PORTABLE LEDS | GEAR
of tube-shaped lights, now including the positively pocket- sized 25cm PavoTube II 6C, small enough to sit on top of a camera, or be magnetically latched to any magnetic surface, as it weighs only 0.26kg. With 6W for each of five colour channels, the price tag of about £100 seems appealing. On the subject of colour-mixing things that aren’t chip-on-board hard lights, Nanlite’s MixPanel series offers a full colour- mixing soft light at either 64 or 164W, with the larger option costing about £1200. Pushing power even higher, Arri’s Orbiter has more or less every feature anyone’s ever thought of adding to an LED light. The company has made bigger lights before, with the Skypanel range topping out with the mighty 1500W S360-C, and it’s made fresnel hard lights, but Orbiter moves into interchangeable-modifier lighting, making a PAR configuration possible. The LED light engine is based on RGB plus amber, cyan “LED LIGHTS ACE SIT-DOWN INTERVIEWS AND FINESSE SINGLE- CAMERA SET-UPS, RIGGED AT PACE”
pattern identical to the company’s other lights. This ensures compatibility with the same stills-style modifiers. The design priority might target stills specialists who are being asked to shoot video, but £1600 isn’t unreasonable for an accurately tuneable light. There’s also a For even more strobe-shaped power, Nanlite was early to market high-power LEDs in several guises. The Forza series is currently headlined by the 300B. At 355W, it pushes power levels into the realm of small HMIs, but offers something they can’t: variable colour temperature. While lights of this power level necessitate a pair of batteries, effecting a cost implication, the light itself has an advantageous price tag of £900. At about £3 a watt, it’s a family-size box of photons and, weighing 2.3kg, a featherweight for the power. Nanlite also keeps itself busy in other areas. It has a selection custom-built 36V battery available for field work.
BELOW Broncolor’s first LED, the F160, sets a trend for hard lights to be shaped like strobe heads. A Litepanels Gemini 1x1 Hard LED (right)
COLOUR PERFORMANCE LED lighting technology is constantly in flux. Many designs use white LED emitters, based on a blue- or violet-emitting LED, illuminating a yellow-emitting phosphor, with the results combining to produce white light. That works better than combining red, green and blue emitters, producing a spiky, incomplete spectrum. Variable colour temperature requires two sets of white emitters, each designed for warmer and cooler light. Full colour mixing might add red, green and blue emitters to the two shades of white, or include other colours – orange, cyan, pale green – alongside the RGB mix. Designs must not compromise colour quality, brightness, saturation and efficiency.
JUNE 202 1 | DEF I N I T ION 33
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