DIY Ring Light – having a good studio setup is quite costly. You can get a few for 5k+. But it still will not be something that would be quite unique. These cheap usually lights will not really give an impact to your photos.
If you are on a tight budget, I suggest you to try something different — go DIY. A few years back, I tried to do that… I invested on a DIY ring light setup.
This setup was based on Dani Diamond's ring light. You can find the video of it below:
I created my own and had a few modifications to ensure I can fully utilize the whole setup. All in all, I ended up with a 4′ bulb diameter with 12 bulbs on the inner ring and 24 on the outer. Total cost of it was around PHP4,400 at that time. Quite sure you can have it cheaper if you buy at local depot stores instead of malls.
If setting up the ring is a bit hard for you, I also suggest you try to look into Peter Hurley's setup. I've also wanted to try this as it also provides a very good catchlight on the model's eyes.
This setup would only need 3 to 6 max fluorescent lights to make. Check out this video of another photographer doing a DIY version of here:
