Review of Ray Flash RingFlash Adapter

I mentioned a couple of weeks back that I had bought the RayFlash ring adapter for my Canon 580 EX, to help with getting uniform shadowless lighting in some of my macro shots – although it is also good for certain types of portrait as well. It isn’t cheap (at $199), but is it worth it? After a couple of weeks of use, I’m happy to report that I am pleased with my investment – it certainly hasn’t paid back its cost in stock sales yet, but it is a very useful piece of kit to light certain types of image.

First, the description. You must buy the specific version for your flashgun and camera. It isn’t available for all guns – specifically the Canon 550EX, but there are versions for the Canon 580 EX (mark 1 and 2) as well as various Nikon flashes. The unit is made from hard strong plastic and is a push fit onto the flashgun head, with a tightening ring that puts a bit more pressure on the head to remove any chance of the ring flash coming loose. The size of the ring flash is also carefully designed so that the ring itself ends up central around your lens. It isn’t mounted to the lens itself – the flashgun is secured in the hot shoe and the rigid body of the ring flash means that it ends up positioned around the lens without actually touching it. I’ve used it with both the Canon 24-105mm and the 100mm macro without any issues.

You can then set your flash to ETTL or manual, and take your shots. The design doesn’t interfere with the infra red sensor on the Canon flashgun and so you can still arrange multiple flash guns around the subject and trigger them all from the hot shoe mounted unit to get more interesting lighting effects.

From the subjects point of view, you see an even source of light all the way around the lens itself, providing that shadowless lighting effect for subjects relatively close to the camera. Here is my attempt to show that by shooting a picture in a mirror – not great, but you get the idea! The device is completely passive – no electronics or tubes. The light is channeled via various lightguides in the body of the ringflash to the front ring – a lot of the engineering is to make sure that the light is evenly distributed and the manufacturer claims that less than one stop of light is lost in transmitting the flash through the various light channels.

The unit is very solidly constructed – no sign of any movement in any of the parts (which it needs to be to hang vertically off the front of the flashgun. It is not too heavy, and so doesn’t seem to strain the flashgun or its mount on the top of the camera.

In use, it does just what it says – provides a ring of light around the axis of the lens. The shot I showed in a previous post would have been very hard to do without a ringflash – getting light evenly inside the cardboard box and light the face peering in is almost impossible without a device like this:

As another example, here is a typical macro shot of vitamins pouring out of a prescription bottle. Note the even lighting and the telltale ring highlights reflected in some of the capsules close to the camera:

My overall impression is of a solid, well designed and well made ring flash unit. I’m sure there are cheaper versions around, but this really does seem to have been designed to create even light and to last in a studio environment. It gives you a way to add a new lighting style without the extra expense of a new powered ringflash unit which would bring other issues about triggering your existing flashguns as well. Worth considering if you regularly take macro shots and like this shadowless style for portraits and product stock shots.

You can buy the RayFlash ring flash adapter for your camera/flashgun combination at Amazon or Adorama, or directly from the manufacturer’s website.