[LargeFormat] to ringlash or not to ringflash

[Clive Warren]

At 5:48 pm +0000 25/3/02, philip.lambert wrote:
>
>I did formerly have a low power ringfl;ash that I sold due its limitations.
>It worked on a 35mm reflex but was too weak to be usable on a monorail
>camera where the working distances are larger.  I have just acquired a Nikon
>SR2 ringflash dating from about 1975.  There is no power pack. Is it
>feasible to get it connected to one of my studio flashes? This might give me
>more light output and a range of fractional outputs up to max.Alternatively
>should I just get rid of it?


Philip, you have just reminded me about another one of my projects! 
I have two semicircular flash tubes which when place opposite each 
other form a circle large enough to fit around any of my large format 
lenses. I was intending to construct a large format ring flash as 
these are high output tubes. Picked up a fairly compact old Courtenay 
studio head to use as the firing mechanism and was going to construct 
a reflector using matt aluminium foil on cardboard.

The flash tubes had been lost in a pile of other junk for a while and 
they turned up again a couple of weeks ago.

I have a feeling that your Nikon SR2 will still be too low powered to 
do what you want even if you could fire it. The only way to find out 
is to try it - I have no idea if the power available from a studio 
flash head will fry the tube though!

Cheers,
        Clive