Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Projecting light and shapes onto your model opens up a whole lot of possibilities for creative, unusual portraits. If you’re looking for some inspiration and something new to try, this might just be it!
In this video from Adorama, Gavin Hoey shows you how to take outstanding portraits with projectors. He shows you two different methods, using continuous light and a strobe, so you can try whichever suits the lighting gear you own.
Godox has now released the new Godox Knowled MG1200Bi LED light, first teased at IBC 2022. In Amsterdam, we got to see a prototype with a brief introduction where we learned that it has a white balance range of 2800-6500K but offers the full 1200W of power throughout its range. There was a lot of information we didn’t know then, which has now been released.
It sits at the top of the Godox LED lighting range and comes with a price tag to match. But it comes with top-end features, too, like an IP54 weather-sealed rating, remote control capabilities via wired and wireless DMX or the Godox app, four dimming curves, robust build quality, worldwide 100-240v compatibility and a bunch of effects modes for simulating different kinds of light.
Colbor has announced the new Colbor CL60R, it’s an RGB version of the CL60 and CL60M LED lights released in August. We got to check out those versions in person in September at IBC 2022 in Amsterdam. Now, the new RGB version has landed, with the same modularity but a lot more colour options and at least one very cool new feature.
The cool new feature may seem like an odd choice for a light designed for video and something more commonly found on disco lights instead – although the Aputure Amaran SM5C features this ability, too. It has a built in audio-sensitive system that allows the colour and light react to music or other sounds going on around it.
If you have been a photographer or videographer in the last 40 years or so, you probably hate fluorescents. Fluorescent tubes are such a crude way of lighting. They flicker, give our horrible (and unpredictable) color casts, and they can not be dimmed. Just horrible.
We previously reviewed the Nanlite Pavotube 30X as a replacement for some fluorescents, but what about those other fluorescent bulbs? Those thin, easy-to-break, really annoying, enlengthen tubes? The T8 type… For those, Nanlite came up with the Nanlite PavoTube T8-7X RGBWW LED Pixel Tube. And they are an interesting lighting solution indeed.
Nanlite has today announced new bi-colour versions of its popular FS-150 and FS-200 LED lights. The new FS-150B and FS-200B are essentially the same as their daylight versions, but with the addition of bi-colour capabilities, offering a range of 2700K to 6500K with a 96 CRI and 97 TLCI. There are a few differences, though. There’s an extra button for switching between modes, and there’s an extra lighting effect.
The new lights also feature both Constant Output mode, for when you don’t want to have to re-meter every time you adjust the colour, and Maximum Output mode, for when all that matters is how bright it will go. But it features quite a few similarities, like the quiet and efficient cooling system, the familiar Bowens mount and remote control from the Nanlink smartphone app over Bluetooth.
The Bumble Bulb PAR30 is a new high-end LED light in the Omni-Color range from folks at Hive Lighting. Being touted as “a cutting-edge tool for film and television production” the new light comes in a PAR30 short neck form factor with a CRI 95 and TLCI 94. It sports modular optics, with both wired and wireless DMX control, a built-in battery and a tough rugged weatherproof enclosure.
Hive says this is their most portable and affordable Omni-Color LED light and is compatible with professional or practical lamps with a standard E26/E27 socket. It uses Hive’s Omni-Color LED tech and a 7-spectrum array to create “full spectrum, high fidelity white light” with hundreds of presets that Hive says lets you imitate any light source in the world.
A few months ago, SmallRig entered the LED lighting market with the RC120 and RC220 COB units (reviewed here and here). Even in our initial review, we said that the true verdict of these lights would be their ecosystem. And now, SmallRig is adding four new lights to the mix: RC 350D, RC 350B, RC 450D, and RC 450B. This is a mix of daylight and bicolor lights at 350 and 450 Watts output.
The new lights show Smallrig’s commitment to the LED line, and I would not be surprised if there are more lights to come at higher ratings. After all, this is the path we saw Aputure, Nanlite and Godox go with their road map.
This review, however, will focus on the series leading light, the RC 450B, a 450 Watts Bi-color LED light. (The rest of the series is similar in functions)
The market for photo and video LEDs is becoming quite commoditized. Having good CRI (95+), both RGB and white LEDs, or an app, is not enough to compete in the market anymore. This is why brands are turning to fight either on price, quality, and service or, most interestingly, on features and innovation. Enter the Sirui Dragon Light, a bendable, app-controlled RGBWW LED strip. While this is not the first bendable light (see KYU-6), it is the first big, high-output flexible light. And this is worth a look.
Sirui is well known for its tripod line and its anamorphic lenses, so it is interesting to see how their knowledge of other photography lines will translate into making an LED. And right off the bat, you can see it is not a tube, it is not a panel, it is not a COB, it is something else entirely.
Godox’s Knowled line of LED lights as so far been a little higher-end and more powerful than their usual target market. With the release of the Knowled M600D and then the Knowled M600Bi, Godox announced “We’re here, and we’re coming for you, Aputure!”. Then we saw some more modest 230W and 330W LED lights added to the range. Now, they’ve gone right down to the smallest extreme with the new Godox Knowled C5R.
The C5R is a small, ultra-compact RGBWW “Creative LED Light”, as Godox calls it. It’s pretty much a direct competitor to the Aputure MC and it comes in at a similar price point with a similar set of features. It features built-in CCT, HSI and various effects modes, has a magnetic back panel for mounting to metallic surfaces and all the rest of the features you’d expect. But it appears to be significantly brighter.
Feelworld has announced its first LED spots. Kicking off the range are four COB LED spotlights, the FL125D, FL125B, FL225D and FL225B. The “D” models are daylight-only while the “B” models are bi-colour with a temperature range of 2,700K up to 6,500K. The FL125 models are 150W while the FL225 models are 250″ and all boast a CRI of 96+ and TLCI of 97+. Naturally, all four models take Bowens mount modifiers.
It’s interesting, although not entirely unexpected, to see Feelworld branching out into lighting systems. It seems that everyone’s doing it at the moment now that they’ve all gotten new tiny wireless microphone systems out of the way. It will be interesting to see how well these stand in an already quite flooded market.
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