Just A Light Wipe Around The Edges...With Icelight 2

I'm glad I'm not a cynic.

If I was, the appearance of the Icelight 2 light painting wands in the shop would have led me to conclude that the people who manufacture them are fans of Star Wars movies...and that they know the photographers who buy them are also fans.

It would explain the metal caps on the top and bottom ends of the lights and the on/off and level control buttons in Star Wars terms. I would have this mental picture of photo assistants doing light sabre duelling with these $700 wands during coffee breaks at the studio. I can hear them making "Whummm - whummm - whummmmm" sounds and speaking like Yoda. Right up until one of them hits a studio light with the aluminium casting end of the wand and the whole place starts to look like the Death Star...

Actually, on serious consideration, the aluminium ends of the wand are drilled and tapped for 1/4 threads and it means that they can be bolted to tripods or studio stands or slung from overhead booms. There is some practicality there.

The rest of the design is explainable in photo terms swell. The on/off switch needs to be thumb-operable as you have to turn the wand on and off easily multiple times when you move around the subject...putting it as a slide switch in the base of the handle section would have been easy but ergonomically wrong.

Likewise the power up and down. As you move around you have a limited time and need to be able to run the intensity up and down in the dark by touch.

The kit in the shop had several freebie bonuses; a tungsten-light corrective sleeve that covers the emitting part of the tube, a car charger, and a two-way 1/4" threaded connector. All good stuff. Available separately, but also in stock is the clip-on set of barn doors that restrict the light spread - These may be more useful for the light when it is being used in a fixed position and may approximate a strip light in effect.

For me, the classical use of the strip light is in motor car photography - the light painting that is done with these devices is often seen in professional illustration of new cars - the sleek lines and contours are particularly well suited for what the wand can do - especially if the paint is a metallic one. As everyone seems mad for dark colours, you need some time to build up an image, and there can be a fair bit of wiping about with the wand to get it to go where it looks best.

 Cameras that allow for display of additional layers of light during long or multiple exposures...Olympus does this...let you see what is happening as you go. If you need to take multiple exposures and blend them into each other, a sturdy tripod and a quiet subject are necessary. And you need dark about you to do it with the greatest precision - though some ambient light adds location to the image. You can sometimes incorporate it while you are painting, or deliberately add it at the end of the process.

Here are some Little Studio experiments with the Icelight 2. First, outdoor shots with a metallic car and the ambience of the riverside:

Then an indoor shot with a plain studio background:

A portrait shot:

It is the sort of device that challenges and stimulates. If you get two of them the Force will be with you...and if you try to use them like traffic wands down on the flight line at the airport, the Federal Force will be with you in record time...don't say you weren't warned.

Thanks to Chelsea Bunz AKA the Absinthe Fairy, and Albert the Alligator...the green Suzuki.

The Icelight is available in-store at 230 Stirling St, Perth

Never One To Let Well Enough Alone...With the Promaster LED 120

Ah, that is the universal motto of the photo enthusiast. We read a little, think a little, google a little, and then go out and fiddle a lot. We invent things to do that need not be done, and ways to do them that make no sense, and then lash the ideas together with 1/4" bolts and gaffer tape.

Just as well we are playing with cameras. If we were amateur explosives enthusiasts there would be smoking holes in the ground all over Perth...

Inspired with the Icelight 2 light painting wand, I decided to see if some of the other LED light devices in the shop could also do the same things...albeit on a smaller scale. Because I am a man who does things on a small scale - the name of my studio - The Little Studio - is not just cute marketing. I really do little bitty stuff. Not as little bitty as the macro workers, but small enough.

Okay - we have had a number of small light panels in at various times. LEDGO, Promaster, Metz amongst others. They go for various prices and are different sizes and shapes. Different price points too, but as with most things, you gets what you pays for.

I grabbed a Promaster LED 120 panel with, you guessed it, 120 LED lights on the front. It runs from 4 standard AA batteries and has a simple on/off switch. There is a shoe mount with a standard 1/4" thread on the bottom and they throw in a small bracket to bolt it onto the bottom of a camera as well. The extra icing is provision of a plastic orange cover to compensate for tungsten lighting.

Cheap as, and even cheaper now since it is on a 50% off sticker. Ideal experimenters gear.

I tried it as illumination for a colourful studio car. The first idea involved a darkened studio and the whole panel lit up from several directions. The shutter on the camera was open on bulb while this was going on - 3 seconds at 200 ISO/f:11. The switch at the back was less convenient to use than the thumb switch of the Icelight 2 but then we're talking $50 vs $700. If I was going to use this technique extensively I would add a handle to the panel using the threaded socket in the base and put a thumb button on the handle.

Then the panel occluded by several strips of gaffer tape to narrow down the beam:

Promaster don't quote their bare light temperature as such - only referring to the plastic filter as yielding 3300ºK. Ian guessing about 4500 - 5500ºK. It is times like these that I wish I had a small cheap colour temperature meter. Indeed, since we encounter light sources out in the real world that don't actually seem to HAVE a colour temperature...or if they do it is fitful and feverish...that meter would get more use than you'd think. I note that Kenko make several colour temperature meters, but they are out of my price range.

Here's a less dramatic portrait shot of Chelsea Bunz - the Absinthe Fairy - done with only the Promaster LED 120 playing on the scene.

Postscript: I have been told that there is an app for colour temperature meters. I have an app installed that prevents me from purchasing apps. It is a part of the sOS - the Stein operating system - it is a product of the CheapJohn company, and it is free...