Blackmagic Forum

I found this video very revealing about what you can do with the system:

And from their instagram:


Lit by 4x M40s

Robert Niessner wrote:And from their instagram...

There are helpful behind the scenes images on Instagram for both Light Bridge CRLS and Lightstream. For Lightstream, see, for example, Ian Murray's account (@ianmurraydop).

These CRLS photos are from the Instagram account of Dane Lawing, who shot the documentary segments for CNN's six episode series Lincoln: Divided We Stand, which began airing yesterday.

Lawing makes extensive use of CRLS outdoors as well as indoors. This past Friday, he shot a public service piece on re-opening Los Angeles schools. Looks like the result will be aired today and will also be on the school district's website.

Instagram caption:

It’s a Red Komodo and all CRLS set up for today’s PSA shoot for the LA Unified School District and Superintendent Austin Beutner. It’s not that I didn’t HAVE lights with me, I just didn’t need em!

Lawing's Instagram posts also show him using a number of different lights, including the Dedolight PB70 parallel beam light discussed above.

Very nice!
Loving the grip forest.
In the wide shot with no sun.
Can you make out what that black thing is (screen right) on the low c-stand between the two reflectors?

Robert,

According to the lighting plot it looks like the oil lamp is the only source on her face.
That looks great.

Leon Benzakein wrote:Very nice!
Loving the grip forest.
In the wide shot with no sun.
Can you make out what that black thing is (screen right) on the low c-stand between the two reflectors?

I don't know, but now I'm curious enough that I've asked the question on Lawing's Instagram post

robedge wrote:I don't know, but now I'm curious enough that I've asked the question on Lawing's Instagram post

Leon Benzakein wrote:Very nice!
Loving the grip forest.
In the wide shot with no sun.
Can you make out what that black thing is (screen right) on the low c-stand between the two reflectors?

robedge wrote:I don't know, but now I'm curious enough that I've asked the question on Lawing's Instagram post.

[In case it's unclear, we're talking about the first photo of the football field five posts up. The short C-stand in the bottom half of the photo, and just to the left of the 36 yard line, is holding up a black object.]

Lawing responded to my question:

"That’s a @lightstarprofessional Luxed-S light I had prepped in case the weather moved in before we finished and it clouded over."

Link to the Lightstar Luxed-S page: https://lightstar-lights.com/luxed-s/

This Newsshooter article and video are about the Luxed-4, which combines four Luxed-S lights: https://www.newsshooter.com/2019/11/15/ ... r-luxed-4/




This video says that the Luxed lights, which are quite new to the market, are very good value for money and have excellent colour rendition. See especially 5:27 on price and his conclusion at 15:50:

Robedge,

I do not mean to hijack your Dedolight posting but I have to admit that the
LUXED-S is a lot of bang for the buck.(let us hope that it does not go bang)

http://woodennickellighting.com/Public/ ... frame.html

Luxed Single:
180 Watts
Weight 9 Lbs
Bi-color 2800K to 6500K
CRI >95, TLCI >96
Dimming adjustable from 0 to 100%
AC 120 to 240 / DC 14 to 48V
5 pin DMX incl.
"V" mount Battery adaptor incl.
Includes Softbox & fabric grid & Bag

List price: $1,195 - Sell: $1,016

I watched the Gaffer and Gear video, that is a very versatile system.
Good find.

I've been using a medium CRLS System (15cm, 25cm and 50cm) for the last weeks and I just wanted to put my 2 cents to this conversation.

First of all, I found that for me and for many (looking at the answers from some users here) this systems requires a small learning curve. In my case I'm happy with it, because it's learning about physics of lights and it doesn't hurt at all to expand my knowledge in this area.

This system is basically a set of reflectors that qualify as something between a mirror and a white reflector. They cost are relative to their size, so if you are just looking for a big soft diffused light, there are much cheaper alternatives around.

They strengths are:
- multiplying one light source.
- simulating bigger environments / studios defeating the inverse square law.
- manipulating natural light.
- simulating natural light characteristics in a controlled environment.

The key for this system is using a near parallel and narrow beam source or using the sun. So far I'm having good results with a 300D II and the Fresnel 2x mount and an Aputure 60D specially with the Spotlight Mini Zoom.

Last day I was playing with the system in my studio using only a very bright distant sphere of hot plasma, multiplying it as a key, fill and backlight and I was very pleased with the results. It would be impossible to achieve parallel shadows and light intensity homogeneity in may small studio otherwise.

I think for harder and punchy light this system is very useful, efficient and quick. With fever light sources and less equipment you can easily achieve very interesting results in no time. In my opinion the strength of this system is a naturalistic look. For a synthetic light design (which I personally like a lot too) there are better alternatives. A set of CRLS / Lightstream reflectors are great complementary tools to a more conventional lighting setup.

I have been looking into reflector systems off and on for a few years and thankful to find this thread! I am a crew-of-one and it's great to hear the first hand accounts for interview set ups, that is what I'm looking to get more efficient at.

Is there any particular advice around what reflectors to get for a one person interview with a two camera set up? I'm hoping to mix and match reflectors with an Aputure light source ideally...and I'm in Canada (eh), where is the Dedolight/Lightstream distributor located, in Ontario?

Drew Gauley wrote: I'm in Canada (eh), where is the Dedolight/Lightstream distributor located, in Ontario?

Rick provided the link -- Terry Crack is your contact there and he's great to deal with.

