Lighting

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When I saw these 1650 watt total photo video lights in a friends studio, I fell in love. Actually when I heard about the price + seeing the quality of light, is what made me fall in love. As you can see i've been investing in some new lighting for an upcoming project. For stationary lights, these are great for both photos and videos. Again, these are not recommended for traveling around, go with the smaller LED panels (fit into Carry-On luggage). These Flourescent Video lights are quite large, a bit heavy (about 6 lbs. each), and fragile due to the bulbs. Since I was all set on my travel lights, I decided for some larger stationary lighting, and this proved to be the best bang for the buck. There are (6) 55w bulbs in each unit totaling 1650 watts. With 2 units you have 3300 watts total of clean bright light. It's such a large source, the lighting comes off very soft and well diffused.

Florescent lights they say have twice the output of LED, twice the distance, better diffusion (LED's are more direct), and these things run almost half the price. Sounds good, but remember they are probably about 10 times more fragile though. It's what you have to deal with I guess for large soft evenly diffused lighting. Sorry about the terrible review, it's getting late (was about midnight when I was unboxing), and I just wanted to throw something online for now. I might be using these on a shoot this Sunday, i'll post up some BTS of it in use if I can.


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find-price-button 1650 Watt 6 Bank Fluorescent Photo Video Light Panels

Product Information:
Perfect lights for both studio and on location applications. Because of their compact and light weight design (aluminum chassis), these lights are extremely easy to set up. Simply attach to your stand, adjust the barndoors, and turn them on. No soft boxes to hassle which will minimize the space required to operate the system and create an obstacle to work around. Additionally, feature an innovative system that quick tran sform the light in a very soft source.

Key Features:
compact and light weight gives it the quality of a versatile unit.
die cast aluminum chassis.
high illumination output comparative with regular fluorescent and tungsten fixtures. Power consumption of only 330 watts and has the same output as a 1500 watts regular tungsten bulb.
power saving.
professional fluorescent tubes with high CRI level ( >90RA ), with no green or blu e light sparkle specific to consumer fluorescent light.
build in professional ballast: long life, flicker free, high output, stable Kelvin color temperature, and no noise.
the optional shoemount spigot adapter offers the flexibility of mounting the FB watts either horizontally or vertically giving you a choice of beam spreads.
select the color temperature by using 3000K (warm) tubes or 5400K (daylight) tubes.
remarkable for their low level of heat output.
protection against electrical shocks using integrated fuse into the AC jack (spare fuse included)

Available on Amazon:

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find-price-button 1650 Watt 6 Bank Fluorescent Photo Video Light Panels

Oh and I was shooting the video with the the Sony NEX-3 that came in today too, so the Auto Exposure built into the camera didn't do justice when showing off the amount of light. (Just testing out the Sony while I have it).

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Ok, another product that's not out on YouTube or Vimeo. Nobody's got reviews on these items, why not? They just make sooo much sense. Lighting has always been an issue whenever we traveled. Halogen bulbs can break by the time your plane lands, and you're pretty much stuck. Hot bulbs are always uncomfortable to work with. Breaking down hot bulbs is a pain in the a$$. So of course the only real option is LED lighting. You've seen these panels before i'm sure, but here's the only video I know that shows what they look like.

You gotta love how fast products are duplicated and how fast pricing comes down with technology. These video light panels normally run from $800 dollars on up from other manufacturers. The LitePanels 1x1 is a great light, but that runs well over $1,800 dollars +. Totally not in my budget. Now this company on Amazon sells these video lights starting as low as $200.00 dollars. That I can afford. The closest thing on the market to these types of lights are those made by FloLight, which run a little more than twice the price.

FloLight 1000 LED Panel (Twice the Price)

After researching different models of this type of LED light panel, I settled for the lights from the Amazon links below since the seller is using Amazon fullfillment services for two of the items. This means these items are sitting in the Amazon warehouse for super fast shipping. The latest model with the Dimmer is coming directly from the retailer, possibly because it's a new product that just hit the Internet recently. Ok let's show some lights::

500 LED Video Light (no Dimmer) 500 LED Video Light (with Dimmer) - I like this one. 1000 LED Video Light Panel (no dimmer option)

I was able to locate this listing. This might be a mistake, but it looks to be the exact same 500 LED light (no dimmer), but this listing comes with a LightStand. Saving you at least an extra $20 bucks.

Wait, they just snuck in another combo deal - more savings. This one shaves a few bucks for buying two + they added light stands.

This is another LED Video light panel (below) that uses a different type of LED. The design on this LED I believe allows for a further 'throw' if your subject is further away.

56x 1watt LED

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I was in Hawaii with the Canon 5D Mark II + 24-70mm F/2.8 and Circular Polarizer last year when I shot this. I was about to trash this video, but then remembers a few friends who had questions "Is a Polarizer worth it?, What do they do?" So here it is peeps and others who might be interested in the Before and After use of Polarizers on Lenses. The video shows the difference in how much contrast and saturation you can obtain. This is not the same as an ND filter that simply blocks light. These circular polarizers are designed to block light from a certain direction, so you turn them in front of the lens depending on the situation. Yes you can use these in combination with ND filters. These are also recommended with normal video camcorders and point and shoot cameras that can accept filters. These are not just for DSLR video and photo cameras. You just have to remember to get the right size for your lens.

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find-price-button Circular Polarizers for Photography and Video Camera Lenses