Ringlight

B

boulder

Well-known member
Ringlights are usually used by photographers but they can have video uses as well. I made one from a $7 camping light on ebay and it works great. I simply cut a larger hole for my 72 mm lens and purchased a 72mm uv filter and knocked out the glass and then glued that in. I also hooked up a external battery pack with a switch. I colored the lights with an orange sharpie to get a warmer light.

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*that's my daughter so be nice.
 
Nice, I'll have to make a stepped up version like that next. I really like ringlights.

* I always think of that Robert Palmer video from the 80's when I see this kind of lighting
 
problem with ringlight is to have enough light, they must be big, then hardly fit in your camera bag.
i have made one with SMD led glued head to head on an aluminum ring.
105 LED (half warm white, half cold white to get better CRI). Added a driver for intensity control.
still not enough light but better than the camping UFO light.
designed for my Ex1.
will post picture later
 
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yes, i was tempted too, but my target was to be able to put the ring into my camera backpack , work the light on battery (and for a long time) and be able to use in crowded place (must be rock solid and not too obtrusive).
I found a 10" aluminium ring, leds very bright and very cheap.
Ir works very nicely, and if i need that much light, probably i will use something else.

this is the ring before a glued leds
http://www.giroud2.com/download/ring.jpg
 
nosys70 said:
yes, i was tempted too, but my target was to be able to put the ring into my camera backpack , work the light on battery (and for a long time) and be able to use in crowded place (must be rock solid and not too obtrusive).
I found a 10" aluminium ring, leds very bright and very cheap.
Ir works very nicely, and if i need that much light, probably i will use something else.

this is the ring before a glued leds
http://www.giroud2.com/download/ring.jpg
Click to expand...

Very nice, where did you pick up that ring?
 
taken from an old IBM hard disk (washing machine sized !).
There were used as spacer between the disk plates.
just added an aluminium part for fixing it on the cam.
then i glued the leds on it and soldered them together.
leds are string of 7 leds in parallel, then 3 strings in series.
that makes a segment of 21 leds. 5 segment of 21 on the ring.
led arrangment is done in a way there is only 2 wires , 1 outside and 1 inside ring to power all leds.
 
really really nice. I'm sure everybody would be very interested in where you got all your parts and a bit more details in how you put it all together
 
parts (leds ) are coming from a chinese company that makes "angel eye".
These are very nice rings with leds to put into cars front lights.
While the angel eyes were coming in big size for small DV camera , they were too small for my EX1. (the biggest ring they provide is 14cm, about 5.6" )
So i contacted them and asked to purchase the led only. they are VERY proactive sellers and send me 300 leds of each color (about 100$).
see rings specification here
http://www.giroud2.com/download/ledring.xls
I recommend them to work with. I have a lot of original angel yes left, but you can find them for cheap on ebay.
take care because they come into 2 led size , a small one (led is SMD 1210, which is actually the size of the led)
http://cgi.ebay.com/140mm-Car-Angel...ZAU_Car_Parts_Accessories?hash=item45f05a1c07
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2x-1...ptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories

and big ones (SMD 5050 ) the led is a little square.

I made the mistake to order first on ebay the small led rings, then i discovered the bigger ones. I will use the small ones for my kitchen....

The nice thing with these angel eyes is they come in many diameter and some can be embedded. so if you have a small camera, it could be easy order 2 or 3 rings and make a light with them. diameter is from big to small 140mm, 130mm, 120mm etc.. up to 60mm i think
i ordered 2 sets of each from 80mm to 140. if you want to embed them you have to skip a size. for example if you start at 140, you can embed 120, then 100, but you cannot embed a 130 into a 140.

the led controller is an old one i ordered long ago . It was called LED PUCK.
http://www.luxeonstar.com/buckpuck-700ma-dc-led-driver-with-leads-p-35.php

there are also several model, the one i got is able to drive 700ma and got a pin for power control. It is dead easy to use them , just connect the wire. I counted each led a 20mA so 7 in parallel are 7x0.20=140mA at about 3.5v. since 3 string are in serie, it make about
3x 3.5=10.5V for power supply. If you need lower power supply 7.2V, you can put more led in parallel in the string and only 2 strings in series.
since a got 5 set of 21 leds, it goes to 5x140mA=700mA, it just fit the maximum power of the led controller.
the great thing with led controller is they usually do not care about voltage (regultating current) so even if you got leds set for 12V use, you can still use 7.2v battery.
I have been able to get HUGE light from the led by using direct connection (no controller) on a 14.4V battery with the resistor calculated for 12V. but the life of the led are probably shortened a lot.

for the aluminium ring you know already.

the prototype has been build the hard way.
I glued first the leds upside down on the ring, with a removable glue because most of the usable surface to solder is under the led..
when they were properly aligned, i soldered them, removed from ring , flipped segment and glued again . just add the 5 resistors and the 2 final wires.
 
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no lens flare, the leds are 120 deg aperture. I shooted for an interview in an appartment and was following the guy in corridors and rooms . The lamp goes as close as 20" from the wall, goes in the kitchen full of metallic furnitures and finally in the living room , no problems. The light is evenly distributed and shadows are almost totally suppressed (that is the purpose of the ringlight after all.)
I am very happy with this ring , all my targets are met .
if i do 2nd one (and probably will), i will add some way (magnet ?) to add a second ring or 4 small panels (like petal flowers around the ring) so i can get more light if needed.
I like the idea of the small panel on the side because thanks to the ring , it is easy to fix, when the ring is not in use you could flip them inside the ring and cinese led provider is selling the array, so almost no work would be required. You can go on their website, all the info are at top of excel file. (www.xwled.com)
Theyare very helpful people, so i am almost sure we could ask for the array with a mix of warm/cold white.
and build a small difuser, because leds are very hard to the eye if you shoot people very close , it is always bad when everybody on the tape has a big grin.
 
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