Ring72 Macro

Godox recently sent me a new LED light to test its features as applied to photography. The Godox Ring72 Macro is the latest addition to Godox's range of continuous lights.

Equipped with 72 daylight-balanced 5600K LEDs, it has ten adjustable brightness levels. But its great peculiarity is that it has two knobs for each half of the circle of light, so we can leave the monotonous fat light usual in this type of light and create volume, even working with a front light position.

I started the shoot by photographing coloured pencils arranged in a very informal way. The challenge of the whole shoot was to achieve effective lighting with only one light source. By placing the light to the side I was able to highlight the volume of the pencils while achieving a gradient in the background. The further away the background is placed, the darker its tone will be.

The second test was with shells and sea snails. The volume of these elements was something to highlight and once again the side lighting brought out not only the textures of the elements but also that of the stones on the floor.

To give it a slightly warmer point of colour, I placed a golden reflector on the left and a small mirror on the same side. At the same time, as can be seen in the photograph below, I achieved a gradient in the background by increasing the power of the right-hand lamp of the ring in relation to the left-hand light. In this way, as the background was placed at an angle to the motif, I managed to make the background a little more homogeneous in the end.

The next variant was made with warm gelatines to achieve an image that simulates the sunset in the evening. Because this light has a CRI or colour rendering index of 96+, it is a reliable light source for faithfully reproducing the colours of photographic motifs.

I wanted to try this amazing light with metallic objects. The result is very good because by putting a diffuser in front of the light source, very soft gradients are achieved, as well as a very good light distribution.

Powering the RING72 is simple with two separately available options: four AA, alkaline or rechargeable NiMH batteries, or a detachable lithium-ion battery, making the setup fully portable, especially outside the studio. It also mounts directly to most lenses and comes with 49, 52, 55, 58, 62, 67, 72 and 77mm adapter rings.

The batteries still had plenty of charge and I wanted to carry out a final test. For this purpose I placed the light very close to the can, a diffuser in front of the light, the light very close, forming a 90 degree angle to the camera and a curved background. The contrast was reduced on the right with a white reflector and by adding a few drops of glycerine we obtained the following result.

An extremely versatile light source for macro still life photography and with many more possibilities applied to portrait or video.

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