Anyone own and use the Luxli Cello?

puredrifting

puredrifting

Major Contributor
This thing looks like magic for background color washes! Anyone buy one? Have any feedback? Any overheating?
 
I have the smallest 5" version as well as the Luxli Timpani and they're both great. I'm probably going to buy a second Timpani soon. I bought the Cello but it was stolen from my front doorstep so I haven't gotten a new one yet. B&H said they'd resend it if I filled out some paperwork but I'm terrible with paperwork and haven't filled that out yet. Maybe it's time.

Edit: Okay, I finally filled out and sent in that form, four months or so later. So the Cello should be resent by B&H soon.
 
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For those of us that have to make a small doctor's office look interesting, those lights are a godsend for those plain white walls. And I have the 5in version and it's more than enough for me.
 
Great feedback guys. Slavik, I'll check out your review. I recently did another shoot and was lighting with my two LS 1S panels as key and fill and tried to get a color wash with an Arri 650 and gels.
It sucked. I got my color wash but it was not very saturated and the Arri didn't have enough output when I tried stacking layers of blue and purple. Seems as the Cello would be perfect for this kind of situation.
I love that you can dial in specific gels too, so helpful for repeat looks, which I am doing on this project, in different locations. Plus I love that it's made in Norway. I don't think I've ever owned anything made in Norway.

Eric, where are you living these days? ATL? Not that getting orders ripped off you porch can't happen anywhere...
 
These lights look real interesting. I inquired about the Luxli Timpani on the board about a month ago and got some good feedback. The Timpani is on sale for $899 again. One of the helpful people here reminded me of the output which doesn't seem like a lot. So I decided to save money make due with a couple cheap Yongnuo YN360 Light Wand for color washing walls in hopes that RGB lights will continue to get better with time. The lighting effects the Timpani can due were really interesting. The cello looks like a useful light too. I also see that Dracast makes an RGB light.
 
Don't forget about the Hive C series lights. Not inexpensive, but full RGB control, lighting effects(like sky panels and Gemini's), tons of modifiers, built-in Bluetooth and pretty darn good control app for your phone. The biggest problem is actually getting them. My two 200's are finally supposed to be here on Friday. I bought them in September...
 
Dan, yeah, I’m in Atlanta area now. Think you saw the house burglary topic I made; I’d mentioned they stolen from my front porch a couple weeks before the house burglary, which is when they stole the Luxli from my front porch.

A few weeks ago one of the guys who works for me got back to his apartment complex after doing a shoot for me in Atlanta, left the gear in his car, and his car was broken into and they stole two C200s, a couple Luxli Timpani lights, and some other gear. He had the memory cards from the shoot in the cameras so he had to reshoot everything. So if people see any Luxli Timpanis that seem stolen!

One cool use I had for the 5” Luxli was putting it in front of a laptop screen to simulate the light of someone watching a movie, as the actual screen wasn’t bright enough. I don’t think the 5” has effects so the gaffer used the phone app and manually adjusted the dim wheel up and down to simulate it.
 
Eric Coughlin said:
Dan, yeah, I’m in Atlanta area now. Think you saw the house burglary topic I made; I’d mentioned they stolen from my front porch a couple weeks before the house burglary, which is when they stole the Luxli from my front porch.

A few weeks ago one of the guys who works for me got back to his apartment complex after doing a shoot for me in Atlanta, left the gear in his car, and his car was broken into and they stole two C200s, a couple Luxli Timpani lights, and some other gear. He had the memory cards from the shoot in the cameras so he had to reshoot everything. So if people see any Luxli Timpanis that seem stolen!

One cool use I had for the 5” Luxli was putting it in front of a laptop screen to simulate the light of someone watching a movie, as the actual screen wasn’t bright enough. I don’t think the 5” has effects so the gaffer used the phone app and manually adjusted the dim wheel up and down to simulate it.
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I've probably mentioned this before, but this is why I hate Atlanta. Almost 13 years ago a couple of low-lifes stole my truck from the hotel we were staying in(several vehicles broken into at the same time). Thank goodness the camera and brand new HD w/a lens were in the room with me, but they got ~$40k+ worth of other gear that was in the truck.

That sucks, man. I know you had the break-in at your house a few months ago, too. So, do you still call that guy for work? It was instilled in all of us back in the day that you never left a camera in a vehicle overnight.
 
Yeah, I still call him. I don't think he left it there overnight as the client was supposed to get the footage shortly thereafter, so I think he just left it in the car for a bit and came back and it was gone. Fortunately the shoot was just b-roll of buildings and such so easy to re-shoot though it got to the client later than they originally wanted.

