Macro lighting: LED Vs flash - What's the difference and which is best

Get a flash with modelling light…..

Hi Andrew, I will try to use more flash on my next trips, thanks to your really cool videos.
Thank you very much and please keep up the good work.

Gracias por la explicación

Take your balls out of your purse and use a real flash

I am not sure if this has been mentioned in the comments but that little LED light is also a flash unit, could you not just take it with you and use it for both.

"Speedlight" or "Speedlite" are the names that Nikon and Canon give their flash units. There are not generic terms, although Americans tend to use them as such. Not everyone uses a Nikon or a Canon, or their flash units.

Some flash units have built-in modelling LEDs. Best of both worlds.

Hi Andrew and many thanks for your time, trying to help many of us out on the flash subject.

I have Canon gear and want to buy a canon speedlight, but don't know which one to get. I started off photographing wildlife and now want to also do macro and today purchased the RF 100 f/2.8, so need to take that in to account. I've only heard of master and slave units but don't know how to programme them including how much flash out put is needed.

Where I'm lost on working out which speed light to purchase, is will the specs be ok for macro as well as future genres that I try out. I'm only learning so won't include weddings, but as my nerves extend to family portraits, I need to include that. I guess the bottom line is, I haven't a foggiest what to do as I'm a complete newbie, but cost isn't an issue, I've always bought the best but lost on where to draw the line if I don't need the best if that makes sense. Millions of thanks in advance 👍

Yes, but try stacking multiple photos with flash recharging...

im due to buy my first flash for macro photos what would you recomend please ?

Doesn't that AD200 have modelling lights to help with positioning?

Danke!

Excellent presentation

Great video 👍 - I have just ordered a Kenro flash but was unsure if I’d made the right decision. Now that I’ve watched your video.. I see that I have ordered the right thing 😀 Thank you - Steve

Excellent presentation. I mostly deal with macro (1:1) to extreme macro, both inside my house and in my garden. Depending on highly varied shooting conditions I shoot without flash or LED to LED only (ring or directional). So the situation dictate what is proper over better or worse.

Any method of using focus bracketing option in R5 with flash for macro shots

Why LED is a little blur at the thing's edge? but Flash light doesn't have that blur, thant means Flash is much clear than LED. the Aperture is same, the shutspeed is high like 120-160(not same), iso is different.

or you can put the model light on the flash to see where the light is going to land, then when photograph the subject the flash will take over the model lighting situation.

Tape a led torch to the flash you will see the lighting before using the flash👍

Muito bom o comparativo, eu prefiro o flash para fotos pela sua potencia e versatilidade, o led realmente ajuda em uma foto que não precisa de muita luz, mas quando quer efeitos como você mostrou se torna problematico. Parabéns

Just had my 1st trial at macro photography with a diffused speed light flash and also a led macro ring and I found using both of these together was the best results as the ring leds just filled in the shadows while the diffused speed light really lit up the subject and also it wiped out the blue cast that the leds gave to the images resulting in really nice autumn 🍂colours in the subject which was some mushrooms 🍄 on a old log 🪵 .the test shots just with the ring led was alright but lacking in colour and detail which yeah could be corrected in post but straight out of camera the flash wins leds just there for shadows 👍

Subscribed (Colorado). Flash: Godox for Nikon. Sometimes cheap Amazon flash with radio trigggers.

I bought a pair of Roto Light Neo II hoping for them to be amazing but surprisingly they were underwhelming. They were too bright at low levels and from 0-20% their color temperatures changed if you were using any temperatures that had any warmth to it. What made it even worse was a cheap Chinese LED video light from Amazon was just as good. It was kinda sad as I wanted the rotolights to be amazing.

You're great, mate! You have a fun disposition and make an informational video, such as this, fun to watch! 
Cheers!

Excellent video, just what I was looking for.

i love how these led vs flash videos always pretend that led gives you the advantage of previewing what the light will look like, as if modeling lights aren't a thing, especially with macro flashes.

nice tuto. any experience with godox mf-r76 ringflash and mf-12 macro flashes ?

Both are great if you know how to use them.

Hi Andrew! Great video. I used to use LED light, but now I'm learning to use flash light. I have Godox TT685N, I bought MagMod accessories recently and it's great!

Good video. I completely agree with you. When hand holding flash a remote trigger is nice to use too.

Most strobes have modeling lights (including that AD200)
Most LEDs are only really good for Video and Jewelry.
Cheap LED lights are not colour accurate and Big LED lights are very expensive.

Hay you, I've tried both and for me the flash gun works so much better.

I use both and occasionally a bendy led desk lamp!

Andrew nice video! I think you may have missed an opportunity overlooking the NEO2 flash capabilities as it is in another class, LEDs that give excellent light with consistent and flash outputs. Also, the recently released Rotolight NEO3 outperforms all the lights in your demo and includes RGBWW light in flash and constant modes.

