I recently received my Orbis™ Ring Flash from Jame Madelin, the developer of the Orbis™ Ring Flash. This is an extremely useful flash accessory for all of us speedlight shooters.

This first thing that struck me was how well made this product is. A lot of thought went into manufacturing the Orbis™ and I believe James has a winner here. The Orbis™ was designed to handle many of the popular flashes on the market, a list of those can be found here.

The light is very evenly projected around the face of the ring flash as shown here in this photo.

What I really like about the product is that it's light weight, well made and easy to pack. As a lot of you know, I posted a DIY project for a ring flash back in Dec 07. My DIY ring flash may have a greater output (about a stop and a third) but it is much larger (about 3 time as thick, front to back) it's differently not as easy to transport as the Orbis™

I just love the fact that the Orbis™ is not mounted to the camera, some might think this as handy cap. The Orbis™ comes with a convenient strap which I really like. I'm able to sling the ring flash over my neck and shoulder which allows me to easily make camera adjustments with both hands.

I use a ring flash primarily as a fill light and if I want try a few exposures without it , I appreciate having the ability to hang the ring flash to my side with the provide strap.

If you prefer to mount the Orbis™ to a stand you'll have no trouble doing so with a standard umbrella bracket as shown here. I have had no trouble firing the flash using the Nikon CLS system thus avoiding any sort of cord attachment connecting the flash to the camera.

Let's take a look at some sample images shot using the Orbis™ ring flash later. I'll be using it at the Small Strobes, Big Results workshop in Denver this weekend.