One lesson learned is to get the larger reflectors (50cm) for good interview light; even the high-diffusion medium-sized ones (25cm) won't give you a nice soft light unless they're very close to the subject. I started out with the medium-size reflectors but got a few large ones and they're much better for portraits/interviews. Be sure not to under-spec your lamp either, which is another mistake I made. Better to have more power than you need and dim it than to not have enough.

I agree 100% with Edgard's comments above. CRLS is best used for emulating the look of sunlight — a very hard punchy source — bouncing in a larger environment.

If your goal is instead a standard large soft key light for interviews, you'll be better off with just a standard 4x4 bounce, or building a book light, or using a big soft box.

Thanks for the replies and contact for Dedo Canada, I appreciate the insight from those with hands-on experience.
The most attractive aspect for me is the efficiency and portability of these reflectors. I am truly a crew of one: small town, no rental possibilities and very little if any skilled assistance. It's almost always just me! So the gigs are not that often and the budgets...not that big. That said, I'm wondering whether I should invest in a pre-assorted kit of reflectors or like Brad was suggesting, just go with the bigger boards and order the ones that I would be using for one person interviews. I'm not entirely sure where to position the light source and reflectors in relation to the talent...

Ideally, I would love to be able to set up one light and use numerous boards to get the three-point lighting covered.

Drew Gauley wrote: That said, I'm wondering whether I should invest in a pre-assorted kit of reflectors or like Brad was suggesting, just go with the bigger boards and order the ones that I would be using for one person interviews. I'm not entirely sure where to position the light source and reflectors in relation to the talent...

Ideally, I would love to be able to set up one light and use numerous boards to get the three-point lighting covered.

The main advantage with using one light source and reflectors is that you don't have to worry about color-matching your lights: even lights of the same model from the same manufacturer don't always match. And of course you only have to plug in one light.

For interviews the fastest/most portable approach is to attach the light to the long leg of the C-stand and aim it up to the reflector (or you can attach it to the C-stand); see this example from CRLS: https://www.thelightbridge.com/video/so ... e-matters/

That would work for a simple one-point light if you're really pressed for time (but heck, you could just use a softbox for this and it would likely look better). If you need fill, you can carve off a bit of the light beam with a smaller reflector (use the mirror-surface one for this) and direct it to another reflector on the other side but close to the camera; you don't want it coming from the opposite side of the key but a little more head-on to the subject. This is where the value of CRLS/Dedo Lightstream comes in, because you can provide the key and the fill with just one light, and it's easy to carve off a small piece of the beam and aim it exactly where you want. You can see a demo of this "carving off" at about 4:30 in this video:

Another good approach, either using these reflectors or standard foamcore boards, is this (which I learned from one of Jamie's posts, in fact): https://www.provideocoalition.com/the_s ... etup-ever/

and the updated version: https://www.provideocoalition.com/the-s ... rn-update/

I'm not sure you really need three-point lighting; the examples above don't use rim light and they look fine. The ones in the pro video coalition link do have a room light in the back; for this you could use something like a Luxli Cello, which is small and battery powered.

I was especially impressed with the one-point CRLS example, which looks quite usable when positioned just right. Light sources get softer as they get bigger, and one way to make them bigger is to move them closer; that's one of the things he explains in that short video and it's also explained in the two articles I linked to above.

Do check out the foam board/card with negative fill option, as it's an awful lot cheaper than CRLS/Lightstream if you only need lighting for interviews.

I got in touch with Terry at Dedolight Canada, you guys were right- very helpful indeed! I picked up their 20x20cm kit w 5 reflectors and mounts to experiment with before looking to bigger reflectors. I'd like to use my existing Aputure 200x with a projection mount for this scale of set up and I see these Godox products available at B+H for a half decent price. When using these for the purpose of 1 person interviews, which lens would be appropriate 19, 26 or 36 degree?
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?q ... 26K&sts=ma

The projection mounts have to be designed for the COB unit to which they are attached to get the most out of them. Having a similar Bowen's mount alone isn't enough. It may be that Godox attachments work with the Aputure, or they may not be ideal. You'll need to test that to see.
What has always made Dedo lights so excellent is their optics concentrating the light really cleanly. So far, all the attachments that I've tested from various manufacturers for COB style LED lights don't do nearly such a great job concentrating the source as Dedo's own optics. That's why I'm excited to see Dedo will be making optical attachments specifically for Prolycht's RGBACL LED COB heads:

Drew Gauley wrote:I got in touch with Terry at Dedolight Canada, you guys were right- very helpful indeed! I picked up their 20x20cm kit w 5 reflectors and mounts to experiment with before looking to bigger reflectors. I'd like to use my existing Aputure 200x with a projection mount for this scale of set up and I see these Godox products available at B+H for a half decent price. When using these for the purpose of 1 person interviews, which lens would be appropriate 19, 26 or 36 degree?
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?q ... 26K&sts=ma

https://www.dedolightcalifornia.com/col ... WcQAvD_BwE

"We call these lenses "Parallel Beam Intensifiers" and they take the process of reflecting light with Lightstream boards, or "Lightstreaming", to a powerful level."



The Godox device you are looking at will not serve the purpose. It turns the light into a long throw system but does not intensify the light output. From the link I attached you can see the difference in lens build. The Dedo intensifier actually does that. I had the opportunity to see a demo in Burbank at the Dedo office. It is very interesting.

This is a very interesting thread for me. Since I decided to get back into production after well over 10 years ago, the technology has moved on markedly. My old redhead kit, I realise doesn't cut it anymore, and it always burned holes in foreheads anyway. I was looking at led kits but this is interesting, though a faffle for interview lighting and the single Dedo light turns out surprisingly expensive, when you factor in the intensifier. But I can see it's possible versatility.