Has anyone here used one of the lower priced ringlight units like the ones from SunPak or Vivitar? I like using one both for portraits and macros, but Canon's unit is too expensive for me.
I want to get one too. But don't know which to get. I was thinking about a digi-slave L-ring. I don't know how the price compares with other brands. Price $149.00.
The effect I want it for is to create a fine black outline around the model.
Does anyone have an experience with these?
At B&H
Spazmo99: I think the Canon units are quite overpriced myself. My only concern with the Sunpak or Vivitar units is how they would work with E-TTL, which I believe (?) your G5 uses.
If you get one, I would suggest buying it locally or through a resseller that has a good policy on returns, in case you find that it does not "plug & play" well.
pcody: The Digi-Slave L-ring is something quite different, not a flash at all but an LED ring lite. I have a little Nikon unit that is similar (though the digi-slave unit looks like it puts out more light). This type of unit will be OK for macro shots on tripod but will not provide any substantial illumination beyond a foot or so.
Spazmo99: I think the Canon units are quite overpriced myself. My only concern with the Sunpak or Vivitar units is how they would work with E-TTL, which I believe (?) your G5 uses.
If you get one, I would suggest buying it locally or through a resseller that has a good policy on returns, in case you find that it does not "plug & play" well.
Thanks, I think for the money saved I can live with just plain TTL.
Unfortunately, there are no local dealers that carry the Vivitar or Sunpak units, so I guess I'll just have to buy online.
I think the Canon units are quite overpriced myself. My only concern with the Sunpak or Vivitar units is how they would work with E-TTL, which I believe (?) your G5 uses.
I just looked into this to get the vivitar model for my 10D.
The 10D, because of E-TTL won't work with a non E-TTL ringflash.
I was given a good link that explained it in depth on a ofrum here maybe 6 weeks ago, but I can't find it now.
Prior to that I had e-mail'd B&H Photo as I was going to buy from them, but they took a while to respond, and during that time I asked here. The answer I got from B&H agreed with the article ... you can't use those ring flashes with the 10D because of E-TTL.
I would assume, though I do not know for certain, that the same would apply to other E-TTL cameras, unless you can somehow turn off E-TTL.
Importantly, with the 10D at least, it wasn't just a case of living without the E-TTL feature of the samera, it was a case of having to live without any flash metering at all. I assume though that you could still use it in full manual mode as it would at least fire the flash.
