Colbor expands its lighting range with 220W and 330W LEDs

Colbor has announced some new additions to its lighting family. The new Colbor CL220 (buy here) and CL330 LED lights have power outputs of 220W and 330W, respectively, and both are available in either Daylight (5600K) or Bicolour (2700-5600K) flavour. The new lights follow a similar aesthetic design as the CL60 series but upgrades the light output to more substantial levels.

The new lights, Colbor says, are targeted towards content creators, videographers and filmmakers and feature a robust metal body with a Bowens modifier mount on the front. The bicolour versions of the lights have a Constant Output mode to ensure the same brightness as you flick through the kelvins. And they do it with the usual claim of a 96+ CRI – can we just stop mentioning this yet? Isn’t it standard now?

Colbor CL220/CL330 in a saturated market

In a market that’s absolutely saturated these days, it’s difficult for companies to really make themselves stand out amongst the competition. Colbor did it when they introduced the CL60 series with its modular arrangements of multiple lights. It’s a pretty unique feature among such lights. Colbor appears to have carried this trend on with the CL220 and CL330 lights, as you can clearly see a slot for a NATO rail on the sides of the units.

Of course, those rails can also be used for attaching other devices, such as the battery you see above. Regardless of how you use them, there’s no denying that it’s a very handy feature to have on a light. After all, how many times have we all had to gaffer tape battery packs or power adapters to stands because the cables weren’t long enough to reach the floor? Being able to quick-release lock those onto the light itself quickly makes life so much easier (and tidier).

These NATO mounting options will make it easier to not only mount things to the light (or to other lights) but also to mount the light to other things. Such as permanent rails on your set or in your studio. You can have very low profile mounts on the walls or ceilings and be able to ditch the light stands completely.

The 220W CL220 lights, the standard CL220 (bicolour) and the CL220M (daylight), with the bicolour variant boasting 105,000 Lux at 1 metre with the reflector attached to the light – a number that the company says is 25% brighter than the same-wattage competition. The CL330 promises 128,000 Lux at 1 metre. Both variants of the CL220 and CL330 lights offer a CRI of 96+ for maximum colour spectrum coverage.

The lights feature both physical controls as well as remote control via the smartphone app. There’s no DMX control here for larger productions, but the control options it does offer should be plenty for most creators, filmmakers and YouTubers working on small sets or in static locations. That being said, the lights can be powered by either a single (at half power) or dual V-Mount (at full power) batteries.

Rugged construction

It has an aluminium housing, which helps with durability when used out on location. It also helps with keeping it light, and the CL220 lights weigh in at 1.6kg, while the CL330 lights are 2.07kg. Both still pretty light for what they are. In a small compact light, heat build-up is normally of great concern. Colbor says that the heatsink combined with intelligent fan control allows them to keep the unit cool enough to last the whole shoot.

Their copper heatsink-based design allows the fan to keep the noise down below 28dB at 1 metre. This ensures that it should be quiet on set at all times and never be picked up on a microphone when it’s at an appropriate distance. I expect that, as with other Colbor fans, there are continuous and potentially completely silent modes available, too – with their various caveats.

It’s interesting to see Colbor starting to flesh out its lighting range. The modularity-based idea of their design has always intrigued me. And on the CL60, it was very impressive. I wonder how well that scales up to the larger lights on a big set.

The Colbor CL220 is available to buy now for $319. This is the standard 220W bicolour version. The CL220M (Daylight), CL330 and CL330M lights don’t appear to be available anywhere yet or have a price available. I expect the CL220M will be a little cheaper than the CL220. As for the CL330/330M prices… Who knows? Once they start popping up online, we’ll be sure to update this post.