Customer Reviews

Coco Ring Flash Adapter for Nikon SB-900 Flash with D300, D200, D70, D80, D50, D40, D40x, D60, & D90 Digital SLR Camera's

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

So what is the ring flash?

The coco ring flash is an adapter you slide onto your flashgun. It is built specifically to fit on the flashgun mounted on the camera with whatever lens you have on the camera sticking through the hole in the ring flash. Even my biggest lens, the Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8 (77mm diameter) easily fits in the adapter with room to spare. With the flash and adapter mounted on your camera, it grows a bit in size but is still manageable and steady. Just be warned that you will get a lot of 'what is that thing'-questions.

Overall I like it. It is a relatively inexpensive piece of lighting gear that produces results no 'bare' flash can get you. It especially shines for in-your-face portrait photography and flower macro shots.

Be warned that the fit is a bit loose, but with some additional Velcro tape (that is there for my portable soft box) it feels a lot more secure. The ring flash is clearly cheaply produced, but it is very competitively priced compared to its more expensive cousins, the Orbis and Ray Flash. Despite the relatively cheap price tag, the ring flash is fairly sturdy and has now withstood several months of shooting in various locations.

Read full review with images (which is what it is all about, right?) on my blog @ [...] (search: "coco").

I have been wanting to get one of these ring flash adapters for some time, but at $250-$300 that the Rayflash goes for I was not interested. I have an Alien Bees ring flash and it certainly does its job, but it is large and cumbersome. I wanted something that would be easy to use that could provide a directionless fill. Flash brackets are cumbersome and still leave a flash shadow - in comes the ring flash.

The Coco ring flash adapter is virtually identical to the Rayflash - I looked at one in a local camera store - but at a fraction of the price. I use it mainly as a subtle fill source and it does a fine job. You lose some power from the speed light so if you think you are going to be overpowering the sun it isn't going to happen. I bought this and use it on my SB-800, it doesn't fit so I just hold it in place. This is not the end of the world as this method is still nicer than lugging the Alien Bee around. I will rig up some foam shims one of these days until I pick up an SB-900.

If you have been wanting to try one of these adapters out this is the one to get. It is identical to the competitor and it won't leave our wallet 10lbs lighter.

This product performs just as well as it's brand name counterpart. Ofcourse, for the price, you do get some shotty craftsmanship. The clear plastic on the front doesn't seem to stay stuck to the back half too well. However, this does not seem to affect performance.
Hot spots are only visible when doing macro work, in which case you can find a way to work around it somehow.
The adapter causes my SB-900 to hang a bit at an angle, a problem easily remedied by some folded up paper.
I have noticed that the adapter warms up my photos quite significantly, so I would adjust white balance accordingly.

Overall, you get what you paid for. Even though it was poorly constructed it still manages to perform just as well as it's much more expensive counterpart.

P.S. Here's a BIGGIE! This product is WHITE!!!!!! I had to paint mine black, it was just too damn annoying

I ordered this in spite of some of the bad reviews I was actually impressed. For an inexpensive ring flash this is a good buy for the price. I also ordered it knowing it would not fit my Nikon D90 with SB-600 flash directly. The SB-900 has a larger flash head, so it would not clamp to the 600 flash unit. I remedied that with a small 3/8 inch thick piece of rubber and a little Velcro. That took care of the unit falling off, but it was still a little floppy, so I took a 6 inch piece of plastic and drilled a hole in one end for a knob to attach it to my tripod socket and a bit of Velcro on the other end to hold the ring flash and it stays put just like a unit costing 5 times as much. I've taken about 200 shots with this ring flash and like the results. I love the look I can get from this flash, it does away with harsh shadows especially with macro shots. Does very good with portrait work. In macro you may have to use some negative flash compensation, but I have had to do that with direct flash also. Also when out and about with this attached someone always comes up wanting to know what it is.

Pros:
Inexpensive
Simple to use
Great conversation starter

Cons:
A little loose on an SB-900 - Velcro needed
A little big to fit in the camera bag
May need some flash compensation with some subjects

Overall I would recommend this to anyone looking for a ring flash and not wanting to spend a lot of money. I uploaded a couple of images and when I get time I'll upload a picture of the support bar I fabricated to make it more durable.

The ring does give almost shadowless/flat image. And I use it occasionally. I bought it to see if I like the look/feel of a ring light. While it does I am frustrated with the design. The tightening mechanism is very close to the edge and it cracked the first day. Attached the flash it moves around a lot and kept catching on my 18-105VR lens when zooming and especially when in vertical. It desperately needs a bracket on the bottom to attach to the tripod mount. Also there's a lot of light leakage at the first bend where it says coco. Mine appears to be thin paper.
And what I thought would be fiber optics in the ring are molded plastic strips.
Its a very cheap design but it does work

the ring flash is something that I have been wanting for portrait photography for years. The Ray Flash has been great! I used it for portraits at a wedding, and for some close up macro shots. My Nikon D40 is a little less responsive in Appature mode than I would have liked, and as my skills improve ... I'm starting to see my need for equipment upgrades.

I highly recommend this flash adapter. My only wish would be that with a bag, or some kind of soft case ... it's a little cumbersome in my camera bag, i end up looping it around my arm when it's not in use.

