Grid for Panel Light

[ahalpert]

Life is too short to put up with using crap gear.

That's a pretty broad statement. Sometimes crap gear is the best tool for the job (like if you want an AF/IBIS camera for example)

I think you should buy the most affordable option with adequate specs. If it meets your standard for quality, durability, and ease of use, I wouldn't necessarily spend more for something that surpasses the required standards.

But if you're just saying that you hate finnicking with poorly designed tools, then we're in full agreement

 

[Mitch Gross]

There are inexpensive tools that are well designed. Some are limited and are best only used for certain tasks. I have a Rifa tungsten soft light. Haven't used it in years, but it was a hell of a workhorse fixture. Simple, cheap design, including the fabric grid that made it somewhat controllable. This unit was not perfect, but it was pretty well designed for its intended use. I loved the quality of light, the ease of use and the incredibly low cost, especially as it's lasted decades through hundreds of shoots.

I now have a couple Intellytech LiteCloth LC-160 fixtures. They give me wireless remote control, dimming, bi-color control, greater output at about the same size as the Rifa and the ability to power off a battery if needed - plus the emitters will last for many years compared to quartz bulbs and they don't get hot. But these lights are also way more finicky to setup/breakdown and the case they come is a bit ridiculous (I'll get around to reworking that at some point). But they're still good enough that they're worth the extra couple of minutes to deal with. I've gotten fast enough with them that I can have them up in a few minutes and the packdown time is the same when you factor in that you no longer have to wait for your lamps to cool off.

I looked at some other similar softlights available through Amazon and elsewhere and I just refused to seriously consider them. They look like they'll fall apart under real world usage and worse yet, many do not come with proper soft grids for light control. So I would be fighting them and fretting their use on a constant basis, and that to me is just not worth it. And that's what I mean by life being too short to deal with crap gear. It might be a pain to setup/pack-away but the light is lovely and controllable. It might be a tad fragile but travels small and can be used where other units can't. It might be robust but you need to do a bit of extra work to control it the way you need. I guess I might be able to live with any of that. But if you start to combine your compromises -- it's inexpensive but it's also delicate and it takes extra time to setup and it doesn't include ways to control the light with a proper grid -- well at that point you're just torturing yourself.

In the end I think we're in agreement here. You don't need the very best, most expensive gear. You just need what's appropriate.