55w LED fresnel vs. Dedo vs. 300w tungsten

[Oren Arieli]

I put together a review for the Boltzen Q55II, which is an upgrade to the Mark I I've been using for a while now. Having looked at the Fiilex units and being underwhelmed by their output (and overwhelmed by their price), this one hit the sweet spot for me. The Mark I was great as an accent, hair or scratch light, but just a bit too weak to illuminate anything larger than a 1x2 softbox with double-diffusion. The manufacturer pulled some sort of magic trick and made the output 40% brighter for the same power draw...and best of all, I can run them at 100% off cheap Sony NP-F batteries if I don't want to deal with v-mounts.
That's going to be great news for travel shooters. My two light kit with a case is 1/2 the size of a typical Pelican 1510 based light kit.
I'd love to know your thoughts.

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[Pete Cofrancesco]

Nice review. I own both Boltzen I and II and I agree with your assessment. The two batteries are huge. My MK 1 won't run ant any level with generic batteries. The app isn't good. If the connection drops it's difficult to reconnect. give me a physical remote any day. I hate the strobe dial. Because of their small form factor when you grab the light to adjust it or put on the light stand I often hit the strobe dial turn it on. Strobe is borderline gimmick feature it doesn't need it's own dedicated dial.

I've used this light for, wedding dance floor, hair or background interview light, outdoor interview where you just need quick key or fill light without expensive v mount batteries. I'm not a fan of trying to add modifiers for soft lighting this isn't the light for that use. The plastic tilt teeth isn't up to the task, even for a modest soft box. Maybe fabric clipped to the barn doors but nothing more than that.

Most of my work is very unpredictable with little setup time. So I appreciate I can have something small, light, cheap and powerful that I can have at the ready when needed.

[Paul R Johnson]

It's a nice change to get straightforward reviews like this that have been thought through properly.

When you want to compare things, you sort of know what you need to know, and so many videos take you through the aspects that don't matter, and then hurry through the important stuff. Like the 4 in a stripe section with the captions. you can just press pause at that point and read and look. Thanks for this. The only thing missing was a guide price, so I popped off to Google to discover a quite sensible price. One of the sites was actually a Chinese company I dealt with already, so I can get a set quite cheaply. I've ordered a kit to have a try. Thanks for this.

Paul

[Oren Arieli]

Originally Posted by Pete Cofrancesco

Nice review. I own both Boltzen I and II and I agree with your assessment. The two batteries are huge. My MK 1 won't run ant any level with generic batteries. The app isn't good. If the connection drops it's difficult to reconnect. give me a physical remote any day. I hate the strobe dial. Because of their small form factor when you grab the light to adjust it or put on the light stand I often hit the strobe dial turn it on. Strobe is borderline gimmick feature it doesn't need it's own dedicated dial....

Thank you, Pete. It's likely I won't ever use the strobe function. I can imagine it could be useful for music videos...and that's about it. Not sure why CAME-TV spent good time and money on the light improvements without throwing a few Yuan towards a revamped app. With the Mark 1 and the dongle, I got it to connect exactly one time, and never since. Physical remotes are nice to have, but the size and layout of the CAME-TV remote is also something that should have been studied more carefully. I think a credit-card sized remote for these lights would have been just as good, and at a fraction the size and cost. Re-packing the remote commander into the two-light kit is a trick, and you wouldn't want to keep in your pocket during a shoot (it's too chunky).

Still, I'm glad for the improvements they did make to the light. Those are more than welcome. Power increase is surprising, to say the least.

[Oren Arieli]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

It's a nice change to get straightforward reviews like this that have been thought through properly.

Paul

Thanks for the feedback Paul. I completely understand about the lack of pricing info, and that was deliberate on my part. I've done reviews before that get watched years later (when prices change). It's also subject to change due to currency fluctuations and shortages, as has happened with certain 'hot' gear. I'll probably take a cue from other reviewers and leave a link to the website where they can be purchased.