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DMG MINI MIX USER REVIEW
as “in beta” by the company and was a little incomplete, with only a few of Rosco’s gels and lacking the interesting Source Match option which allows users to select a colour from a photograph taken with the phone’s camera. There are issues with how accurate that can ever be, given that a smartphone’s camera is not a precision colorimeter, but it’s an interesting feature nonetheless. In general, the app seems well designed, with large active areas for dragging to control the various parameters or the option of numeric entry for specific numbers. It’s also intended to talk to Rosco’s presence on the internet, delivering updates for the app and new firmware for the lights (sensibly, updates to the lights must be manually confirmed). Users can also save and share colour swatches, an idea which might particularly find favour with big lighting teams on big productions. The feature set, then, is pretty comprehensive, but that’s only useful if the output has good colour quality. Sheer output, measured one metre from the face of the light, is around 2470 lux at 3200K and 2210 lux at 5600K, equivalent to about an f/11 at 1/50s exposure on an 800 ISO camera. Intensity is controllable
that a working light may need five parts – the mains lead, power supply, controller, the intermediate cable and the light itself. The ability to snap it all together integrates the individual parts nicely, though, and it’s only a factor if it’s dismantled. The light’s party piece is its control system. White mode offers control over colour temperature from 2850K to 7500K with magenta- to-green correction available either as a percentage of the maximum or expressed in terms of plus or minus-green filters. Magenta-green correction is important because, alongside colour temperature, matching difficult practicals becomes possible. Gel mode emulates a selection of filters from Rosco’s range, with the option to base the simulation on light sources at either 3200K or 5600K. For arbitrary colours, there’s a mode which makes full hue and saturation control available. APP The Mix series naturally includes DMX control, but also talks to the MyMix smartphone app over bluetooth without requiring any extra hardware. The Android version of the app used in this review, marked version 0.9, was described
sit-down interview, with a useful ability to create accent coloured backlights or illuminate blue or green screens effectively using highly saturated light. Removable diffusion panels offer a degree of control over the output pattern, and the light is compatible with DMG’s add-ons for their existing SWITCH lights, including dome, snapbag and grid accessories. In general it is a diffused softlight with a beam angle near 180˚. The larger SL1 Mix is twice the length and is rated 200W; an even larger version, the Maxi Mix, is planned. The LED panel sits in a machined aluminium frame, with attention to detail in the physical construction. Steel helical inserts protect the threads, and the latching mounting points will be familiar to users of other flat-panel and fluorescent lighting. A handgrip and ball-and- socket mount compatible with ⁵⁄₈” lighting spigots will fit the central latching point, while the controller and power supply can go either side, or be mounted elsewhere. The physical layout depends on whether the user wants to snap the controller and power supply (or battery) onto the back of the unit. This arrangement is fairly common among LED lighting, and means
ABOVE Various screens from the
new App with colour space details.
THE APP SEEMS WELL DESIGNED, WITH LARGE ACTIVE AREAS FOR DRAGGING
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JUNE 2018 DEFINITION
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