Ringlight Test
I bought myself an ABR800 as the next addition to my personal studio lighting set up and I’m very excited. I haven’t gotten to do much playing around with it, but grabbed a few shots of a coworker and am very pleased with the results.
This sucker is powerful. As you can see, my subject got a little squinty, although I think most of that is due to the fact that I had the modeling lights pumped since I was shooting in an otherwise unlit room. One thing I need to remember with a ringflash is the fact that your subject is staring right at the lights the whole time. When my firm hired David Sacks last summer he used a ringflash (probably a Profoto) and I got caught looking at it a few times and had that ring burned on my retina’s for a long time.
When used by itself, the ABR800 performs exactly like the more expensive models. You get perfect, flat fill with an even shadow around the whole subject. When I had him stand right next to the background you get that shadow halo (a fad that comes and goes in fashion photography). I have a lot of ideas of how to use it in conjunction with other lights. I’m really jazzed, now all I need is some studio time. And some models. And a stylist…and…and…