glass that protects the ring flash with a frosted glass. The more professional
ring flash units provide this option, but if your ring flash doesn’t, just place a
piece of Rosco Tuff-Spun silk diffuser in front of the unit. Be sure to cut a hole
in the center so your lens can have an unobstructed path to the subject if
you’re going to shoot through the ring.
Some photographers, myself included, use a ring flash in a nontraditional
manner—they shoot without mounting the camera in the ring, thus utilizing
the ring flash like a powerful off-camera flash. I’m careful when I use this off-
center style of shooting, especially with solid and close backgrounds and no
light modifier in front of the ring flashtube. This method will cause a rather
large shadow to appear on the opposite side of the subject in relation to your
shooting angle. If you stand to the left of the ring flash, this unflattering
shadow will appear to the right of the subject, and if you stand to the right,
the shadow will appear on the left. That is why this “outside the ring” tech-
nique is better for the great outdoors or darker backgrounds with your subject
positioned as far away from the background as possible. With the off-center
technique, only a more powerful ring flash unit will suffice when shooting
outdoors, not the novelty units, as these tend to be underpowered.
One of my favorite ring flash units for this technique is the battery-powered
Hensel 1200 P-XS ring flash with the optional Octa Sunhaze adapter the com-
pany introduced in 2008. I can do this with the 1500 watt-second Hensel
(enough to overpower the sun when using outdoors) with a short flash dura-
tion of^1 / 1300 second or better, which weighs less than four pounds. It allows
you to adjust the flash output in^1 / 10 -stop increments and features a true LED
readout with a real decimal point you can see plus audio confirmation.
The Octa Sunhaze attachment for the Hensel 1200 P-XS ring flash runs via
the battery-powered Hensel Porty Premium Plus AS/RC. It not only takes
advantage of the “angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection” rule
when the camera lens is placed directly through the center opening in the flash
ring, but its unique, multilayered octabox with a built-in, circular metal reflec-
tor provides a new quality of light that is portable and lightweight
and can be used even without the camera mounted inside the ring.
Last, it doesn’t create red-eye because the flash is off angle to the
camera lens.
The beauty of this unique and patented design is that you can
easily slide a full gel sheet right up the light modifier from the front,
without taking anything apart. I do this a lot when photographing models at
sunset by placing a Rosco Bastard Amber gel directly in the Octa Sunhaze. If
you’re one of the few people who have attended my “Exotic, International
40 LIGHTING FOR GLAMOUR PHOTOGRAPHY
You can easily slide a full gel
sheet right up the light modifier
from the front...