I have an R4 with the following lenses: 28 Elmarit, 60 Macro Elmarit and 90 Summicron. I am considering a flash with a ringlight option. Recomendations? What about the Sunpak 622? Macro would be used up to about 1:4 along with the other lenses. Thanks for the input.

Mark J.

-- Mark A. Johnson (logic@gci.net), April 08, 2001

Answers

What are your intended subjects and why are you considering a ringlight? Ringlights deliver a very flat lighting, reducing textural constrast. Also there are ring-shaped catchlights in reflective surfaces, a dead giveaway that a ringlight flash was used, not sunlight. In my experience ringlights are best suited to medical and dental photography, and macro copywork of flat, non-reflective objects like postage stamps. Otherwise, a single or double macro bracket with small or variable-power flash units which can be individually positioned for ideal modelling, produce the most pleasing and natural effect with most macro subjects in nature. Another issue to consider is the lack of TTL flash in the R4. Due to the extremely close flash-to-subject distance the on-flash auto sensor is outside it's range of operation and parallax (between what the sensor covers as compared to the lens) also precludes its use. Exposure will need to be determined using trial-and-error and then bracketing, or if you have an incident-reading flashmeter (there's no practical way to position a reflective-reading flashmeter so as to get an accurate reading). That said, if you want a ringlight for the R4 I'd suggest the Vivitar Macro-5000 (which is also sold under the Cobra name). This is an under$1000 ringlight with a fairly usable calculator chart on it. It also has an auto sensor, but it is useless due to the parallax error. If you are serious about ringlight photography, you might be able to find a used Minolta ringlight with Leica R adaptor, which will work TTL with an R5, RE, R7, R6 or R6.2. Another possibility would be to purchase an R8 body, and the same cheap Vivitar ringlight. The R8 has a pre-flash TTL flashmeter function which would allow you to get a TTL reading...although only if your subject was standing still long enough to fire a test flash, re-set the aperture, and then take the shot. It is really dumb that Metz or someone else doesn't make a ringlight that accepts the SCA modules, or that Sunpak (the DX8R and DX12R are excellent units)has never made a Leica R module.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), April 08, 2001.

RE: the Vivitar Macro-5000 ringlight mentioned above, it should have read "under $100", NOT "under $1000"!

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), April 08, 2001.