This is a good little ring-light for the price. I would recommend it as a beginner unit to try and see if you like this kind of light for your work. It gives a nice amount of diffusion to your light, but subjects have a strange dark aura around them, which you probably won't want. The light is also nowhere near as soft as a decent off-camera setup with large diffusers like umbrella or soft-box. This might have seemed obvious, but I was still a little surprised how harsh this light looks in most situations. I bought the light mostly to use for macro photography, but haven't had a chance to use it on any really extreme close-ups yet. I'm still pretty sure this will be a great tool for macro, but don't expect to get pro-looking results for portraits if you're more than a few feet away. The light is still only about 6 inches across, so take the whole light-size vs subject-size concept into account when deciding if this light will be appropriate for the subject at hand.

As far as the build quality, the unit fits perfectly on my SB900, but it really has no way to hold itself on. The built-in clamping knob is extremely poorly designed, and is more likely to un-thread itself than actually hold onto your flash. I still have to figure out how to rig something (maybe some rubber strips or grip-tape?) to hold it on the camera better. It has already fallen off my camera once due to leaning too far down, but luckily it didn't shatter on the hard floor or anything - so that's a good sign. It is pretty sturdy besides the ineffective mounting system - you can tell it's cheaply made, but it doesn't seem like it will fall apart any time soon.

Oh, and I too had to paint over the light-grey logo area on the front of the flash. I didn't want that big Coco logo showing up in reflections in my shots - very poor design on that part of the unit. They should have had something more simple on the top of the unit where it wouldn't cast reflections all the time.

Sorry for the long rant. Overall, this appears to be the best ring-light you can get for this price to try on an SB900, so you might as well get one to see how you like it. Just be aware it will take a good bit of tweaking to be able to use it on a regular basis.

I purchased this as a less expensive option than it's name brand counterpart hoping it would basically be the same thing. However, I think you get what you pay for in this instance. As far as the functionality goes, it's great. It works as it should and it gives a nice even light all around the ring. I only loose about a stop with this adapter. It provides a pretty classic ring flash look as a main as well as being a great even fill light when using off camera flash.
The quality of this item is very poor however. The plastic is very cheap and brittle. I dropped it once onto a hard wood floor (a.k.a. not that hard) and the the plastic on the top by the logo cracked and shattered. The plastic at the base of the ring also cracked but it still held together. Unfortunately this greatly weekend the structure of the adapter so that it would not hold itself well while shooting vertically. I put some colored duct tape around the top and so far this seems to have solved the issue, at the expense of ugly duct tape though!
All in all the product performs as it should, just take extra care to not drop it as it will break. I would also recommend adding a simple bracket to the bottom of your camera that attaches to the bottom of the adapter (as I have) to help keep some of the strain off of the hotshoe mount of your flash. It is quite heavy and really adds some weight to your flash's hotshoe mount while shooting vertically.

I bought this to use with Nikon SB800 flashes. Its made for the SB900, but I modified it to fit my SB800, and the mod seems very good so far. The scoop in the coco ring flash that fits around the flash head is too big for the sb800. I doubt it could hold the sb900 very securely, because it is just a box of plastic with a flimsy top screw that puts pressure on the flash head. The beauty of the mod is that all the materials came in the coco ring flash box! The ring flash box contains a circular piece of soft rubber material. I cut that to fit the insides of the box-shaped area of the ring flash, creating a smaller space for the flash head to fit into. On the sides, I cut the rubber material in half to make it thinner. On the top, I used the full width of the rubber material, and glued a piece to the area where the screw mechanism would touch the top of the flash head. It took about 30 minutes to complete the mod. The fit is perfect! The flash head pushes snugly into the ring flash holder now, and it seems to hold securely. So if you're willing to do the mod necessary to fit the sb800 or sb600, the coco ring flash is a nice economical alternative the more expensive ring flashes.

Alright, alright, first of all... you must know I am using this on an SB-600. But, I got it to work! I am using a set of plexiglass shims on the top and bottom of the flash to increase the dimensions of the flash so that it fits snugly into the ring flash. The shims attach via prexisting velcro anchors, and I'm using a small strap to cinch the flash to the unit at its top.

Overall, the unit is solidly built. However, it appears that the actual ring is torqued about 5-10 degrees off center from the flash mount. It isn't a big deal, since there is still enough play in the fit to compensate.

The good news is that the unit faithfully produces that "ring light" effect, complete with shadowy halos. The wrap-around lighting is great, very flattering. Beautiful! I'm shooting indoors at f/8 or so, aperture priority, ISO 400, with shutter speeds varying from 60 to 320. I only mention this, because it is normally a recipie for disasterous specular highlights and that "standard" washed-out flash look. However, at 8-10 ft. the Coco attachment is like magic under these conditions, giving perfect exposure and a full histogram with +1/3 EV.

For me, indoor bounce flash is normally a trial-and-error experiment, using a bounce card to fill in whatever shadows are caused by bouncing the flash off the ceiling, walls, floor or whatever else is around. This adapter has solved that. I'll be using it Sunday for a wedding without hesitation.

The adapter makes beautiful light, plain and simple. Why the 4-star review? Because I had to figure out how to use it on my SB-600.