Lots of Upgrades On the Weefine RingLight 3000
The original Weefine Ringlight was a simple affair, more of a good idea rather than a good product but the upgrades on the latest version have made it a very useful tool indeed. Brightness has been beefed up and strobe, red light and UV light features all make it a great addition to the macro photographers armoury.
What’s In The Box?
Along with the ring light itself you’ll find a couple of spare o rings a battery charger and a rechargeable 26650 battery. The charger is an uncomplicated and easy to read, 4 blue bars represent the level of charge and is a welcome new feature that replaces the option of using AAA batteries with the first model. Lazy people no longer have the option of buying disposable polluting batteries.
clownfish eggs with weefine 3000 and tg5
Extra’s You’ll Probably Need
There’s no fibre optic strobe cable in the pack and this is obviously something you’ll need for the strobe feature. I used a very reasonably priced …. which works absolutely fine.
With a charging time of nearly four hours from empty I would suggest buying a spare battery. Using the light only when required did last me for a whole 3 dive day, although there wasn’t that many subjects to utilise it on. If you were in somewhere like Lembeh then it could only last a single dive.
The thread on the ring light is M67 so depending on which housing you have you may need an adaptor ring.
Super Easy Macro Video
Assuming that this is what the Weefine ringlight 3000 is mainly designed for then it really hits the mark. No more ridiculous acts of contortion fiddling around with video lights to illuminate the subject right in front of your camera. Subjects as close as 2cm away from the lense are well lit as you can see in the sample video and the photos. The video light has four power increments with a max of 1800 lumens, more than enough for the job.
Easy To Operate
A very simple two button operation system doesn’t take more than 10 minutes following the provided instructions to get used to. Underwater is no different although if you’re using gloves then it could get a little tricky, the buttons are small and close together. Without gloves, switching between modes and power levels is easy.
Weefine Ringlight 3000 Specifications
Ok the technical stuff that sums up this great little tool:
- Depth Rating: 100m
- Beam Angle: 90 degrees
- Video light mode: White/Red/Blue
- Strobe light mode: White/Red/Blue
- Video light output: 1800 lumens max
- Strobe light output: 3000 lumens
- Colour temperature: 5000 – 5500K
- Power Increments: 100%, 75%, 50%, 25%
- Video light: 40 – 45 minutes on full
- Battery charge time from empty: 4 hrs
- Dimensions: 123mm x 159mm x 40mm
New Strobe Feature
A great addition for the Olympus TG-5 set up that we use. The internal flash of the camera is hidden by the ring light itself so before the strobe feature was introduced and a flash was required for stills, the unit had to be taken off unless of course you’re using strobes. So taking macro stills or video is now a simple push of a button.
There is a small issue if you’re using the TG-5 in the PT 058 housing. The fibre optic connector that fits over the external flash diffuser doesn’t leave enough room between the housing and the ringlight. A temporary solution was to remove the diffuser and gently put the connector in place. Certainly not ideal but the strobe fired every time.
The red light option works very well with the strobe. You can get a little closer to shy animals and it won’t attract all the tiny light loving creatures at night. You can select the strobe feature from white, red or UV mode.
It certainly doesn’t work as well as real strobes and the light is a little cold but it evens out with the ease of use and compactness of the set up.
weefine 3000 strobe mode
UV Light
A nice touch but not essential. If you do like to view the corals and marine life under UV at night then of course you’ll appreciate the option and it can produce some unusual looking images.
Price
Online and in Thailand it retails around the US$ 300 mark but we were lucky to get hold of ours from Hong Kong for just over US$ 200. A massive difference and if you’re passing through it’s definitely worth checking out some diving retailers to get what appears to be a bit of a bargain. We’re fairly sure it’s a genuine version…
In Summary
A fantastic macro tool for compact camera users. It gets light on even the closest subjects and you can easily switch between stills and video. The Weefine ringlight 3000 appears so far to be a fairly robust tool, it can easily be stashed in your BCD pocket allowing you to put on a wide angle lense when that unexpected manta appears.
By Justin Hartrey
Posted in Equipment We Like on .
