Orbis Ring Flash

Ring flashes are great tools. They give you virtually shadowless illumination of your subject and hence provide a very particular look. Many fashion and portrait photographers use them, either as their main light, but often also for fill-in.

Over the last few months I have been trying a “budget” way to obtaining a ring flash that would normally cost you more than 1000 USD.

This budget solution is a ring flash adapter from Orbis.

 

The flash is an accessory to your normal TTL-flash and effectively modifies the emitted light. In conjunction with an Orbis arm,

 

and a flash cord I eventually pieced together the following portrait rig for my Sony A900 and the 70-200:

 

works really well. and it is compatible with flashes of any brand and make.

see also this video review:

 

and here are some links to other sites and articles:

http://www.orbisflash.com/

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2009/10/ray-flash-vs-orbis-vs-alienbees-abr800.html

and some sample photos:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/orbisringflash/pool/

the new Sony NEX-5

here is a little movie provided by Sony, giving you a first impression of the capabilities of their new Nex-5 camera. I am pretty impressed by its capabilities in a very small package. Especially the HD movie function, automated panorama and auto-HDR features are appealing. Would be a great camera for casual shooting.

 

Sony launches Alpha Nex camera series

Sony just launched the new Nex series of interchangable lens cameras. These mirror-less cameras are supposed to provide the image quality of an APS-C sized DSLR in a much smaller and lighter package. In addition they have the capability to shoot full HD video. All at around 600 USD. Seems like some great cameras.

see the following links:

http://www.sonystyle.com

http://www.dpreview.com/news/1005/10051102sonynex.asp#press

new photo gear page added.

we added a page, showing the photo gear that we currently use and recommend. You can get there by clicking on the “our current gear” link in the sidebar.

subscribe to this BLOG via email or feed readers!

you can now subscribe to this BLOG via email or various feed readers. Look in the sidebar for these subscription options.

welcome to our new site

this is our new website at christianriedel.com. We are now hosted by smugmug. Why is that important? Well, any visitor of this site can now easily order prints or any other photo merchandise from our photos at NON-PROFIT PRICES !!! And all orders are handled by smugmug.com themselves, a very respected photo hosting provider. So, your orders are easy and safe.

FYI: prints start already at $ 0.19 and shipping charges are very low, too.

Iceland Photos

we just uploaded our photos from the recent trip to iceland. We went there only days before the first eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano.

See the photos here: