After catching up (a little) on my blog reading the other day, I came a cross a number of items that I think are important enough to share with everyone. In case you haven’t seen these before, here is a value added link list for you:

First, on the lighting front, I came across two great new devices for use with your flash. The first is the Ray Flash, a ring flash adapter for your existing external flash. Working with both Canon and Nikon setups, the Ray Flash is a unit that attaches to the front of your external flash and fits around your lens. I then uses prisms internally to channel the light from the external flash to give you a ring flash with all the ring flash effects. It is supposed to work with your camera’s TTL metering and at about $300 is less than buy a quality dedicated ring flash. A great way to keep the kit weight down by reusing your existing gear. (also available at Amazon)

The second item is an intriguing flash reflector from PRESSlite that provides an almost infinite number of ways to bounce your flash. Rather than trying to explain the VerteX, watch this movie to see the configurable options.

It looks like this $35 device could be one of the most versatile items in your kit while also being the one that is hardest to master for consistent results. It’s also hard to tell how reflective the surface is for bouncing light or how well built (suspicious at the price point offered). It is definitely interesting at least. See their website for a nice interactive demo. Amazon also has a nice description of the parts of the VerteX.

Finally, I re-discovered a useful color matching service out of Adobe Labs. I had run across Kuler a while back and then lost track of it. I think of it as a the digital equivalent of an old fashion color wheel. Pick some colors on the color wheel and then have Kuler tell you what are the 5 analogous, complimentary, compound colors. Even better is the digital color codes for each color (in HSV, RGB, CMYK, Lab or Hex).