{"id":3473,"date":"2010-06-30T21:13:57","date_gmt":"2010-06-30T11:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=3473"},"modified":"2010-06-30T21:40:36","modified_gmt":"2010-06-30T11:40:36","slug":"sigma-em-140-dg-macro-ring-flash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=3473","title":{"rendered":"Sigma EM-140 DG macro &#8220;ring&#8221; flash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I managed to pick up a second hand <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sigmaphoto.com\/shop\/em-140-dg-ring-flash-sigma\">Sigma EM-140 DG Ring Flash<\/a> for Canon EOS this week mainly because it was going relatively cheaply and I needed a TTL macro flash for my Canon kit but didn&#8217;t want to pay for the Canon macro flash.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sigmaphoto.com\/client\/images\/products\/309_EM140_RingFlash_1.png\" alt=\"Sigma EM-140 DG macro flash\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I already own the Olympus Ring Flash which I love but obviously, it doesn&#8217;t work in TTL mode on my Canon 1D Mark III, and it doesn&#8217;t attach to lenses via a filter thread thus requiring it to be hand held on lenses for which it was not designed.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, Sigma&#8217;s website doesn&#8217;t explain the realities with this flash, and worse, does not allow a download of its user manual so you can determine if it will suit your needs or be a lemon.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Let&#8217;s look at the Sigma flash, firstly the cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>although it looks like a ring flash,<strong> it is NOT really a ring flash<\/strong> but really a twin flash mounted in a flat ring. This is not going to create circular catchlights!<\/li>\n<li>for some strange reason, it cannot be triggered in manual mode on a non-Canon camera, even if you try to manually short the hot shoe contacts to check its trigger voltage, it won&#8217;t fire &#8211; so <strong>forget using it on any camera for which it was not designed<\/strong> &#8211; a big disappointment!<\/li>\n<li>it has &#8220;wireless TTL&#8221; and can act as a Master flash to trigger another flash &#8211; as long as that other flash is a Sigma EF530 &#8211; <strong>wireless TTL is NOT possible with Canon flashes using this flash as a master flash<\/strong>!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Now the good points:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>it is relatively <strong>cheap (RRP $US480), and light<\/strong> (430g w\/o batteries)<\/li>\n<li>you can <strong>adjust the ratio\u00a0 between the two flash tubes <\/strong>to give more directional lighting<\/li>\n<li>you can use <strong>FP flash mode<\/strong> (high speed sync) on E-TTL compatible cameras<\/li>\n<li>you can use <strong>second shutter curtain sync and FE lock<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>you can use <strong>multi-fire mode<\/strong> which allows repeated flashes from 1-199 Hz<\/li>\n<li><strong>flash exposure bracketing<\/strong> mode for 3 shots to give total of up to +\/- 3 stops in 1\/3EV increments<\/li>\n<li>it does have a <strong>modeling lamp<\/strong> which can be activated via the camera&#8217;s preview button<\/li>\n<li>it does have a <strong>lamp<\/strong> to add more light to the subject to assist composition and focusing<\/li>\n<li>it is relatively simple to use as long as you don&#8217;t need to do wireless TTL &#8211; you will need to bring the instruction book with you!<\/li>\n<li>it snaps onto supplied <strong>lens filter thread adapters<\/strong> &#8211; two of which are supplied (55mm and 58mm), and you can buy other adapters &#8211; either 52mm, 62mm, 67mm, 72mm or 77mm which means you can attach this flash to a wide range of lenses.<\/li>\n<li>GN 14m (ISO100) is reasonable for a macro flash<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I managed to pick up a second hand Sigma EM-140 DG Ring Flash for Canon EOS this week mainly because it was going relatively cheaply and I needed a TTL macro flash for my Canon kit but didn&#8217;t want to pay for the Canon macro flash. I already own the Olympus Ring Flash which I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[44,25,133,63],"class_list":["post-3473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flash-photography","tag-canon","tag-macro","tag-ring-flash","tag-sigma"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}