LED Lights

[Richard Andrewski]

Dan's idea of the speedring built in is really the way to go for future models. I didn't build a softbox into the unit or make that option because I wasn't sure when I started we would have the intensity to justify a softbox. We were pleasantly surprised with the output along the way but the chassis was already finished unfortunately.

For this generation thats on sale now, an inexpensive speedring would be ideal to slide right into where the barndoors go today. As far as I know, no one is doing that today with LED panels because they are generally too weak for such use.

Should be relatively easy to do and we are already looking at how to do that. We have been offering our own softboxes but compatibility with a chimera shouldn't be too hard. It will be interesting to see how big exactly you could make the softbox, with speedring added and the stand adapter hold its angle though--that will take some experimentation to see.

[Dan Brockett]

Softboxes sagging is a big deal as any camera person can tell you. In my experience, the nylon yokes, especially one sided yokes as seen on the Arri 650 fresnels are really bad at holding up a Chimera, especially a Chimera with an egg crate on it. It's not that a Chimera is that heavy, it is just the downward leverage that is exerted from the length and putting something that weighs another perhaps 10 oz. on the front of the softbox. There are tricks that I use like gaffer taping the AC cable on the light to the light stand to mitigate the sag, but of course, that will eventually weaken and short the AC connection into the light housing.

Other lights like Moles that have metal on metal yolk tie downs have no issue holding up a Chimera without sagging, I even use my medium (36" x 48") Chimera with an eggcrate on my Mighty 2k. It can actually hold a decent angle. Very impressive considering that is a lot of weight hanging in space four feet out there.

The Arri 1k open face also does pretty well with the small Chimera. Even though it's yolk tie-downs are nylon as they are on the 650, the Arri 1k open face has two tie downs, one on either side of the light, so technically twice the tightening force. The 650 just has the one and a bolt on the left-hand side.

To me, with the Coolights LED 600, the tie down, while it is not made of metal, does seem to be fairly heavy duty. As soon as I have a friend weld the rod connectors to the barndoors, I will test it and will report back to you and everyone here how it works, both with and without the egg crate. Not sure if there is enough horsepower to use the egg crate, will have to test that as well.

Thanks,

Dan

[Dan Brockett]

For those of you thinking about mounting these lights in obscure ways, with the barndoors, I am getting a weight of 5.1 pounds.

Dan