Good info! I've always used flash (and monolights in studio)... Or just ambient light when it's sufficient. But I have thought about trying LED for exactly the reasons you mention...
Something you didn't mention was that some flash (and a lot of studio strobes) have a modelling light... A lower power but continuous light source you can use for a bit of a preview how your flash shot will look. For example, the Canon MT24EX Twinlite I use has a modelling light an each of its two flash heads.
While those modelling lights aren't very powerful, they can give some idea how the shadows and highlights are going to fall on a subject.

As always a very good tutorial how many done a lot of flash photography although I do intend to try my hand as for the LED lights this is just a thought as I have not tried it myself can you use the LED light to work out where you best be further light direction and then put your flashlight with that Cut 0ut all the guesswork ?

Which NEO were you using? The NEO 2 in flash mode output is significantly higher. The output goes up by 200% on internal battery or 500% on external battery. I’ve found the NEO 2 works fine in flash mode.

what about simply using a strobe with a LED modeling light? once you see where the latest is falling you take the picture with the strobe

Ummm maybe you didn’t realize it, but your Rotolight is not only an led panel, but it is also an led flash panel. And when you use it as a flash, it outputs twice the power. Try it as a flash & see what you think!

There are benefits and drawbacks to both Continuous and Flash lighting and for the most part you have pointed these out well in the video. There are a couple of things I would like to add. Modern cameras and flash also allow for HSS so shooting at the camera's sync speed under 1/320 with FP shutters is no longer a limitation. The images in this video portray the subject in isolation by using artificial light to overpower the natural light on the background. For this affect the flash is useful. It is however indistinguishable from shooting the subject in a studio. On the other hand if you want to portray the subject in it's natural environment and only highlight or fill, then the constant light or a reflector works fine and has the benefit of WYSIWYG. In conclusion, there are no overall right or wrong tools ( a hand held screwdriver, a battery powered drill or one that runs on mains power) will drive that screw. It is the situation, the subject and the desired result that make some tools better suited for the given combination.

Hi Andrew, again a great tutorial, thank you. I use most of the time 2 flashes to create the right ambiance. Sometimes I put a MagMod colour gel in one of the flashes to give give the picture an additional twist. Like you said a lot of trail and error, but you learn all the time which is fun, particularly when you are outside it is interesting to gain control over the light conditions.

I've done macro photos using Lume Cube Lighting. The first version was able to work as a slave flash. I decided to purchase the second version, which doesn't include such feature, but can flash at a fairly bright luminance. Normal Flashes can be slightly brighter than Lume Cube. I've also tried using an LED panel which was about as powerful as a flash for the same price. I've found that diffuse lighting is important sometimes, especially for extreme magnification. I rarely use light sources though. I've realized that light sources aren't of much use for me as I initially had expected. Rather, I've tried to be making macro in sunshine during a cloudy day.

I have an LED head for the AD200's, then use the same square diffuser as when shooting flash. This will work in a dim environment when continuous is needed. But I use flash a lot more often. Also, I've found that I can use a Godox 860-II-O Olympus specific flash with a Sony camera if I use the Sony specific controller and the flash off camera. Even TTL works. I have both Olympus and Sony camera bodies, so this saved me needing to buy a Sony specific 860-II flash.

I really appreciated your discussion and comparisons of a LED light and a flash. But I’m always surprised when you talk about using a small aperture, like f/11. With my macro work, f/11 feels like a large aperture because it gives me only about 1mm depth of field. I consider small apertures to be more like f/22 or f/32 that might give me a few mm of depth of field. I’m guessing that the difference is that you are further away from your subject? Or is there some other equipment difference that allows you to get more than 1 or 2mm DOF at f/11?

Thanks Andrew. This is very helpful. I am trying to learn to use off-camera flash but still have a long way to go.

Although I presently don't have one I do plan on buying an LED panel for what I think will used as fill light in conjunction with flash, right now I use a flashlight. Good video, keep them coming.

The only problem with flash: doing focusstacking shots!

I only ever use flash for outdoor, handheld macro - and then only if there's too little natural light, or if I need to freeze very fast action (rapid moving/flying insects etc). I'm not too keen on the "trial and error" aspect of flash composition in the studio and use only continuous light there (except for action-freezing, but I hardly ever do that in a studio-macro context). I mix halogen goosenecks, flat panels and big COB monsters as needed, whatever the setup requires.

One thing to watch out for with the cheaper LED panels is flicker. If they're dimmed, they do it by switching the LEDs rapidly on and off and this can show as thin stripes in your images at higher shutter speeds. So, usually best to use a slow shutter with these panels (I regularly use 1/10th sec shutter in the studio, just to eliminate this issue completely). Another thing is gaps in the spectrum, they tend to have blue and red peaks with little in between and this will change the apparent colour of some subjects due to metamerism. The bigger COB lamps generally don't flicker when dimmed and give a uniform white light (equal intensity of all colours across the spectrum) which avoids colour inconsistencies between different shots and subjects. Despite the bulk, I find the COB lamps incredibly useful for studio macro lighting. Very easy to use with fewer potential issues to dodge. I have 2x Godox ML60 and 2x Amaran 60d - with the latter being smaller and my favourite to date for macro use. My lamps are used for "traditional" studio lighting too, so cost is shared. They might be a bit too expensive for "macro only" use - depends on your budget I guess.