First test
LITRA.COM
IMAGES From left to right, the Litra Torch 2.0, the Litra Studio and the Litra Pro
2000K
PROS Build quality is amazingly solid in all three units, powerful for their size, Bluetooth control (Pro and Studio), colour temperature range, control and effects (all on the Studio) CONS Heavy and pricey (Studio) location LED light, the Litra Studio has got to be worth a serious look. Verdict All three lights performed really well and I enjoyed their company. They are great to use, solidly built and give powerful, high- quality lighting. The Torch 2.0 and the Pro are the sort of lights you can leave in your bag and just pull out when required, with outputs that are good for their size. Having Bluetooth control on the Pro (and the Studio) is a welcome bonus. The Litra Studio is a serious, deeply impressive piece of kit and, of course, it comes with a serious price tag. But if you need a no-compromise, supremely versatile, use-anywhere
4000K
5600K
ABOVE Around the back of the Studio are its controls. Navigating your way around the effects and colour temperature settings take a little getting used to, but it’s straightforward after a little practice. It's even easier with the free app
My light meter reading of the Pro at one metre and ISO 400 gave exposure settings of 1/30sec at precisely f/5.6. Adjusting the power wirelessly to 50% gave an aperture of exactly f/4, so the proportional power control is accurate. From a full charge, the Litra Pro lasted 42 minutes, with a full recharge taking about an hour. Last, but certainly not least, is the Litra Studio, This is a hefty, very rugged unit with a matching price tag, and while its core purpose of delivering a powerful, high-quality light is the same as its smaller brothers, it takes this on several steps. Its weight (990g) and size (about the same profile as a Nikon Z 7) means it’s not really a light to stick on the camera, because I’d fear for the hot shoe – although in theory you can because there is a 1/4in screw fitting in its base. The Studio would be much safer on a lighting stand, lighting pole or on the supplied handgrip. A white diffuser is also in the box. It's worth saying there is an extensive system of supporting accessories including modifiers for the Litra lights. Look at the front of the unit (with it turned off ) and you’ll see a 12x9 array of white, orange and yellow LEDs. It is these
that give the unit its controllability within the huge 2000- 10,000K working range. See right for more on this. Precisely controlling colour temperature output is just one of the Studio’s features. In the HSI menu, there are 360 RGB options and the saturation can be controlled 0-100%. In Gel mode there are ten settings for 3200K and 5500K. Finally, in RGBWWmode you have individual control in single percentage steps of the red, blue and green channels, plus cold white and warm white. There’s more. In the effects menu, you can, among others, go for candles, cloud, lightning, police and, my favourite, dance club, where you can have 24 colours strobing away. All the effect modes have many options and, again, all work down to single percentage points. As far as power is concerned, my meter reading at 1m was 1/30sec at f/11 and ISO 400, and I got a run time of 55 minutes before it expired – it got very hot in this time, too, as you would expect. You do get a low-power warning at 10%, but if you plug in a powered USB-C charging lead, you can carry on working. WC
10,000K
ABOVE These shots show how the Litra Studio’s LEDs change colour and output to produce different colour temperature settings very precisely
Issue 85 | Photography News 37
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