96 led light
 

Looks like a new led light from China. Seems like they fixed some of the complaints with the previous light. The flimsy foot has been replaced 1/4” thread and adapter. AA battery compartment is fully enclosed. Not sure about the tungsten filter. Not as many LEDs as the other but the cool thing is that you can connect multiple lights.

Gadget.brando.com

Has anyone bought this LED? Review?

I haven't bought this light, but a friend bought one of these cheap LED on-cam lights and his is rather nice. It is called a CL-160 in the online auctions and has a dimmer wheel on the left side with white print. It also comes with the CTO and diffuser gels but they don't affix with magnets like this one. The CL-160 has decent color temperature LEDs and is rather bright for a small light. We tested it out and it was just enough to use as fill outdoors with one person about 5 feet from the camera - similar to a one-person interview or a standing newscaster in the field. A 96-LED light won't be nearly as bright, but the CL-160 is rather large to put on a smaller camera.

I just looked around on the site in the first post and they have the 160-led light I describe. I'm assuming these are made in the same factory and sold to all these stores.

I have the 126 LED light from the same guys and it's more than adequate for weddings. The adjustable stem is easily fixable by removing the thumbscrews and replacing them with standard bolts and nuts. Tighten them up and it stays where it is!!

The 126 LED unit is best used with the diffuse filter (I found that my cameras battled to balance indoor light with the yellow filter) Even indoors with predominantly 3200K light it still performs very well and most of the time you do need to use the dimmer. I must admit I didn't like the "open back" battery panel (so you can also use a camcorder battery) but the cells have never fallen out!!!

I cannot see a reason why one would have to use multiple units of the new "mergeable" light on camera as I have found that just one 126 LED bank is more than enough to cover a decent filming area!!! The 160 would be even better but I couldn't see myself using even 2 of the new lights at the same time..I already get comments with the 126 LED like "Gosh, hand me my sunglasses"

Chris

We have a review written by Michael Liebergot at LV Productions about the Pro 160-LED light

Pro 160-LED Light Review | L.A. Color Blog

Min Lee,

That is an interesting light. Even more interesting is this other light they have: Gadget.brando.com

Looks like a CL-LED600 knockoff. $200 cheaper if you count the included battery mount. It dims too.

This light looks identical to the Comer.

Gadget.brando.com

Interesting.

I could not resist and today ordered the 96 LED light. For $70 including shipping I don't think I can go wrong. I had a LitePanels Micro that had the same crappy mount that my 126 LED light bought off ebay for $49 including shipping had. Looks like this one may be better.

I really like the 126 ebay light I have. I ordered a chinese Panny battery clone for $18 to power it and it lasts 2.5 hours per charge. The light is great with the only weakness being the flimsly shoe mount which like the litepanel micro is hard to tighten where it won't move and the filter to take it to 3200k is way too s trong. It is not usable but I have a roll of CTO gel and cut a piece to place with the diffuser and it worked great. The only other complaint was the size is just big enoug that when mounted on my NRG trimount adapter next to my Rode NTG2 microphone it rubs against the microhpone shockmount a little it is so wide. The Litepanel Micro had a narrower footprint and did not do this. This 96 LED light looks like it might be a little smaller also.

This 96 LED light looks promising because of the mount that looks better and the magnetic filters that attach. Will have to see if they really work and don't come off.

If this light works well I am going to order one of the 168 LED lights off ebay like the 126 LED one I already have and use those two and this 96 LED light as a portable 3 point lighting system. I found a camera shoe to lightstand adapter for $15 each I will need to buy some of to make it work.

Got the $70 96 LED light from China in the mail yesterday. Have not had a chance to use it in a shoot yet but playing around with it a little I am very impressed.

And yes this is the exact same light a company is just introducing this month for $296 in advertisements.

It uses AA batteries or my Sony camera battery. The LED's seem very bright and the magnetic diffuser and 3200k filter are brilliant.

How does it build? Does it survive a small drop? Let's say, from the camera to the floor?

Vincent,

I am not willing to test it!!! Like my LitePanel Micro and the 126 LED light from China I got off ebay it has a plastic housing so I am sure it could break if dropped onto a concrete floor, etc. Having said that I never had any issues with my LitePanels Micro or the chinese light and I don't expect to have with this one.

Other than the case being plastic the build seems to be good. I have only played with it handheld so have not attached it to the camera yet to test that mount. I can say that it has a single large screw hole going in to the light for the mount as opposed to four tiny screws holding the mount in place on the 126 LED chinese light I bought from ebay. That seems much better.

For $70 you can buy a spare in case you drop one and still be paying less than half what most lights like this cost.

I also own this light- for the money it's bright, easy to use, and lots of battery options. The big problem I have with it, is the dimmer. Anything below 100% results in a high pitched whine- the result of cheap components. Could def mess up audio as it gets louder the lower you go. But then again it was so cheap.

I was hoping to get 3 of them- and create an inexpensive, portable, battery operated three point light kit for quick and dirty interviews. But to get a proper lighting ratio means I would have adjust the brightness, and that would create a sound issue.

As long as its kept at 100% brightness- it's virtually silent though.

D.J. Ammons,

Could you test yours to see if it has the same "whine" Ed's does when dimmed below 100%?

Stockton, I will test it tonight when I get home. I did not notice a whine but I probably had the light on full intensity 99% of the time.

Stockton,

I just got done doing a short test of my Z96 light to check for the whining noise Ed reported with his. At first I did not think there was any noise at all but if I hold the light directly up to my ear there is a very faint whine for a portion of the dimming range. It starts off silent then a little ways up the very faint whine starts and then it goes away as you near 100% illumination.

It is so faint I don't know if most microphones could pick it up if you wanted. However since generally I usually use these type lights at full intensity I don't expect it to be an issue.

The only scenario where I would see this causing a problem would be if you were using multiple Z96's by hooking them together, one of the selling points. If you had four or six of these all on at the same time dimmed within that range of small noise the accumulative effect of that many units might be too loud.

I also checked my 126 chinese LED from ebay and it does not make any noise at all throughout the dimmer range.

FYI I tested both units with Lithium batteries rather than the AA. The Z96 with a Sony camera battery and the 126 LED chinese ebay unit with a Panny battery.