It is essential to make your videos look as good as possible.
One of the most importantpieces of equipmentyou need to do this and one often overlooked by the novice videographer – and a few professionals – is a good, lightweight portable light.
Until the last couple of years you probably had to rely on a tungsten light to supplement natural lighting. This required a blue gel to make the tungsten light match daylight color temperature, and tungsten light often requires a heavy battery pack that drains quickly.
Tungsten light works best in a studio with access to electricity. Another down side of tungsten lights is that they get very hot. Put a few people in a small studio and it can get uncomfortable quickly
On camera lighting just got better
The good news is the recent availability of LED and fluorescent lights that won’t cost you an arm and a leg, which require less power and produce little or no heat. That’s what I was looking for at NAB. I was shopping for a solution for my studio when I came across this innovative low-cost on-camera light.
I found theRotolight, a ring light like one of those that you can can put around the camera lens that give a nice, even light on your subject’s face. This one pushes on to the foam baffle of industry-standard microphones and sits above the camera lens. This solves the problem of having only one accessory shoe on your camera but needing to mount both a light and an external microphone. It also give you a little bit of directionality to the light.
The Rotolight Video Accessory Pouch makes transporting your Rotolights even easier than using them. Designed for the on-the-go professional, this pouch holds two Rotolights, six batteries, AC/grip rigging tools, one stand, and even an iPhone. So strap it to your waist like the digital gunfighter you know you are, swagger up to your location--and shoot.
For most general purpose, close up video work, it’s a good choice. As you see in the video below, the Rotolight rep shined the light on me and it was very pleasant. Some LED lights are uncomfortably bright up close and can be distracting. The Rotolight was a flattering light that made me look very nice, if I do say so myself! The Rotolight throws a wide angle of light to cover a subject close up but don’t count it to light a subject at a distance of more than a few feet. That’s why it’s such a soft light source.
The whole interview kit comes with 2 lights, gels and a neat little accessory pouch which you attach to your belt so you have easy access to. They also have a single light set up that comes with the travel pouch for $100 less.
This on camera lighting solution is definitely worth alook.
