Photo / Video lights

Video lights for content production

Video lights / continuous lights are quite easy to use, because they are most similar to sunlight. In contrast to flash light, you can see the effect of the continuous light on the object to be illuminated immediately, although you can switch on a modeling light with flash lights, the lamp is usually not 1:1 the same in brightness.

Effect of continuous light vs. flash on the pupil

The pupil behaves differently to the two exposure methods, because with a continuous light the pupil is smaller / more contracted than with a flash light, because the eye tries to correct the exposure, while the short impulse of the flash light acts on the pupil only for a very short moment, so that the iris reacts too late and the pupil does not contract. The strength of this effect depends on the angle of incidence and the intensity of the continuous light. Continuous light offers an advantage here when used in still life, such as product or food photography.

The perfect video light?

The light alone, without softbox differs in the light color / color fastness. So when buying you should be careful to buy a light with the highest possible CRI / TLCI / CI value. Here, especially RGB lights are often worse than, for example, pure white lights are.

Video lights / continuous lights - Outdoor & Indoor?

Those who use a permanent light indoors can fall back on a battery-operated version. Those who also want to work outdoors, with a continuous light, should make sure that the battery is compatible, these usually support the film standard V-Mount. These batteries are very powerful and offer a lot of flexibility and can therefore be used in other ways than just for lamps on the set.

Using softboxes on a continuous light

Continuous lights not only offer a lot of uses, they can also have connections for softboxes, which makes it possible to use them to change the light characteristics as well. It is always advisable to have different light shapers on hand in order to use the right light shaper for the intended purpose. The size, for example, plays a role in the choice of the strength of the light, because a large softbox, which produces a soft light, also needs more power to be well illuminated. However, a continuous light / video light with a large softbox also illuminates a larger area.