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Who makes a 200WS TTL ringlite for Canon EOS?

Will Thompson

Well-known member
A list of Canon lenses currently known to be usable with the Canon ML-3 ringlite!

MACRO:

EF-S 35mm f/2.8L Macro IS STM

EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro

EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro

EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM

EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM (Macrolite Adapter 67 is required)

EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM (Macrolite Adapter 72 is required)

EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM

MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro

NON-MACRO:

EF 28mm f/2.8 (when modified by replacing the front name ring with one from the EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro)

EF 35mm f/2 (when modified by replacing the front name ring with one from the EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro)

EF 35mm f/2 IS USM (Macrolite Adapter 67 is required)

EF 50mm f/1.2L USM (Macrolite Adapter 72C is required)

EF 85mm f/1.8 USM (Macrolite Adapter 58C is required)

EF 100mm f/2 USM (Macrolite Adapter 58C is required)

EF 135mm f/2L USM (Macrolite Adapter 72C is required)

EF 135mm f/2.8 Softfocus (Macrolite Adapter 52C is required)

EF 70-200mm f/4L USM (Macrolite Adapter 67 is required)

EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM (Macrolite Adapter 67 is required)
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
2657


Asher Kelman: Vintage Canon ML3 Macro Flashes!

Arrived from Japan. One used and one apparently brand new, old stock!

Early tomorrow, I’ll drive East to Will’s electronic shop and he’ll wire this to the plugin “bare-bulb” fixture on a Godox AD 200 Pro flash pack!

But why two flashes?

The used one I will just take apart so we can have my engineer in the Netherlands design a new larger case to be 3D printed to allow use of most big lenses of any make!

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Soon, Will, my friend!

Thanks for the incredibly generosity in building my new ring flash for my Fuji GFX!


I will
Post the first pictures shortly!


Asher
 

Will Thompson

Well-known member
1. Over-Temperature Protection● To avoid overheating and deteriorating the flash head, do not fire more than 40 continuous flashes in fast succession at 1/1 full power. After 40 continuous flashes, allow a rest time of at least 10 minutes.● If you fire more than 40 continuous flashes and then fire more flashes in short intervals, the inner over-temperature protection function may be activated and make the recycling time over 10 seconds. If this occurs, allow a rest time of about 10 minutes, and the flash unit will then return to normal.● When the over-temperature protection is started, is shown on the AV display.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
A huge advantage of the ring light is as a highly portable modern TTL flash for portraits, on the go!

For me, it has additional special value, as an added flash for an otherwise perfect studio setup.

Here, one can add just a enough gentle direct light to flood large skin pores on that otherwise would be obvious and too well “drawn” with the key light used for overall 3D form.

Asher.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
What’s so superb about this ring flash is that it opens up areas of wrinkles by illuminating the cavities well and thus decreasing the appearance of all sorts of skin defects.

Note: This picture is a very small compressed jpg, so ignore lack of sharpness. The intention here is only to demonstrate the evenness of the light!

That is does well!

Asher
 

Will Thompson

Well-known member
I now have the ML3/200 RingLight head working with 3 different led focusing light brightness levels Controlled with the AD200PRO!
 

Tetsuya Saito

New member
Making ring lite for AD200 interests me a lot and I appreciate if you give me a bit more info to reproduce your great work on my AD200 (not pro) and my old ML-3 which has been in toy box as an obsolete device.

Please correct me if my understanding below is wrong.
  1. Use an existing circuit board on which many electric parts are, w/o taking out.
  2. Replace the 2 original dark modeling lamps with 2 high power LEDs and 2 twenty-two resistors used in the LED bulbs.
  3. Cut the original male plug out and connect the 5 cables (anode (+), cathode (-), trigger, modeling lamp+, modeling-) to head terminal pins of either EC200 or AD200 bulb head.
  4. There are pins on the AD200 head, 1: Trigger, 2-5: cathode (vol-), 6-9: anode (vol+), 10-11: device ID?, 12: modeling lamp GND, 13: modeling lamp V+)
  5. High volt is 330V and modeling lamp volt is 9V?

In addition, appreciate if you teach me
A. 5 pin assignment on the ML-3
B. Way to activate 3 way LED bright level on AD200. (Speculating changing resistor(s) connected to the pin 10&11)

Thanks
 

Will Thompson

Well-known member
Making ring lite for AD200 interests me a lot and I appreciate if you give me a bit more info to reproduce your great work on my AD200 (not pro) and my old ML-3 which has been in toy box as an obsolete device.

