Every aspect of stills photography and videography benefits from good lighting. Lighting can dramatically the mood of an image by the creative use of shadowing, backlighting and colour. But getting light onto your subject can present interesting challenges.

In a studio setting you’ll have access to mains power – in the field you’ll have to rely on batteries or generators to power up sufficient light to beat the ultimate light source, the sun. Until recently, almost all lighting systems were power-hungry: 800 Watt Redheads drain batteries rapidly and generate as much heat as a one-bar radiator; portable on-camera lights similarly drain camera batteries fairly fast. This means you have to carry a suitable means of recharging batteries as fast as possible, whether by car charger or by mains back at the motel in the evening. Flash lights are great for stills work but they create their own issues including red-eye and the notorious startled blink. Despite this, portable lights are an essential part of any serious photographer’s kit.

Over the past decade there’s been a quiet revolution happening in the lighting world and it’s all down to that now-ubiquitous invention, the light emitting diode, or LED. Once LED technology was freed from the constraint of being limited to red or green, new possibilities emerged for producing highly power-efficient lighting systems for all branches of photography.

Some years back I bought a Sony HVL-LBP on-camera light for use with my Sony Z1 video camera. I normally recommend against using an on-camera light but sometimes it’s a very useful solution. It’s also great as a supplementary light giving that important dot of light reflected in the subject’s eyes which is crucial in bringing the eyes to life. This light was portable, dimmable, and featured an array of ten LEDs. It was powered by the same batteries as the Z1 and featured a clever arrangement of barn doors, diffuser and spot lenses that made it very versatile. It was, however, expensive – retailing at around $700 – and it churned through batteries at a rate of knots. These batteries, although brilliant for the Z1, are expensive and when they’re all being flattened by the little spotlight, you either have to shell out heaps to have enough spares in your kit, or else be fanatical in your recharging ritual (this reminds me of the days when Betacam batteries lasted 20 minutes on a good day...).

Enter the Rotolight

 Imagine a light that contains 48 high-power LEDs, weighs less than 300 grams, is powered by three AA batteries (alkaline, Li-Ion or rechargeable) and has a non-stop shooting life of 4 hours. Add to that the ability to dim by up to 1.5 stops using the supplied filters, to change colour temperature accurately through 6300K, 5600K, 4300K and 3200K and to attach it any video or stills camera via a shoe mount. Fantasy? It might have been, but it’s not now. Rotolight has changed the game.

Recognising the need for just such a portable, powerful light source, engineers at the renowned Pinewood Film Studios have produced the Rotolight, as reviewed here.

The Rotolight RL48-B ‘Stealth Edition’ is elegantly and cleverly designed with portability clearly a high priority. It’s essentially a rubber coated weather-proof disc which presents an annulus of 48 LEDs behind a transparent polycarbonate cover. The back swivels off to reveal slots for three AA size batteries as well as space for the supplied filters, also annulus-shaped, ie a disc with a central disc cut out. You simply choose a filter – or a combination of several, as required – remove the transparent cover and place the filters inside. It’s a very simple system to use and changing filters takes less than half a minute.

Supplied Custom Lee Filters 6-piece ring-filter Calibration Gel Set:

Colour Temperature	Filter # printed on filter
3200K	Tungsten 3200	15/16ths CTO
4300K	Mixed 205	½ CTO
5600K	Indirect Daylight 5600	1/16th CTO
No Filter	Direct Daylight 6300K	No filter

Recall that CTO refers to Colour Temperature Orange which means a filter that converts daylight to tungsten. The fractions indicate the strength of the filter required to achieve the desired colour temperature, so a ½ CTO is half the strength of a full CTO and so on.

Accessory Filters

Type	Filter # printed on filter
Diffusion Screen	216
Neutral Density – (0.5 stop)	298
Neutral Density – (1 stop)	209

There are three versions of the Rotolight system:

Rotolight kit version	Kit includes
RL48-B Stealth Edition	Single Ringlight unit with 6-filter Calibration Set
RL48 Creative Colour Kit	Single Ringlight unit with 6-filter Calibration Set Creative Colour Kit featuring two cosmetic filters plus eight Colour FX filters Rotolight Stand Mount Accessory Belt Pouch
RL48 Interview Kit	Two Ringlight units, with stands, Creative Colour Kit Accessory Belt Pouch

The Rotolight in use

The Rotolight was very simple to set up. Insert the three batteries and whichever filter/s you need and close the unit. Press the red spindle into the central hole and attach the stand by pressing it onto the pins at the back of the spindle. The stand has a standard ¼”20 pitch tripod mount and an accessory shoe adapter is also supplied for attaching the light to any camera – video or stills – with a cold accessory mount.

The light can also be attached by sliding it onto the windshield of a shotgun microphone, although I personally wouldn’t do it this way for fear of getting unwanted wind noise problems. But it’s an option and would almost certainly work well indoors.

