Last Updated on 08/25/2017 by Chris Gampat
In the world of photography lighting, it seems that nothing is off limits, even odd dual flex lights meant for on camera use in macro photography. Polaroid, a brand that continues day by day to make us wonder how our necks aren’t giving out from shaking our heads, has announced their new [amazon_textlink asin=’B01DOIYG7W’ text=’Flexible Twin Flash Lights’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’thephobl-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’42f6bf3e-881f-11e7-a3cd-6104c08e93b5′] for Macro Photographers.This rig attaches to your hotshoe mount like any Speedlight would, but instead of a traditional flash head, you get two LED lights on these crazy flexible antenna meant to help you position the lights to best light the subject of your macro images. They are aiming this at people shooting food, flowers, and claim the light to be sufficient for subjects as close as 2 inches to as far as 6 feet away.
We feel the need to point out that unlike a traditional macro Speedlight, an LED based system like this has several shortfalls, including not being nearly as powerful in terms of light output, and having an incredibly short flash duration, meaning they won’t help freeze action when shooting handheld (or stop camera shake) as well as a traditional Speedlight would. Macro photography almost always requires you to stop down fairly far, or else you are required to focus stack because at brighter apertures the depth of field at 2 inches away from the subject is so thin it’s pointless. So it remains to be seen if these LED lights will put out enough power for a real macro photographer to make use of, but color us skeptical.
On the bright side (pun intended) someone looking for a cheap accessory for just playing around with macro photography will probably find this to be a great option. Polaroid is only selling these for about $40, meaning they are likely much more affordable than any other macro specific lighting you are considering. If you are interested you can find them [amazon_textlink asin=’B01DOIYG7W’ text=’now on Amazon’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’thephobl-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’42f6bf3e-881f-11e7-a3cd-6104c08e93b5′] .
Plus, in the event that they turn out to not be very useful for macro photography if you ever get hired to shoot at a UFO or Alien event you have the perfect accessory for your kits.