Please correct me if my understanding below is wrong.
  1. Use an existing circuit board on which many electric parts are, w/o taking out.
  2. Replace the 2 original dark modeling lamps with 2 high power LEDs and 2 twenty-two resistors used in the LED bulbs.
  3. Cut the original male plug out and connect the 5 cables (anode (+), cathode (-), trigger, modeling lamp+, modeling-) to head terminal pins of either EC200 or AD200 bulb head.
  4. There are pins on the AD200 head, 1: Trigger, 2-5: cathode (vol-), 6-9: anode (vol+), 10-11: device ID?, 12: modeling lamp GND, 13: modeling lamp V+)
  5. High volt is 330V and modeling lamp volt is 9V?

In addition, appreciate if you teach me
A. 5 pin assignment on the ML-3
B. Way to activate 3 way LED bright level on AD200. (Speculating changing resistor(s) connected to the pin 10&11)

Thanks


None of your assumptions are correct except the high voltage.

Not something I feel safe posting instructions as it is something that could kill someone not qualified to do it.

It requires a ML3, bare bulb head, and the correct coil cord, You remove (trashing the original coil cord) all but 3 components and the 2 flash tubes.

It also requires a machine shop to manufacture several of the needed parts.

There are things that I do that I consider trade secrets!

I would consider being paid to construct one for you.
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Making ring lite for AD200 interests me a lot and I appreciate if you give me a bit more info to reproduce your great work on my AD200 (not pro) and my old ML-3 which has been in toy box as an obsolete device.

Please correct me if my understanding below is wrong.
  1. Use an existing circuit board on which many electric parts are, w/o taking out.
  2. Replace the 2 original dark modeling lamps with 2 high power LEDs and 2 twenty-two resistors used in the LED bulbs.
  3. Cut the original male plug out and connect the 5 cables (anode (+), cathode (-), trigger, modeling lamp+, modeling-) to head terminal pins of either EC200 or AD200 bulb head.
  4. There are pins on the AD200 head, 1: Trigger, 2-5: cathode (vol-), 6-9: anode (vol+), 10-11: device ID?, 12: modeling lamp GND, 13: modeling lamp V+)
  5. High volt is 330V and modeling lamp volt is 9V?
In addition, appreciate if you teach me
A. 5 pin assignment on the ML-3
B. Way to activate 3 way LED bright level on AD200. (Speculating changing resistor(s) connected to the pin 10&11)

Thanks
Tetsuya,

It’s not just a matter of Will transferring his knowhow to others. He invests his time with 10 ring lights and dissects them and redraws circuits, suffers explosions and broken glass to determine e all the limits possible.

His specialty is electronic adaptions. He does this for hospitals, ambulances and sheriffs departments. Everything has to be 100% reliable as lives depend on his work.

He puts the same sense of responsibility and accountability to the nth degree for his ring lights. Let him make one for you and agree not to reverse engineer it yourself as that’s his love and passion and part of his bread that goes on his table.

He is the one I call on to help a revolutionary fighter cameraman slip back to civilian life. He simply provides the camera free of charge.

But it would be wrong to ask him to give out his trade secrets as tgat is what he has developed so he can provide this unique service: a TTL ringlight That has 3 different brightness levels of the LED light for focusing and it weighs nothing!

So if you are really interested send him and ML3 or just have him make for you the total modification at a fair price!

I trust him 100% but have zero to do with his buisiness except when needed I will design an updated wider throat case if he requests that!

Asher
 

Tetsuya Saito

New member
Hi Will,

Thank you for your quick response.

Yes, you are right. I tend to agree that mod, especially in the case involving high voltage circuit, is not for everyone in the sense of the safe, so better not to make the info visible to the public.

I just started reverse engineering of the ML-3 to reproduce something like you realized at my own risk, you gave me the kind offer though. It is fun actually.

I will come back to you and ask to make one for me when I failed and got in the hand-lifted state and hope you welcome me back.

I was so exited by looking at your work that I wanted to reproduce it in an hour and asked for the info.

Sorry for my laziness and rudeness
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Will,

Thank you for your quick response.

Yes, you are right. I tend to agree that mod, especially in the case involving high voltage circuit, is not for everyone in the sense of the safe, so better not to make the info visible to the public.

I just started reverse engineering of the ML-3 to reproduce something like you realized at my own risk, you gave me the kind offer though. It is fun actually.

I will come back to you and ask to make one for me when I failed and got in the hand-lifted state and hope you welcome me back.

I was so exited by looking at your work that I wanted to reproduce it in an hour and asked for the info.

Sorry for my laziness and rudeness
You are not rude, Testsuya!

No way you could knowvif the huge effort Will has invested.

I am the proud owner of one modified ringlight and can recommend it!

Meanwhile, we have no other Japanese native who can gift us views of Japanese city and countryside and the people at home at pkwy and in the streets!

Please take my challenge and open a window on Japan for us!

My kindest regards,

Asher
 
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