I'm looking at getting a couple of these tube like lights to experiment with the catchlights in close up headshots. Nothing fancy but bright enough to do the job. Found these online, ranging from £45 approx to 3 times as much. Anyone use these and what would your recommendations be?
My main observations are:
1) there's no indication how bright they are
2) the reviews on the second one are mostly Vine reviews. I've come to not trusting these, simply because I've never personally seen a really critical one.
My instinct is that unless you are shooting continuous light at high ISO, or video, they don't really look like they will be bright enough.
The cheap ones usually render awful skin tones.
In the middle price range go for Amaran T2C, Nanlite PavoTube, Godox TL30 or TL60.
I have 2x Amaran T4C, 8x PavoTube II 6C, one each Pavotube 15C/30C, Ledgo Altatube 120/180, 1x Soonwell Sensei ST50
Have a look at the one's in this article. Jake knows his coloured lights!
Lighting Setup: Beautifully Soft DIY LED Top Light — Jake Hicks Photography
OK so this review says 800 lux at 0.5m.
I read that a working guide is that ISO 800 f/5.6 needs 500 lux or so for a usable exposure for video.
800 lux is roughly EV8.3 at ISO 100 according to:
https://www.analog.cafe/app/exposure-values-stops-lux-seconds-calculators-definitions
A good table of EV scale is here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_value
I think if you're combining with flash this is not going to be a particularly useful light except for effects.
Does look pretty cool though; could be useful for video.
Edited by Unfocussed Mike
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Unfocussed Mike said
My main observations are:
1) there's no indication how bright they are
2) the reviews on the second one are mostly Vine reviews. I've come to not trusting these, simply because I've never personally seen a really critical one.
My instinct is that unless you are shooting continuous light at high ISO, or video, they don't really look like they will be bright enough.
If you want to go totally the opposite way and see a real review of a set of tube lights, I almost guarantee you won't find anything more in depth than Andrew Lock's reviews:
Andrew Lock is definitely one of the undisputed authorities on lighting.
The Amaran T4C are my go to lights whenever I need tube lights,
and they play very nice with Sidus Link as control app via smartphone
as well as via the Sidus One/Four CRMX/DMX bridges.
