HD-130 Macro LED Ring Flash Review

Recently I bought myself an Olympus 60mm f2.8 macro lens.
Macro was a part of photography that I’ve always loved to do, but after switching between the different camera systems : Pentax -> Fujifilm -> Olympus, I didn’t really had the right lens for it .
So, this lens completes my equipment for nature photography and macro.
Complete as far as lenses are concerned, because for macro there are of course also other accessories involved, in this case I mean light.
The cost of a macro lighting system can quickly add up to several hundred euros, and if you invest that amount, you want to be sure it is what you really want.
So I started with something very cheap without much expectation, but just to determine what fits me best, yes, maybe weird but I am someone who likes to try something myself first to determine what exactly I want . I don’t know if that makes sense ?

So I bought this cheap led macro ring flash second hand for €20.
You can find them new from €25 to €50.
There are kits that also include a stand for the control unit, but that is useless because this flash has no remote facility – nor via IR or wireless.
What do you get for this price:
The flash controller which is connected by a wire to the lighting unit.
Eight plastic adapters between 40.5mm and 77mm, for connecting the lighting unit to the lens.
Two extra diffusers blue and orange.

The main question that someone probably wants to know is, will this set fit my camera?
Well, you can use this set on all cameras that are equipped with an universal flash contact – that is done by means of the middle contact (see photo – the big round contact right in the middle) – if you don’t have that, it won’t work. So, it works on most Dslr or Mirrorless cameras like Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Panasonic.
The Flash works completely manually, so no TTL.
You can set the power with buttons in eight levels, set continuous lighting (like a video lamp), full flash, only L or only R.
There is also a flash test button.

Website Specifications:
Guide number: 15 (on box = 46 ! )
Effective Distance: 5cm-150cm (on box = 2m)
Sync Speed: 1/100S
Power Rate: Semi Power, Full Power
Power: 4 × AA Batteries
LED: 48PCS
Color Temperature: 3000k-15000k
Package Kit Weight: Approx. 536g

Full, Left and Right lighting :

Without and with fill light :

Led light at full power + example shot

An example : shot with E-M1MarkII – Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm F2.8 Macro – HD-130 Macro Ring Flash at full power – left one is straight out of camera, right one after post processing on computer. So it is possible to get a reasonable result, but aperture full open and post processing.

Another example, on the left shot in a fairly dark room with no lighting, on the right with the HD-130 at maximum power.
The aperture was already fully open (f2.8) and ISO at 400, so you don’t have much room to play with aperture and depth of field – unless you increase the ISO very much.

My Findings :

To begin with, even if I had bought this Led flash kit brand new for an average price of €30-€40, I couldn’t really say it was wasted money or worthless.
It’s not great, but certainly not unusable.
That being said,
The mounting rings are made of plastic and not of the best quality, they easily detach from your lens because the fine screw thread in plastic is not strong.
I reinforced one ring myself by using an old lens filter from which I removed the glass, then applied a small amount of silicone glue to the edge and then mounted it on the ring.
This brings the Led flash a little further forward, but that is not a problem.
The 46 LEDs do not reach the guide number of 15, and in test photos taken on location and at home, I noticed that the flash didn’t reached full power, and this on several shots.
Whether this was due to a slightly too fast shutter speed (1/100-1/125), synchronization or a problem with charging the flash (does LED flash needs charging ?), I have not been able to determine.
However, photos taken with the LED flash in continuous mode (video light) were better, and setting the brightness levels was not necessary either, just use full power.

Conclusion:

46 small LEDs do give light, but for macro, if you don’t want to go too high in the ISO, and also want to be able to use a smaller aperture for more depth of field, then you will fall short with this LED lighting.
I can imagine there may be circumstances where a little bit of extra lighting might be enough, but for powerful fill light this set isn’t good enough. And because of this test I am almost certain that Led ring lights will always be insufficient in this category.
So, my conclusion is that unless you can get this set really cheap, and it’s only for fill in lighting under already reasonable light conditions, you’re better off investing in a better and more expensive set.
Such a set is for example the Godox ML-150 and ML-150 II, a real macro ring flash that costs between €80 – €105.
A review on this in a later article here on OSP.

La Gallerie

The photo gallery of Open Source Photography, Olympus micro 4/3 system, Vintage Lens Photograpy, Film Simulation, PictureFX, HDR – Photographer : Marc R.