The Rotolight Stand and accessory shoe adapter

I found the Rotolight stand mount and cold shoe adaptor a little clumsy to use. There are two issues. The upper lock nut had to be tightened very firmly to prevent the light coming loose and twisting.  It’s a minor quibble but I wonder if there might have been a better way of implementing the accessory shoe. For example, since the accessory shoe already contains a ¼” threaded socket, maybe it would have been better to build the accessory shoe in permanently. That way it couldn’t ever work loose. I found a simple workaround which is to wind a little Teflon plumber’s tape around the thread. This tightens the attachment so it doesn’t tend to come loose.

The second issue I had was with the red anodised aluminium spool that clips to the stand. The clips are just not secure enough, so any attempt to straighten or reposition the light usually results in the stand coming apart, with the risk of dropping the light unit. I dropped the spool on the floor several times while fitting the unit to my DSLR camera. I would recommend a redesign of the stand with a ¼”bolt being fitted to the inside of the red spool and a knurled nut being provided to screw down over the handle once it’s clipped in place. Since I purchased the review unit, I decided that, since I will probably never attach the light to my shotgun mic, I would simply glue the stand to the light unit so there would be no chance of a mishap. I plan to contact Pinewood Studios to discuss this issue.

 The light is switched on with a large button on the front face. It’s a very bright light, so point it away from your eyes when you switch it on!

The basic filters are all studio calibrated and so can be relied upon to provide light of the correct intensity and colour temperature. The creative filters represent an excellent selection of the most popular Lee Lighting colour FX filters. These will find all sorts of imaginative uses as sidelights, backfills, kickers and so on and they include two beautiful cosmetic filters, 791 Moroccan Frost and 184 Cosmetic Peach. According to the hilarious online promo video Click here these filters can effectively replace an hour of makeup time in the Max Factor Suite. I doubt that, but they are delicious filters. The others range through blues and greens to strong amber and red. Used with discretion they have the potential to create some really stunning lighting effects.

When you’re finished the whole kit packs up neatly into the supplied Accessory Belt Pouch which has compartments for the Ringlight, stand and Creative Filter Kit. It also has slots for six AA batteries, a mobile phone and a metal hook for your keys.

The Interview Kit

This kit includes two Ringlights plus the Creative filters and Accessory Pouch. The idea here is that a news cxamera operator could use one Ringlight mounted on the camera and have a second light rigged from a stand or hand held to provide back- or side-light. Taking this further, the two lights can be arranged more creatively using one as a soft front-side fill and the other as a back fill. The backfill can be coloured if required to give a special highlight to the hair. Using one of the Cosmetic Filters will add a very flattering complexion to the subject’s face. In practise, we would normally use our Dedo lights (to be discussed in a separate article) as the primary lights and the Rotolight as a softly coloured sidelight. The possibilities are pretty much limitless.

DSLR lighting

The Rotolight has enormous potential in the DSLR field. It is bright, subtle, effectively ‘shadowless’ and completely avoids problems of red-eye and reflexive blink. Being able to mount it on a stand or clamp means you can easily add subtle but effective highlights with a minimum of fuss and the ability to preview as you go. It’s lighter than a standard pro flash unit and dead simple to use.

There are also numerous other possible applications including use as a ring light in macro photography in both stills and video applications. This would be great for botanical studies and for small objects such as coins.

Conclusion

 The Rotolight Creative Colour Kit is a well engineered professional product. It offers a great deal and delivers the lot in an elegant and thoughtfully designed package. The supplied filters allow good basic control of colour temperature and light intensity and the creative filters make interesting effects easily possible. The Accessory Belt Pouch is likewise well designed and sturdily constructed. My only concern is that the Rotolight Stand wasn’t secure enough and needs a redesign. The Rotolight offers great creative potential for both stills and video photographers. I have already purchased the kit supplied for review – it’s that good!

Vendor:               

New Magic Australia Pty Ltd,
Unit 4, 16-18 Croydon Road,
Croydon, Vic, 3136
Phone: (03) 9722 9700
Web Site: www.newmagic.com.au           

Price:    

Rotolight RL48-B $169                  

Rotolight Creative Kit V2 $249

Rotolight Interview Kit V2 $399

Auscam ratings 

Ease of use:                       8

Features:                          10

Build quality:                      9

Value for money:                9

 

We liked: The whole idea, including thoughtful design, build quality and supplied filters                      

We didn’t like:    Stand is unreliable and needs a redesign

By David Smith

Dr David Smith is a physiologist-turned-film maker. David was Associate Producer of the IMAX feature Australia Land Beyond Time and was Senior Researcher on the ABC TV series Nature of Australia. He wrote and hosted David Smith's Earthwatch on ABCTV and was 'resident zoologist' on the Don Lane and Bert Newton Shows.

In 1987 David set up his company, imaginACTION pty ltd (www.imaginaction.net.au) and has sinced written, directed and/or filmed numerous documentaries and educational multimedia projects. He has also written six books, including two Penguin eco-thrillers. Over the past five years David has moved towards medical and health-related projects, including trauma surgery, schizophrenia and emergency medicine.

David is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and a professional member of the AFI and has always been keen to share his knowledge, especially with young budding film makers. David can be contacted at david@imaginaction.net.au.

 

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