GEAR MINI TESTS
An LED lighting kit from Astera, the Tamron superzoom everyone is talking about and a SmallRig clamp for a DJI camera are tested this month
WORDS ADAM DUCKWORTH
ASTERA FP6 HYDRAPANEL KIT £1630/$1810 astera-led.com
a cable, allowing them to be daisy- chained together and powered by an external AC source or battery. Doing this doesn’t affect the IP65 rating as it’s all so well sealed. These cables not only supply power, but also data – so they can be controlled via various remote systems. The kit comes with three connector plates, meaning up to four of the lights can be joined together to form a larger panel. Or go for two, two- LED set-ups or a single and a triple. And infrared connectivity means they can all sync together, so you can make changes on just one light and the rest follow suit, if you want. Put them near to each other and they flash blue – showing the Bluetooth is ready for pairing. All clever stuff, and something other manufacturers could learn from as everyone loves simple, easy controls. The fixture enables infrared remote, wired DMX or wireless CRMX, and app control via Bluetooth. This allows the creation of big set-ups that can be quickly installed, monitored and adjusted. Each panel can also be controlled by its integrated display, with a set of control buttons and touch slider. The panel allows you to navigate through the main menu for colour adjustments, brightness and runtime settings. For anything more advanced, you need the app. The charging kit costs roughly the same as four of the HydraPanel
You know when Astera makes a lighting product, it’s going to be of real professional quality, with lots of great features that have obviously been designed by gaffers who actually get to use the gear. While there are several small LED light panels on the market, few are as well-built, accurate and complete as the Astera FP6 HydraPanel kit. Inside a custom hard case comes four Astera HydraPanel LED lights. These fit neatly into a set of cut-outs that include charging contacts. So you can plug in the supplied charger and all four lights are powered-up at the same time. Underneath each light is
lights bought separately. But as well as the charging case, you receive a whole set of accessories, too. You get four baby-pin mounts for use on conventional grip heads, plus gel holders, 60° and 40° honeycomb grids, small softboxes, 80° intensifiers and diffusion sheets – a full set of four of each. You are essentially buying 28 accessories thrown in. These all fix onto the front of the LED using small magnets, so you can combine them. Plus, the kit comes with four small stands that can be mounted to the base of the units to angle them when on a flat surface. As well as these mounting options, there are standard 1/4in-20 mount holes and each light has a magnet on the back. We found these strong enough to hold to a flat surface, but used on a round C-stand, they
OPEN CASE The whole kit comes in a charging case (left). The rear panel of each light has a large central magnet and LED display (above)
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