[Liney]

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oh great and wonderful forum...

Any one one got any experience of products from Neewer (Neewer - Pro Camera and Phone accessories at amateur prices ? be a photographer at lowest cost)?

I've got some cash to spare and am looking at building up a macro studio, after much digging around I found this company. Ignoring the brand specific stuff for a moment, things like LED lights, focus rails and ring lights seem rather cheap. In fact so cheap there must be a catch.

If the price is that cheap then the first thought is the build quality is not up to scratch, hence the shout out to anyone who has used them before.

They sell through the big river internet company, usually the stuff I find from there that I want doesn't ship to my part of the world but allegedly they do.

It seems too good to be true, can anyone confirm this?

Cheers

[jlstrawman]

Neewer - About us

[david94903]

I've purchased a number of Neewer products over the years (cable releases, ring lights, soft box, reflectors), and they've all been fine. All worked as advertised, never had any issues with any of their products.

[pschlute]

I don't know what their electrical stuff is like but I have a couple of S-type flash brackets and I think a snoot made by them. Good quality products for the price in my experience.

[SSGGeezer]

I Just picked up a Neewer Macro ring, for under 40 USD, it is manual only and when trying to get Macros I generally just use it in the on position and set the brightness, then take the picture using the in camera metering.
It is an ok fill in for indoor work at one of the lowest settings for Close-up Work. IO have only used it several times.
It has multiple adapters for many sizes of lenses so is likely to work with anything 77mm or smaller.
I also just picked up a Carbon Fiber Neewer Tripod with a ball head and I almost returned it immediately due to at least one warped leg, horrible instructions for monopod conversion, and a quick release mount that would not loosen using the supplied hex wrench. (I wanted to use one I have two copies of.) I got it changed using a higher quality wrench then took it outside over two nights for some trial astro-photography, and it was very solid even when the breeze picked up.
Tripod Pluses: Very Strong
Reasonably priced. Under 100.00 USD
Ball head and QR included
Feet have spikes that can be exposed by rotating the rubber feet.
Good looking
Very Nice Case
Easy to rotate locking levers
Cons:
Warped parts, QC may not be best
QR mount won't come undone without additional effort and tools
Twist lock leg extensions.
Horrible instructions, makes Ikea look brilliant.

I give it 3.5 of 5 stars. I am keeping this one just because I don't want to hassle returning it.
The Light I give 4 stars because it is a cheap starter. It works but has few real capabilities.

[honey bo bo]

I have and use a very similar brand from the Orient Fotomate and found their products to be well made and Sturdy and the PRICE is right. I have a compact rail set up for my tripods a 10" Set for my Manfroto and 6" set for my portable Velbon & Manfroto (pictures of the 10" & 6") I have a Fotomate Ring light (LED's) which is good for close in Macro but no good for any thing further than 3' away (portraiture etc). I have a Sunpak Pro 622 which is very powerful strobe Ring light which I use more but it is much larger and bulky.
On all my tripods including the ones with the rails I Have put common Quick releases on them. I have quick release plates attached to all my Cameras incl Point & shoot cameras that are common. The only draw back is when I have to access the memory card or change batteries I have to remove the plate which to me is no biggy. The price is right on the stuff from the Orient and I have found build quality to be more than adequate for my needs.





Fotomate 250mm Range 2 Way Macro Focusing Rail Slider 1/4" Screw LP-03 E073

[Liney]

Thanks for the rapid responses. I was originally looking for a 2-way focus rail but the 4-way looks interesting for that price. I had looked at the ring lights, the prices for generic lights rather than flashes seem attractive, and they have some reasonably priced LED lights although they do seem to come without batteries (another way to get you to part with your money).

So far there is no "gotcha" that I can see, it looks promising

[DeadJohn]

I think you'll be okay using such products in a low-stress home studio. I wouldn't trust them for frequent professional use.

I have a Neewer wired intervalometer that has worked well for several years. Build quality is okay. I don't know about other Neewer products, but my same exact intervalometer is also sold as Shoot, Viltrox, and other brand names. It's probably all from one factory and they paint different brand names on the finished product. Prices for my product on Amazon currently range from $14 to $49 depending on the painted name; that's a big range for some paint.

Compared to big name companies, these small multi-name products tend (there are exceptions) to be much less expensive, get less inspection before leaving the factory, and have horribly translated instructions. I'll only buy direct from Amazon or a USA dealer I know; so I can return it if it arrives an is different than expected. Otherwise, I consider the warranty on cheap imports useless, because the cost and hassle of shipping to China for warranty repair is too much.

For home use I think you are okay using that sort of stuff.

P.S. I say "China" above but it could be any country where manufacturing labor is cheap. At one point people said the same thing about Japanese imports, then Japan matured and exceeded the USA with quality control.

[sqrrl]

I do use products like this, and I find them to mostly be fine however... The only things that I would comment on as possible negatives;

Many of these products are fine for amateur production in terms of robustness, but in a professional environment you may find that assistants find new and creative ways to break your gear - there's a reason for the build quality of top flight gear (assistant proofing). If you look after your gear and don't 'bounce test' it then you'll probably be fine.

You will probably find that many cheaper led items have pretty spectacular spikes in particular wavelengths in the light spectrum - they tend to correspond with human vision, which isn't necessarily the same as machine vision. This isn't a problem for casual usage, but can be problematic when you need completely accurate colour rendition (like photographing paintings for print catalogs and stuff like that) - This frankly affects very few people in real world conditions.

If you just want to explore options then go for it - the product you get will (possible quality issues aside) probably do 90% of what the pro version costing 10-20X more will do - and you will get a really good feel for what you can do with it. Most people are totally happy with what cheap gear can do for casual usage.

