H I VE BUMBLE BEE | USER REVI EW
IMAGES The colour, saturation and colour temperature of the Bumble Bee 25-C can be controlled via an app
moulding and snap easily onto the front of the emitter. Because that lens is then not enclosed, there is a small amount of sideways leakage, but no more than some theatrical lighting. There is currently no way to put barn doors on the front of these, but there are other options via Profoto accessories if that’s a requirement. Hive also supplied a narrow parabolic reflector, which produces a nicely defined beam. APP Control of colour, saturation and colour temperature (of white light) is via a smartphone app, which scans automatically for nearby lights. Lights can be assigned to groups, and there’s the option to store and recall several colour settings, stored optionally either on the light or in the app. It’s all very straightforward, and unlike some lights there’s no distinction between colour and white modes – for white light simply turn down the saturation. There is no explicit user interface for magenta-green shift, though it can be achieved using a little creativity with the hue and saturation controls. Photometric measurements were taken with a UPRTek CV600 colour meter at 2800, 3200, 4200, 5600, 6500 and 8000K colour temperatures, and at 100, 50 and 5% intensity, with the medium-dispersion Fresnel lens installed. The UPRTek meter declined to calculate a CCT or TLCI for the minimum 1650K setting, which is reasonable given most people would describe it as “amber.” Most LED lighting maintains its colour quality less well at very low output, and the worst-case TLCI on the Bumble Bee is a perfectly acceptable 83 at 5% power with 5600K selected. TLCI rises to 86 at the same selected colour temperature at 100%. Otherwise, colour quality is generally better with warmer light, as is the case with most LED lighting;
“IT’S EASY TO IMAGINE THE LIGHT BEING USED ON GAMESHOW SETS”
and blue LEDs, which more or less requires phosphor-converted LEDs for acceptable-quality white. There isn’t really a standard for assessing saturated colour light output; it’s noticeable that the phosphor- converted green (Hive calls it “lime green”) LED is fairly desaturated, and the Bumble Bee is not capable of producing a deep, saturated green, which affects its ability to produce deep yellows. This is reportedly an engineering compromise around size: the tiny 25W emitter simply lacks the space for more colours. Hive sells a lot of lighting to museums, exhibitions and other installations, but it’s easy to imagine the Bumble Bee being used on TV gameshow sets and as an accent light in a jobbing camera operator’s kit bag. At a frugal 25W it’ll never be an absolute powerhouse, but neither is it very power hungry and, especially with the PAR reflector, might work well as a colour-matching fill or hair light for interviews. Hive promotes the Bumble Bee 25-C at $299, and they have many other options if anyone feels the need to go for more power with the same features. There are comparatively few LED hard lights and very few which offer full colour mixing; the Bumble Bee is both and as such rounds out Hive’s range nicely.
warmer colours convert more of the blue LEDs’ output to orange and yellow using phosphors, which usually have a broader spectrum of output than simple coloured LEDs. Measured colour temperature was generally 200-300K lower than indicated, which is a slightly-visible error through most of the range, though most people will simply eyeball the match anyway. Light output is reasonably consistent over the CCT range, generally measuring around 540 lux at beam centre one metre from the light, with a slight fall-off to 450 at 6500K. WHITE EMITTERS The Bumble Bee is perhaps unusual in that it has no white-emitting LEDs; it mixes its white from red, green
JUNE 20 1 9 | DEF I N I T ION 73
Powered by FlippingBook