Digital Juice Aura Lighting kit

Jon Furtado

Jon Furtado

Well-known member
Does anyone else have the Digital Juice Aura Lighting Kit? They had a half off sale, so I decided to take the plunge. Just got it in the mail today. Going to test it out on camera soon.

Some of my first impressions:

1. Very light and compact! It's smaller than my tripod bag!
2. It's my first Flo kit that I've owned. I've always rented Kino kits. It's lightly constructed. Probably won't stand up to intinse rigors of production for a decade.
3. Cheep stands are okay. I've seen worse. Pretty standard.
4. Looks like they're standard 55w Biax fixtures. I hope I can put better bulbs in there in the future.

I think the cost effectiveness of it was pretty spot on. I've seen cheeper, more poorly made light kits go for more. I'll post some more as I get used to using them and do some lighting tests.
 
Looks okay.

I hate it when they make the barn doors shiny.

barn doors are meant to cut and shape the light, not reflect it.
 
I'll be curious to hear your thoughts on these fixtures. Especially the goose neck mounts. I have some different 2 lamp biax fixtures and while they are pretty light weight, i can't imagine a goose neck actually holding these fixtures steady for long.
 
We'll see how the goose necks hold up. I would think after a lot of use, they may break. As for the barn doors, I might paint them black. Or put some gaff tape over them.
 
We bought these from Digital juice during the recent $399 sale just to light a small green screen cheaply. I am comparing them with our Linco Flora lights as far as quality and our Lowel lights (Pro, & tota) as far as build quality since they are two different types of lights.


First is the cons:
1. Hard to believe these are giving off 500w each. (even after letting them warm up since fluorescents need about 2 minutes.)
2. The metal housing covering the lights does not seem like it will hold up to a lot of use long term.
3. Don't like that the barndoors are reflective (We will use Cinefoil on them)
4. The stands are very cheap!
5. Power cord is cheap and does not fit snug.
6. Not worth the original price of $699 by far.
7. Switches feel cheap and the power delays for about 3 seconds after turning unit on. (Compared to Lowel and Linco Flora for budget lights, the build quality just is not there.)


The pros:
1. Nice carrying bag
2. Color temperature was set to 5400k on camera as DJ shared these are 5400k lights and white balance was pretty close.
3. Haven't notice any flicker
4. They give a small amount of heat.


Overall, do not buy them for the usual price of $699, I think the $399 is pushing it. The only reason the $399 price is some what ok is because of the amount of things you get in the case. (3 lights, carry bag, and 3 stands). I would recommend the Flora lights for fluorescent over these because the build quality is better. The only benefit these have over the Flora lights is that they have barn doors and the bulbs are cheaper to replace.
 
Thanks, TDMS for this review. At some point they had them for $299 (plus shipping which is never cheap with DJ), but I still wouldn't buy them on account that they are really way too weak. See the thread below with the review of the AL-528S LED lights - that's a much better buy for the light output.
 
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