Ring-lights are hot right now. All the fashion photogs and product photographers have fallen in love with them all over again. Lighting companies big and small are releasing new versions of these lights all the time, but they aren’t cheap. But maybe, you have one stuffed away in your garage or someplace…..

The price of these ringlights aren’t cheap, of course, and who knows how long this current love affair will last. But if you happen to have one of those old magnifying-ringlights of the kind that used to be used in drafting-rooms all over the world, you can make this into a low-power (22-watts of flourescent power max) ring lite.

First you go dig-out that old ringlight and (unlike me) maybe even give it a cleaning. Then, as shown here, you remove the 3-clips with a phillips screwdriver that holds the magnifying-lens in place and carefully drop the lens out of the center of the light.

Then you can set-up the light, with your camera looking through the center-hole and take pictures of all kinds of evenly illuminated stuff.

This photo shows the set-up for the opening shot of an old Exa camera illuminated with only the ring-light.

Here’s a shot of some coins illuminated with the ring-light and taken with a Nikon D-200 and a Nikon 105mm VR macro lens.

The color temperature was adjusted using our very own cheap temperature-disc (click here) and the Nikon Preset white balance.

This shows the set-up for the above coin-shot minus the camera poking through the middle of the ring-light opening.

So, go ahead and dig out that old drafting-lamp or see if you can find an inexpensive one at a swap meet or a garage-sale. It will provide lots of fun and nice, even illumination for your subjects!

(Photos taken with a Nikon D-200, Nikon 105mm VR Macro lens, Nikon 12-24mm lens, SanDisk memory card, Garage ringlight,handheld)