lens I think a better solution would be adding a bracket between the bottom of the ring head and the tripod mount on your camera body. It would better support the ring flash and take strain off your flash head and camera hot shoe. I'd go a step further and make sure the camera end of the bracket had its own 1/4 20 mounting socket so it would still fit on a tripod. For those not worried about voiding their warranty it should be an easy to do modification using existing brackets.

Click for full view. Comparison of raw flash output compared to Ray Flash ring light. Notice the soft shadow surrounding the head, that's typical of ring flashes.

The Ray Flash, while very well put together, is not bulletproof and because of its 'L' shape would take up a good chunk of your camera bag. I'd consider keeping it in the box it comes in, or a separate heavy duty case if you're going to transport it through baggage handling at an airport.

Tip 4: Its not just for fashion photography, the Ray Flash works exceptionally well for macro work, commercial product, food photography too. Accessories like this are good for a kick to your imagination. Mount it on your flash next time you go out to shoot and experiment to see just what it can do.

Ray Flash did something appropriate for these economic times a few months ago, dropped the price from $299 down to a much more affordable $199. Wedding, glamor and portrait  photographers especially should consider adding a Ray Flash to their arsenal of tools. 

You can find out more about Ray Flash from its US distributor, ExpoImaging.

 Model Code:  Fits Camera Models:  Price:
 RAN160  Nikon SB800 with D300/D200/D70/D80/D50/D40/D60/D90  $199.95
 RAN170  Nikon SB800 with D1/D2/D3/D700  $199.95
 RAN179  Nikon SB900 with D300/D200/D70/D80/D50/D40/D60/D90  $199.95
 RAN189  Nikon SB900 with D1/D2/D3/D700  $199.95
 RAC160  Canon 580EX with Digital Rebel series  $199.95
 RAC170  Canon 580EX with 5D (mk I & II)/50D/40D/30D/20D/10D  $199.95
 RAC175  Canon 580EX with 1D/1Ds/1V  $199.95
 RAC160-2  Canon 580EX II with Digital Rebel series  $199.95
 RAC170-2  Canon 580EX II with 5D (mk I & II)/50D/40D/30D/20D/10D  $199.95
 RAC175-2  Canon 580EX II with 1D/1Ds/1V  $199.95

Click for full view. Here the Ray Flash took care of a lot of distracting shadows the fan cast on the background.