We get a lot of questions each day on the phone and by email, but the topic that probably gets the most attention is focus lights, also known as modeling lights. Everyone wants to know which light is best, and if the more expensive lights are really worth the cost, etc. etc.
Let's delve into what makes one better than another one. There are a number of points to consider but these are what most people consider to be the most important:
- Beam pattern
- Brightness
- Color temperature
- Battery life
- Battery type
- Bulb life
- Purchase price
- Build quality and durability
Your job when choosing a light is to rank these priorities based on your needs and budget. As with most things in life, there are trade-offs among different lights. For example, Halogen lights are much brighter than LED lights, but generally have shorter battery and bulb life. Rechargeable AA batteries are less expensive that proprietary Lithium Ion batteries, but don't offer as much power or burn time and are heavier. Lights with a narrow beam may appear to be more powerful, but require constant re-aiming in order to illuminate the subject that you're trying to photograph.
The bottom line is that there is no perfect light (or free lunch), but hopefully we can shed some light (pardon the pun) on what you can expect from each different light that we offer.
To that end, we conducted what we consider to be a fair and balanced evaluation of several popular lights:
- Ikelite Mini C
- Fisheye Ultra Compact
- Suprema U-beam 44LED
- Sea & Sea LX-15
- Fisheye FIX Light LED48DX
- Nocturnal SLX LED
- Fisheye FIX Light HG20DX
We started with a darkened room.... not completely dark, but with very little ambient light. We set up our product photo table with a white backdrop and placed a 24" x 18" carpenter's framing square against the background for reference. We set two tripods in front of the table, one for the lights, one for the camera. Each light was placed 30" from the background and 12" above the table surface.
We mounted an Olympus E-1 on the second tripod, set the ISO to 200, white balance to 4800°k, shutter speed to 1/50th sec., and the aperture to f/4. All test shots were recorded in RAW format and processed 'as shot'. Our control shot (no focus light) was totally black with no discernible detail of the framing square visible.
For lights using conventional batteries, we used rechargeable NiMh cells. When possible, please, please, help protect the environment (and lighten your load) by using rechargable batteries.
Note: In an attempt to adhere to a fixed procedure for the entire group of lights, we used a fixed white balance, and did not adjust it in post processing. The result is that the color temperature of the halogen lights appears very warm, and the LED lights appear to have a very cool (blue) color. In real world use, to the human eye, the LED lights do not appear as blue as the photos here indicate, but they do have a 'cooler' color than the halogen lamps.
For those readers who want to cut to the chase, you can see a side-by-side photographic comparison of the crop, you can find it here.
Here are the results, ranked by purchase price:
