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Colbor release a low-budget RGB version of their modular CL60 LED lights

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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.

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Aputure releases the Amaran SM5c – a 5 metre long RGB “smart pixel” LED strip to brighten up your set

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Well, this is a bit of a change of pace for Aputure. While they’ve released many lights under the main Aputure name as well as the Amaran brand over the years, the new Amaran SM5c seems to be more comfortable in the smart home sector than the filmmaker or creative sector. It’s essentially a 5-metre addressable (or “Smart Pixel” as Aputure calls it) RGB LED strip. Aputure says it’s designed for creators to cater to “a new subset of consumers”.

It’s exactly what it sounds like, an RGB LED strip with a 60 LED per metre density providing 300 LEDs (for a total of 100 pixels) across the whole 5 metres. It’s primarily aimed towards creators who want to dress up their set a bit with effects. They say it’s not designed to be a key light, fill light, as a white light source or to light skin tones. It’s purely an effects light and even has a built-in microphone to respond to its surroundings.

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Quasar Science launches their new “Advanced Color Science” Rainbow Series RGBX tube LED lights

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Lighting manufacturer Quasar Science has announced the availability of their newest Rainbow Series RGBX LED lights, the Rainbow 2 and the Double Rainbow. These tubular LED lights create what Quasar Science describes as “intense, realistic lighting with multiple individually controllable pixels” to deliver both high quality white light as well as well saturated colour that can fit into small spaces.

The Rainbow 2 comes in 2′, 4′ or 8′ lengths featuring 10, 24 or 48 pixels respectively. The Double Rainbow is, as the name suggests, a doubled-up Rainbow light with two rows of pixels in 2′ and 4′ lengths for either 20 or 48 individually addressable LEDs. Unless I’m missing something, though, it looks like they were first announced way back in December 2020 but are only just coming to market now – perhaps due to their acquisition by Vitec last year.

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The DigitalFoto Tree Frog is an awesome pocket LED light for small products and macro

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Over the last few years, I’ve become a big fan of small pocket-sized LED lights. They used to not be as good as they are now, offering pretty limited functionality and they just didn’t produce great colour. But LED tech has come a long way since in a few short years, leading us to where we are today with products like the Digitalfoto Tree Frog.

I have two DigitalFoto Tree Frog lights that I’ve been using to light my 3D printer for live streams and for shooting small product photos and b-roll. We’re still in lockdown here, so that’s pretty much all I can point my cameras at right now. One of Tree Frogs I have is a pre-production model and the other is a final retail version. For this review, I’m only going to focus on the retail version.

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Digitalfoto’s new RGB LED tube lights are IP68 rated for use underwater

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Digitalofoto has just announced their new P7RGBPRO and P120 RGB tube LED lights. These bicolour RGB lights offer 36,000 possible RGB colours, with a white balance temperature of 3,000K to 5,700K with a claimed CRI of over 95. And like many other new lights today, you can control a bunch of them at once from an app on your smartphone.

But what makes them special is that they’re IP68 rated. This means that they’re resistant to dirt and dust, but you can also use them underwater to depths down to 1.5 metres for up to half an hour.

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This DIY Aputure MC is hands down the best light for transporting food

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The Aputure MC has become a very popular little LED light since its launch in October last year. It’s tiny but pretty powerful, and it’s RGBWW, meaning you get good quality high CRI/TLCI whites as well as every possible colour combination you can think of for effects. They’re not inexpensive, though, currently hovering around $109 on Amazon.

Well, YouTuber Neon Airship decided he didn’t want to spend all that much on one, so he set himself a mission to see if he could build something himself that would do the job for around £10 (~$13). Did he manage? Well, you’ll have to watch the video to find out.

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