Flies Photo Gadget v2.0
Russian Ramil Yamaliev has upgraded his fly photo ringlight, and improved its performance significantly
Some time ago I bought a macro photo light in Siberia, and was pleasantly surprised by design and function, although a little underwhelmed by the power.
The manufacturer, Ramil Yamaliev, had plans, and has now upgraded the gadget, adding more light and better control. He was kind enough to send me a sample of the new version, and I have been able to play around with it for some weeks now. And it’s definitely better than the first version.
Ramil also sent me the background holder, which he has made for the gadget and also the small platform, which is an addition to the new version.
The light now has two individually controllable LED-rings, and that naturally doubles the potential power from the ringlight, which was one of my peeves with the first version. We still aren’t talking a floodlight here, but when using a phone or a compact camera, the increased light makes a difference, because the camera doesn’t have to increase the ISO quite as much. High ISOs often means grainier images and worse quality. In some cameras you can control the exposure, and there you can lower the ISO and increase the exposure time and obtain very good results. But it requires some photography knowledge – and the option for manual exposure.
The rings can be turned on and off one at the time, but in spite of this control, I have used the gadget at full power all the time. It can be fed with 5 Volts from a USB converter or power bank.
I have used the new gadget with both my phone and my SLR cameras, and the quality of the light is as before: very diffuse as its typical for a ring shaped light. I have used the base plate to block some of the light, giving a bit more character.
The background holder is a brilliant little extra, which makes it very easy to get uniform and consistent backgrounds on the photos, and it’s pretty obvious to set up the gadget as a small, permanent installation with a holder for the phone or a camera and USB power ready at hand. This will enable you to quickly and easily shoot images of your flies, ready to post on Instagram, Facebook or other social media – or simply as a documentation of your work.
The new gadget including the background is about 60.- US$ plus postage (which is surprisingly low) compared to the old one, which sells for about 40.- US$ plus 10 US$ for the background and the addition of postage.
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Comments
What camera
Thank you for the review. What camera / phone did you use for the two flies shown above?
Nikon D300s
Richard,
These were shot with a DSLR, my Nikon D300s mounted with an old 55mm macro. I have experimented with both my phone, a compact camera and my SLR's, but since I want the best possible image quality, the SLR's are my favorites to used with the gadget. But as you can see in the review of the previous version, even phone pictures can come out nice.
Martin