Mitch Gross
Veteran
Did anyone else get a chance to check these out at NAB? I'm pretty impressed by what see as a very functional light that solves several meat & potatoes basic lighting issues for me.
They're very good color (a CRI 95 claim) and are build quite robust. Color-adjustable from 2700K-6500K with dimming and can be battery powered. But that's just basic stats that compare to other lamps out there. I like that they have an actual color meter built directly into the unit, so when you set it to 5500K it really is at 5500K, as opposed to the theoretical settings of various lights out there that seem to be wildly off. This color meter can also be used to match ambient light, so that solves a lot of location problems plus mixing the SoftPanel with other fixtures. And it has an interesting warming function that is meant to enriched skin tone. I have to play with this a bit, but the manufacturer says that it's more than just a color temp offset and instead offers some form of sliding scale based on the ambient light color temperature so that the effect would match from scene to scene.
The biggest problem I always had with LED array fxtures was that they never had the proper footprint for what I wanted out of them. They were not small enough to be a point source, but they also weren't large enough to be a larger soft source. Diffusion on a 1x1 never really did it for me, as the light still came off as harsh and directional. I'm used to lighting my subjects with a large soft source like a Chimera softball to get nice wrap around the face and gentle falloff. The problems with such a light in a softball is heat on talent, bulkiness to transport, setup time and physical depth of the fixture. Pretty much all clients will no longer put up with hot lights anymore. Traveling with a decent sized fixture and a big Chimera bag is a pain that requires a bigger truck, bigger stands, etc. And far too often the three or four feet of physical depth required by such a light just won't work in a practical space.
So I'm looking at these SoftPanels that are 1x2', 2x3' and 3x4', only need a few inches for depth clearance and put out no heat. A 3x4' unit defintely if something that requires a vehicle to transport but would work very well with most kits considering how often I'm carrying 4x4 flags or even a 4x4 headboard for bounces. But I can really see myself using a 2x3' as a close key for interviews. Because there's no heat I could get in close and the size is then big enough to give me nice wrap on the face. I think a 2x3' fixture is something I can deal with in a personal kit and it comes with a honeycomb grid as well as some kind of softbag case.
There's a Kickstarter that still has a week to go and there's a hefty discount, but it's a fully funded project. The guys behind it are the ones who started LitePanels and they say that they'll start delivering in May, so he company must already be up and running and this is a way to get them going with a bang.
I'm pretty tempted. Anyone else looking at these fixtures?
They're very good color (a CRI 95 claim) and are build quite robust. Color-adjustable from 2700K-6500K with dimming and can be battery powered. But that's just basic stats that compare to other lamps out there. I like that they have an actual color meter built directly into the unit, so when you set it to 5500K it really is at 5500K, as opposed to the theoretical settings of various lights out there that seem to be wildly off. This color meter can also be used to match ambient light, so that solves a lot of location problems plus mixing the SoftPanel with other fixtures. And it has an interesting warming function that is meant to enriched skin tone. I have to play with this a bit, but the manufacturer says that it's more than just a color temp offset and instead offers some form of sliding scale based on the ambient light color temperature so that the effect would match from scene to scene.
The biggest problem I always had with LED array fxtures was that they never had the proper footprint for what I wanted out of them. They were not small enough to be a point source, but they also weren't large enough to be a larger soft source. Diffusion on a 1x1 never really did it for me, as the light still came off as harsh and directional. I'm used to lighting my subjects with a large soft source like a Chimera softball to get nice wrap around the face and gentle falloff. The problems with such a light in a softball is heat on talent, bulkiness to transport, setup time and physical depth of the fixture. Pretty much all clients will no longer put up with hot lights anymore. Traveling with a decent sized fixture and a big Chimera bag is a pain that requires a bigger truck, bigger stands, etc. And far too often the three or four feet of physical depth required by such a light just won't work in a practical space.
So I'm looking at these SoftPanels that are 1x2', 2x3' and 3x4', only need a few inches for depth clearance and put out no heat. A 3x4' unit defintely if something that requires a vehicle to transport but would work very well with most kits considering how often I'm carrying 4x4 flags or even a 4x4 headboard for bounces. But I can really see myself using a 2x3' as a close key for interviews. Because there's no heat I could get in close and the size is then big enough to give me nice wrap on the face. I think a 2x3' fixture is something I can deal with in a personal kit and it comes with a honeycomb grid as well as some kind of softbag case.
There's a Kickstarter that still has a week to go and there's a hefty discount, but it's a fully funded project. The guys behind it are the ones who started LitePanels and they say that they'll start delivering in May, so he company must already be up and running and this is a way to get them going with a bang.
I'm pretty tempted. Anyone else looking at these fixtures?
