Light diffuser defined and a few examples to illustrate the use.
A light diffuser is anything that spreads out the light to cover a larger area or space than it would otherwise. The point is to make the light source bigger relative to the subject – the bigger the light source is relative to the subject, the softer the light is.
If you shoot with flash sitting on your camera, a way to diffuse the light is simply to point the flash upwards or sideways, away from your subject, and let it bounce on the ceiling or wall, so these are now your light source and not the flash itself. You can also get a little white cap to put on your flash that in itself enlarges the area of the flash light, in case you don’t want to loose so much power in the light as you do when you bounce it against a wall.
If you are outdoor shooting at noon on a cloudless day, the sun makes very hard light, i.e. the transition from light to dark happens very suddenly and you only have extremely light and extremely dark and very few shades in between. If you diffuse the light from the sun by hanging a big white sheet between the sun and your subject, you will find that this diffuses the light greatly as the light source is now the entire sheet rather than a very, very small dot very far away (also known as the sun!).
At 199 USD this is certainly one of the more affordable video lights. I do have to admit that COLBOR sent me this product for review, but they did not put any constraints on me or what I write in this review!
The build quality is not up there with the high end models, but as long as it gets the job done, I have no complaints. The buttons and dials actually feels ok.
Use
In terms of ease of use a video light is not that complicated – the COLBOR comes with a large centered dial to control the strength of the light – push it inwards once and it now controls the lights Kelvin value (warm vs cold), hit it again and you are back to controlling the strength of the light. The Kelvin steps are 10 and the power % steps are 5. You have a to turn a lot to go from one end of the Kelvin scale to the other, but I seldom do that, so steps of 10 is just fine for me.
In addition to the center dial, there is the on/off button, a mode selector, a group selector and a fan option.
The rear controls on the COLBOR CL100 Video light.
The dials on the back of the COLBOR CL100If you hold the mode selector for 3 seconds the COLBOR will enter boost mode, and for 60 seconds give you more light (120%) at the expense of running the fan at full throttle. Push the mode selector briefly and it toggles between different effects: candle, bonfire, blinking, faulty bulb, flashing and lightning. I never use any of these effect modes – if I would, I think the lightning mode is probably the most relevant as a “party trick” light.
The group selector toggles from A to E and is probably only relevant if you have more lights than one. I did not use it. And then you have the fan options to the very right – either SMART or QUIET. Strangely, I found the smart one to be the most quiet one. In general, and this is super important to me, the fan of the COLBOR is very quiet. I cannot count how many times the fan has been picked up by the microphones and I have had to edit that out in post. Not with the COLOB and that is a huge plus if you ask me!
The COLBOR mounted with my trusty soft box from Godox
I was happy to see that the COLBOR comes with a standard reflector mounted with Bowens mount. This enables me to re-use all the light modifiers I have on stock, as Bowens for me is the standard interface for light modifiers.
A shoot through umbrella.
Also, there is the option to mount an umbrella on the COLBOR as an alternative light modifier. It all works very well.
COLBOR CL100 remote control.
Currently the COLBOR comes with a remote control, and I find that it works really well. An app to replace the remote control is work in progress at the time of writing this review, so you may find that the remote is no longer supplied when you decide to order. I did tell myself that I would not be too lazy to get up and go over and adjust the light, but alas! I ended up using the remote anyway – it is very convenient, and then you just have to be a bit more active in the Gym to compensate.
Some may miss batteries if you plan to go outside for a shoot. I don’t – I stay indoor when it comes to video with light! You can get the COLBOR in an alternative version with batteries, so check that one out if batteries is important to you.
Power and warmth
I have a small studio that measures 3×4 meters and I find the COLBOR delivers sufficiently light for my purpose. My only wish is that I could have more lights to make cross light effects…
Sufficient power for my needs – here at 100%
In terms of Kelvin values, the COLBOR gives full range from 2700K to 6500K and does so with same light intensity. I have some LED panels that can only give full throttle when in the middle of the Kelvin scale; whereas the end of the spectrum they only yield half of that. Not with the COLBOR – same power irrespective of the Kelvin value – great!
Conclusion
What I like
The price
Sufficient power output
Constant power throughout the Kelvin range
The quiet fan
The Bowens interface + the umbrella mount
The convenience of the remote
That I did not pay for batteries
What I did not like
The effect modes – I have no use for these
The build quality (but factor in the price here!)
I have only had the product for a few weeks so I do not know if it will stand the test of time. So far it appears to me to be a durable product.
You may have heard of the inverse square law and seen some posts and videos going through the technical aspects of the inverse square law. I will try to stay clear of the technical aspects here, and simply say that light falloff is the fact that the intensity of the light drops fast, as you move your light source away from your subject.
Quite counter intuitively, the light falloff does not happen in a linear way, rather it drops like a stone! In the beginning that is. So if you move your flash from 1 foot away from you subject to 2 feet away, the intensity of the light has dropped not by 50% but by 75%! So by doubling the distance, you only get a quarter of the light on your subject. This is what the inverse square law is all about: the non linear relationship between light intensity and distance. You can maybe see it in the picture below, where I have taken a LED light and put it close to a white wall:
Good news is that the curve flattens quickly, so 3 feet away the light has dropped to 11% of the original light, 4 feet away it is 6 % and so on. So if you are very far away from your light source, moving one foot closer or further away means very little.
The intensity of the light drops dramatically as distance to the light source increases.
In the example above, had there been a 4th cup, it would get only 6%! If you draw a curve of the intensity of the light as a function of distance, you will get what I call a hockey stick curve – it drops a lot as distance increases only to flatten the more the distance is increased.
If you photograph a group of people and light them up using a flash, the ones standing in the rear will get a lot less light than the ones standing in the front, if you have the flash (or modifier) close to the front row. The solution is to move the flash further away from the subject to make the relative drop in light less. The price you pay is that your flash will need to work harder and that the light is less soft.
You can use the light falloff to produce a grey or black background, even if you have a white backdrop. Just make sure the distance between your subject and the backdrop is sufficient, then the light falloff will take care of “dimming” the backdrop to grey or even black! See the examples below, where the only thing changed is the increased distance between subject and the backdrop:
Here some light is still reflected from the backdrop. But not much, hence the grey color.
Here the background is black due to light falloff. But IRL the backdrop is pure white!
Using a flash and the effect of light falloff, I was able to make these withered leaves stand out on a dark background. If you are thinking that it did not look like this IRL, then you are absolutely right!