By the way, the police found the two guys who robbed my house thanks to the Ebay listing so one has a warrant out for him and the other is a minor who lives close by me and has charges pressed against him. I got perhaps a quarter of my stuff back. Should probably update that other topic.
 
Wow Eric, that's tough. I have shot in Atlanta and I have to say it's not my favorite city in the South. Lots of production going on there though.

I just ordered the Cello, will report back here how it works out and how I like it. Ordered a few of the Watson NPF-975s to go with it. Seems like it will be a really useful tool for me that will allow me to jazz up my backgrounds, especially when I don't have a gaffer and time is tight. I end up shooting so many interviews where I just don't get the time to sculpt the light and make the BG look as good as I want it to or worse yet, I did some interviews at City of Hope with some doctors and I was given the dreaded 8x10' white room with NOTHING in the BG to dress it up. Did a color wash with an Arri 650 but it wasn't as saturated as I would have liked and it heated up the room too much. The Cello will at least allow me a quick and easy gelled BG wash hopefully. I was going to pick up some Quasars but then I asked myself, "Will the Quasars really help me up my interview lighting?" and the answer was no, I already have four LED panels, but what I was lacking was a way to color wash BGs quickly and easily and the Cello seems perfect for that.
 
I received two Luxli Cello's last week and I finally got around to testing them over the weekend. Unfortunately, both of the units are going to be returned as they overheat. I spent the day testing the lights with different batteries, power supply's, softbox on/off, etc. Both units would consistently turn off due to excessive temperature between 24 and 40 minutes of constant use.
 
metalheadlv said:
I received two Luxli Cello's last week and I finally got around to testing them over the weekend. Unfortunately, both of the units are going to be returned as they overheat. I spent the day testing the lights with different batteries, power supply's, softbox on/off, etc. Both units would consistently turn off due to excessive temperature between 24 and 40 minutes of constant use.
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Oh man, that's a bummer. Let us know if you get replacements and I will report back on mine.
 
Just received mine today. hooked up a battery and played with it, pretty cool. Going to set it up on AC overnight tonight to see if it shuts itself off from heat issues.
Also, this thing needs a softcase at the least. What are you Luxli Cello owners using to transport these so they don't get crushed, scratched, knobs bent or broken?
 
The thing that bugs me with luxli is that ONLY B&H carries them, which is a bummer if you want to order stuff into the EU. I even emailed the company and it turns out they have an exclusive agreement with BH. Otherwise they seem awesome and I would try them :(
 
I'm thinking about buying 2x timpanis and 2x cellos. If you had these 4 lights on at once, how well would the app actually do in controlling them? I.e. good on paper but sucks in real life?

With the timpanis, b&h sells a 2 light kit that uses a litepanels case. Are they any good?

Thoughts on the softbox for the cello?

Thanks.
 
Has anyone done tests to compare the relative efficiency of gelling a white light vs achieving the same saturation with an RGB LED. Its not clear to me that one would necessarily be any brighter than the other. One test would be to simply gel the RGB light when its set for white light and then try for the same color using the RGB settings alone. However a better test would be to compare it say to a daylight only LED which would presumably be brighter at daylight given the same type of light. My guess is that gelling a daylight fixture would give you considerably more blue light though it might be different for warm colors.
I have had experiences with Arri LED Fresnels where I just could not really saturated greens unless I gelled it though - and I love Green :)
 
LennyLevy said:
Has anyone done tests to compare the relative efficiency of gelling a white light vs achieving the same saturation with an RGB LED. Its not clear to me that one would necessarily be any brighter than the other. One test would be to simply gel the RGB light when its set for white light and then try for the same color using the RGB settings alone. However a better test would be to compare it say to a daylight only LED which would presumably be brighter at daylight given the same type of light. My guess is that gelling a daylight fixture would give you considerably more blue light though it might be different for warm colors.
I have had experiences with Arri LED Fresnels where I just could not really saturated greens unless I gelled it though - and I love Green :)
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Not me, I've just been shooting with mine, it works great, I am kind of loving it.
 
rob norton said:
I'm thinking about buying 2x timpanis and 2x cellos. If you had these 4 lights on at once, how well would the app actually do in controlling them? I.e. good on paper but sucks in real life?

With the timpanis, b&h sells a 2 light kit that uses a litepanels case. Are they any good?

Thoughts on the softbox for the cello?

Thanks.
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I've used the app to control only one but have not tried multiple Luxli lights with the app at once. The app is decent, not great but it works fine.
 
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