stars in their eyes...

October 2, 2007 3:23 PM

I have a question about a particular fashion/music-video photography/videography lighting technique...

not sure where I've seen this most recently, but I've seen pictures and or videos wherein the subject appears to be illuminated by a radial arrangement of presumably fluorescent tubes that radiate out from the camera's position like an array of spokes. This is usually only noticed by a strange reflection in the eyes of the subject. Am I imagining this correctly? What does one call such a device? Any resources out there, or information on crafting my own (for a potential art project)?

posted by garethspor to media & arts (8 comments total)

DIY LED ring light is what you're looking for.
posted by sanka at 3:27 PM on October 2, 2007

the LED ring light is cool, but i'm not going for macro photography per se...
posted by garethspor at 3:32 PM on October 2, 2007

DIY Ring Flash is more googlable, probably, and gets results like this.
posted by wemayfreeze at 3:46 PM on October 2, 2007

Variant of the ring flash.
posted by fire&wings at 3:46 PM on October 2, 2007

The DIY versions out there, however, won't give you the reflection in the eyes that as they rely on a single flash and a circular reflective piece.
posted by wemayfreeze at 3:47 PM on October 2, 2007

the spokes are a specific form of ringflash - it's a bunch of tube lights (like in a kino flo) that are assembled to a ring around the camera.

I can't find a shot of the damn thing here but it's prominently featured in a docu track on Mark Romanek directors label DVD. the reason is that Romanek's director of photography, Harris Savides, invented this particular device for the Michael Jackson Scream video (this link goes to Romanek's site). (note that he didn't invent ringflashes themselves but this particular light bulb being used in conjunction, which made it bright enough and flicker-free to use with celluloid cameras)

check out the strobist blog!
posted by krautland at 6:43 PM on October 2, 2007

It's a ringflash as described by krautland. The one I saw used standard 4' fluorescent tubes (to provide enough lumens for full-length work). The photographer basically stuck their head through the center of this monostrosity and shot whatever was in front of them (as you can imagine, it's generally a lot easier to move your model than move your lights, and those things are F-R-A-G-I-L-E).

You can build one yourself for cheap. Just make sure to get high CRI fluorescent tubes (I think GE has a StudioLine series with 92+ CRI that's affordable). Then get a few ballasts, plug 'em all in and let 'er rip.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:53 AM on October 3, 2007

I found a picture of the ringflash I talked about on flickr. note that this is obviously not the original DIY version but a commercially produced toy.
posted by krautland at 10:21 PM on October 4, 2007