54 replies to this topic

[wagsy]

Hello all.

On my last trip out to Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea from Cairns Queensland I took a set of Light & Motion Sola 4000 LED video lights.
I pinched them from Peter at ScubaPix

They worked fantastic on my Amphibico Phenom all the way down to 40 meters.

If you are looking for small, portable but very powerful LED video lights without any hot spots, then these babies are what you should look out for.

Will load up some video clips next, but here are a few images of them in action.

[Steve Williams]

Do you have a 600 or 1200 you can put next to the new 4000 wags? I'm curious to see how much bigger they are.

Cheers,
Steve

[wagsy]

Hi Steve
Sure do, hows this.

[Steve Douglas]

Wagsy,
Congrats on your new lights, look forward to seeing the footage. In the first photo they looked huge but I can see from the comparison photo they are not too large at all.
Steve

[wagsy]

Hi Steve.
They are very compact indeed.

I have a mortgage now so cannot afford things like this any more.
But I am sure I can keep using them for a trip or two.
Out again Friday with them and I think we will have one very Expensive DSLR out there too

Yes will load some video of a few scenes next.

[wagsy]

And here is a little clip I cut up.

During the day they were on full power while at night you really needed to cut them back to half+ power. At night the auto gain was locked to 0 on the camera.

No colour correction or filters of any kind have been applied to the video clips in POST, the clips are how the camera shot them and most shots are on full wide through the 94 degree port.




Cheers.

[jonny shaw]

They look nice Wags, pretty even coverage

[Nick Hope]

Looks good Wags. How were you white balancing? Any filter? I see some redness in some shots (e.g. at 4:00).

Are the lights neutral/negative/positive? How far can the brightness be reduced (e.g. for macro night dives)?

[wagsy]

Hi guys.

The lights have like 7 power settings so you can dim them right down.
I did not white balance the camera underwater for any dive nor used any URPRO filter.
I set it up top before I jumped in away I went hence some shots a little warm.
As long as its close you can tweek it later in post.

You could point the Phenom's port like 1 foot from vertically at the sand on full wide and the lights covered the whole footprint still with nice even white light.
At night you can really see the completely even 90 degree beam coming out of them.
At night the camera was set to 0 gain, did not need any gain boost.
If you placed your finger on the beam-glass it would get too hot to keep it there underwater.
Running around at night on full power is complete overkill unless you want to light up the whole dive site for the other divers lol.
They are very light and compact out of the water and are nothing in the water, slightly negative and prefect for travelling.

If I had the coin laying around I would grab a set for sure.

[Steve Douglas]

Pretty impressive Wagsy, wish we had the daily beautiful diving here in San Diego that you have down under. You picked great clips to show off what the lights can do. In some of the grouper clips you can really see the fall off of the light but it appears there's very good penetration and spread. Would love to see an underwater comparison between them, the Green Force, Keldans and the new Gates lights. Real world testing.
Here's hoping your Amphibico housing holds up now that they went bust.
Steve

[wagsy]

Yes Steve its pretty neat out there.

Just got back from another trip using them.
The lights are very good, small compact but very powerful and tuff.
No delicate globes to break.
At night they are amazing, you have to power then down for most shots though.

Load up another clip soon.

Yes...I have one spare Phenom handle :-(
It went silly after one dive but is started to work again.
Must of got some moisture in the electronics some place.
Fingers crossed it will keep on going as it shoots beautifully.

[peterbkk]

And here is a little clip I cut up.

During the day they were on full power while at night you really needed to cut them back to half+ power. At night the auto gain was locked to 0 on the camera.

No colour correction or filters of any kind have been applied to the video clips in POST, the clips are how the camera shot them and most shots are on full wide through the 94 degree port.

Cheers.

Did you use the light's blue filter when shooting mixed sunlight / video light shots?

Regards
Peter

[MATT S]

Great video Paul

[Steve Douglas]

Is anyone having a problem getting the lights to charge up after they have not been used for awhile? There is a thread over on scubaboard where some are saying that this is becoming an issue.
Steve

[jcclink]

A good reason to be able to change batteries.

[wagsy]

Hello Peter
No I did not use any blueish filter on the lights, just WB the camera without any URPRO filter before I got in and away I went.

I done like 20+ dives with them now and took them to 40 meters a few times, no charging problems turned up.
Time will tell I suppose, we took the front off them to look at the LED part, no worries about dropping these globes.

You may be able to replace the batteries yourself anyhow instead of sending them back to the dealers, but you would be on your own.

Had my Amphibico Discover G3 with me too, it seemed to have more light penetration but no where near the wide hot spot less coverage the 4000 had.
I am now a LED convert

[peterbkk]

No I did not use any blueish filter on the lights, just WB the camera without any URPRO filter before I got in and away I went.

I use the Sola 1200s now. I use 3 of them to cover the WA dome.

I am interested in the 4000 because I could drop back to 2 lights (reducing the hassle of switching on and aligning three lights) and I'm interested in the blue filter. The blue filter would be useful when combining CU and WA in the same shot. Potententially you could light the CU subject with the blue filter in place and have the color balance set for the WA sunlit shot. Also would work well when panning from CU to MS/WA. Would work for tropical water, anyway.

Of course, I could just pop a blue disc over the three 1200s but that'd be more hassle than just dialing it in.

Regards
Peter

[wagsy]

Hi Peter, yes blue over the lights is what you need but they worked fine just white.
There was none with this set I used.

BTW I am not receiving anything from Light & Motion nor Peter for doing this.
I end up with some great footage to use for my future projects..... and what goes around comes around

Mate once you turn on a couple 4000's you will never want use your 1200's again lol

Here is a second clip I just threw together, at the end is some more night footage which shows the lights blowing out the sand on full power.
Right at the end I am like 2 foot from the sand and slowly rise, you can see there are no hot spots.
Also there is a diver using a DSLR, Free DVD to whom ever can guess what camera is in it

[peterbkk]

Mate once you turn on a couple 4000's you will never want use your 1200's again lol

Damn, the credit card is going to take another hit...

Edited by peterbkk, 18 September 2011 - 11:34 PM.

[pmooney]

Hey Paul,

Great trip , great clip - pity the diver looks so unco..........