If you are starting out at something then buy cheap, you'll probably find favorite tools you'll want to replace when you outgrow them, but then you'll know what to look for - look at it as paying a small sum for education, and getting some useful cheap gear on the side.

If, on the other hand you need that extra 5-10% then spend more.

[EDIT] Oh, and specifically for macro usage;

One of the reasons people don't necessarily recommend LED gear is because the absolute brightness at the moment of the shutter opening isn't going to be as bright as if you were using a strobe, this limits your maximum aperture at a given iso, so you have to make decisions about your shutter speed, aperture, and iso - you need a small aperture for depth of field, a low iso (less important then it used to be) for low noise, and a fast aperture for freezing motion. If you are shooting things which aren't moving, don't mind grain, or want a shallow field of depth then ignore this. Still probably worth getting cheap gear to play with for experimenting purposes.

[Liney]

If you are starting out at something then buy cheap, you'll probably find favorite tools you'll want to replace when you outgrow them, but then you'll know what to look for - look at it as paying a small sum for education, and getting some useful cheap gear on the side.

Sqrrl, thanks for hitting the nail on the head. I'm starting off in Macro work and want to see how much it interests me, strictly amateur use apart from sharing in forums if I'm especially pleased with the result.

One of the reasons people don't necessarily recommend LED gear is because the absolute brightness at the moment of the shutter opening isn't going to be as bright as if you were using a strobe, this limits your maximum aperture at a given iso, so you have to make decisions about your shutter speed, aperture, and iso - you need a small aperture for depth of field, a low iso (less important then it used to be) for low noise, and a fast aperture for freezing motion. If you are shooting things which aren't moving, don't mind grain, or want a shallow field of depth then ignore this. Still probably worth getting cheap gear to play with for experimenting purposes.

Interesting comment, I hadn't considered that. I would have planned to just use longer shutter speeds, but I'll dig around and see how the strobes price up.

[BrianR]

LED's are an ok way to start if your subjects are still and you can get away with long shutter speeds. An advantage is the "what you see is what you get" you get with continuous lights, this makes positioning lights much simpler. The big studio lights will have modelling lights, but most small hot-shoe flashes don't. Depends on your subject and what you're doing, I mostly use hotshoe flashes but I also have a mini-LED panel and at some point plan to get a few more.

As for the Neewer brand, I have a few things and they're great value, intervalerometer, ND filter off the top of my head. A friend of mine has a couple of their small LED lights (might not be this exact model, but they were this style) and I'd say the build quality was acceptable for their price. I wouldn't use it to bang in a nail, but it didn't seem like it would fall apart under normal use. For what it's worth, nothing from trying it out for a few minutes made me concerned

[sys3175]

I bought a Neewer branded BG-5 grip replacement and immediately returned it. Generally, it was feeling cheap, the buttons were mushy, the on/off switch didn't have clearly defined clicks, the dials didn't feel nice, it started to warp when tightening the mount screw, battery door fasteners were hard to operate and seemed flimsy, no seals, and on top of that it only worked erratically, the dials and buttons didn't work most of the time. Also, the camera put itself to sleep even when the shutter button was depressed.
Conclusion: an awful product without quality control.
That said, Neewer seems to be a reseller (the grip was labeled DSTE iirc), so other products still might be better. I'd recommend buying at a seller that's paying return postage and offers money-back guarantee.

[aslyfox]

I am a newbie in macro

and I was more concerned over the lens I was trying to use than any other equipment

I started with an " experienced " Tamron AF 70-300mm F/4-5.6 LD Tele-Macro [1:2] (Model 772D)

Read more at: Tamron Lenses for Pentax: Legacy Zoom Lenses - Pentax Lens Review Database

which I bought for the " reach " as opposed to its 1:2 macro feature

I then thought about what I was trying to capture - pollinators in action and chose an " experienced " D FA 100mm macro F2.8

https://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/SMC-Pentax-DFA-100mm-F2.8-Macro-Lens.html

from the Market Place

I don't try to do macro in a studio nor do I use flash ( I really should do that )

I am primarily concerned that with a shorter focal length macro: 35mm or 50mm, I would have to be too close to my intended target

to each his own but that is what I suggest the OP thinks about first and then decide what accessories is needed

[Liney]

Well I went ahead and purchased some stuff, I got the four way focus rail I was after, a cheap ring flash and a set of filters.

I haven't fully explored everything yet, but the initial thoughts are:

The focus rail is pretty well made, there is a bit of a wobble unless the locking knob is fully engaged. Saying that the movement is fluid and you can make fine adjustments easily.

The ring flash works well as a ring light which is on all the time, the "flash" function is just the light being off then on when you press the shutter release. That's fine by me, the quantity of light is pretty good although it does have a slight greenish tinge which I will need to compensate for. The only issue I have is that the ring that mounts on the front of the lens to attach the light unit to is plastic and feels flimsy. As it is screw on I keep thinking that it will break as it will need to be rather thin to fit in the screw thread. Saying that it came with a good selection of mounts so I can transfer it to a range of lenses.

The set of filters I purchased had a selection of ND filters, close up filters, UV, circular polariser, fluorescent and a couple of lens hoods. All are pretty good quality, the screw threads work well which is pleasing, but I haven't had a chance to try them out in anger.

What I am most pleased with is the fact that I got the lot, including shipping, for just over AU$110.

I'm still using an old zoom lens with a macro function, but it works! I spent several days crawling around the garden taking images of bugs before the package arrived, so I've proved the concept of macro photography and found that I enjoy looking for things to take images of. With these items I have the ability to move away from just hand held images or images with little support, take more time to set up the shot and refine the focusing on the subject.