Stella Pro 10,000c: an ‘HMI replacement’ that fits in the palm of your hand

I didn't realize they made 50W and 100W HMIs to replace :P

Seems like this wouldn't even replace the smallest 125W Pocket Par HMI.

The price seems a bit ridiculous considering it seems to need lens changes t adjust beam angle like a par and doesn't provide the convenience of a bi-color option. Not to mention the company seems to specialize in small LEDs for adventure sports rather than on-camera use, which doesn't inspire confidence for color rendering or fan noise.
 
It looks to be a very nice bit of kit. But built-in batteries defeat a major feature of the light. Shoot for 90 minutes and then take a break for 2 hours while it re-charges.

Then when the battery wears out, turn it in for an expensive repair?

I hope the waterproof feature (to 100m) didn't add any cost. If they could drop the price substantially by removing the waterproofing, it would be much more marketable.
 
Last edited:
nyvz said:
I didn't realize they made 50W and 100W HMIs to replace :P

Seems like this wouldn't even replace the smallest 125W Pocket Par HMI.

The price seems a bit ridiculous considering it seems to need lens changes t adjust beam angle like a par and doesn't provide the convenience of a bi-color option. Not to mention the company seems to specialize in small LEDs for adventure sports rather than on-camera use, which doesn't inspire confidence for color rendering or fan noise.
Click to expand...
Where are you getting your numbers from, though? It lists 2,106 lux at 3m at a 50 degree beam angle. A Lightpanel Astra, by comparison, is 1144 lux with a 46 degree beam angle at 3m. An Astra is generally considered to be equivalent to a 1k. So, if the Stella Pro's lux numbers are accurate, then being about twice as bright as a 1k makes it equivalent to a 2k, which is about equivalent to a 400w HMI, not a 50w or 100w HMI.

A 400w Joker HMI kit is more than twice as much money at $4800, not dimmable, hotter, requires expensive bulbs, strike time, not weather resistant, etc.

Now, as I said in the original post, I'm doubtful of the claimed lux values, so I wouldn't be surprised if it is actually closer to a 50w or 100w HMI equivalent. But that still leaves me with the question, where did you get those numbers from?



Paul F said:
It looks to be a very nice bit of kit. But built-in batteries defeat a major feature of the light. Shoot for 90 minutes and then take a break for 2 hours while it re-charges.

Then when the battery wears out, turn it in for an expensive repair?

I hope the waterproof feature (to 100m) didn't add any cost. If they could drop the price substantially by removing the waterproofing, it would be much more marketable.
Click to expand...
Most high powered lights you're plugging into power which you can do with these as well. Bulit-in batteries are only a bad thing when you don't also have the option to use external batteries such as Anton Bauer or V-mount. When you can use external too, then the built-in one is just an extra bonus that most other lights don't have. I'm not sure if there is a way to power these from an Anton Bauer battery, but as I said, you can always power it from power outlets like traditional lights.
 
Eric Coughlin said:
Where are you getting your numbers from, though? It lists 2,106 lux at 3m at a 50 degree beam angle. A Lightpanel Astra, by comparison, is 1144 lux with a 46 degree beam angle at 3m. An Astra is generally considered to be equivalent to a 1k. So, if the Stella Pro's lux numbers are accurate, then being about twice as bright as a 1k makes it equivalent to a 2k, which is about equivalent to a 400w HMI, not a 50w or 100w HMI.

A 400w Joker HMI kit is more than twice as much money at $4800, not dimmable, hotter, requires expensive bulbs, strike time, not weather resistant, etc.
Click to expand...

First of all, it's a mistake to assume manufacturer claims are accurate. Also you are looking at the Astra Bi-color photometrics, the daylight panel is a better comparison with 1449lux@3m. Litepanels say Astra is like a 1K Soft light, without going into much more detail, but they seem to mean a softbox or ziplight. Actual photometrics put it somewhere between a 500w-750w open face (which in my opinion is a better comparison in terms of light quality). This follows my usual LED logic which generally is that LEDs get about a 4x gain in luminous efficiency vs tungsten plus about a 1.5x (50%) gain in optical efficiency for lensed LEDs, similar to the gain achieved by pars over fresnels, so for the Astra: 110w * 4 * 1.5 = 600w tungsten which the photometrics seem to support.

The Stella's photometrics do seem impressive if it is only a 100W unit since it seems to be about 30% more efficient than an Astra, though this could come down to a company that doesn't specialize in film lights not following standard practices in measuring beam angle. I'm a bit skeptical, but yeah it does seem like the photometrics put the Stella 10000 closer to a 200W HMI par, which justifies the price a bit. It would definitely be a stretch to expect it to replace a Joker 400 though. I tried out the older Stella models while I was at B&H yesterday and they seem a bit quirky with their internal batteries and weird control system, but they do seem quite solid, very dense because of the battery. I didn't think to check out the fan noise or color quality but maybe I will next time. Glad to see this new model ditches the internal battery since that seems to aim the other models squarely at consumer or sports applications where anyone using this to replace a pocketpar would likely want to just use it with professional battery solutions.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top