Tuesday, November 5, 2024

REVIEW: Fujifilm GFX100s II with GF 45-100mm f/4 R LM OIS WR. Medium Format with No Limits–WOW!


Fujifilm GFX 100s II with 45-100mm f/4 lens

When I reviewed the Fujifilm GFX 50s with the 32-64mm in 2019, I was impressed with the amazing image quality, but It felt a bit useless as anything but a landscape or studio camera. Sure the image quality was great, but where things were with image processing and noise reduction back then, it just was a very limited use camera with a huge price. Fast forward to 2024, and the GFX 100s II addresses all those concerns even with twice the pixels.


FUJIFILM GF 45-100mm f/4 R LM OIS WR Lens

Over the past few months I’ve had the luxury of putting this camera through its paces using the GF 45-100mm f/4 R LM OIS WR Lens and I’m pleased to say that all my past complaints have been addressed. What we have now is a camera that is usable as handheld camera for everyday use, studio, landscape and sports in good lighting conditions.

Overall I found the user controls to be excellent from the ease of use of the touch screen, to the well designed Q menu, to the great traction of the joystick, everything is there when I need it without any hassle. \ What’s more, features like object (including pets), people and eye detection (including options for right and left eye only) make it easy to get a sharp focused shot without much challenge on your part.

One feature I didn’t play with too much because the default was good were the metering modes. Part of that was because I forgot that Fujifilm hides the metering options under the Photometry setting of the Shooting Settings, but it’s easy enough to assign that feature to one of the function buttons.That said, I only had two situations during the entire time I reviewed this camera whereby the default metering wasn’t spot on.

Here’s a video that does a deeper dive into the features of this camera along with some of my thoughts:

Now a 102MP camera creates amazing image files, but it comes with some pain as well. For starters, my RAF (raw) files were typically around 62 to 104MB and my HIF (HEIF) files could be as little as 4MB, but more frequently from 12 to 34MB on average. Toss one of the files (in any format) into Photoshop, and within a few layers you easily get 1 to 2GB files. As a result, after you’ve broke the bank to buy this camera and a lens, you better plan to upgrade your Synology NAS because you are going to need a ton of high speed disk storage! With that disclaimer out of the way, you’ll be rewarded with a lot of data to work with to create amazing images. Here’s one of the first shots I did in a makeshift studio in my garage using just a couple lights:


f/13 @ 100mm for 1/125 sec at ISO 200

You quickly realize that it’s easy to recover from just about any lighting mistake you made as the dynamic range is so wide. Here’s a link to the in-camera HIF file converted to JPEG of the above photo. It was easy to cover up some of my mistakes and edit a file that captured my intent perfectly.

Real World Shots

This was literally the first photo I took with this camera, so I was pretty excited right from the start. While this review will not feature many of the photos I took, here’s a look at some unedited images I took during my time reviewing this camera. In a few cases I show a cropped version, but link to the unedited original. However, all of these photos are HIF converted to JPEG versions of the in-camera original using Lightroom classic version 14.

All of my photos shown in this article are for your personal viewing. You may not print, edit, reuse or otherwise share any of these photos without my written consent. I retain copyright ownership and all rights are reserved.

For this photo, I used a Manfrotto (formerly Lastolite) 6x7'  Illuminated Background along with a Elinchrom Rotalux Deep Octabox (100cm / 39") and a Elinchrom Rotalux Deep Octabox (100cm / 39") to capture a pretty solid in-camera image (although the one shown here is cropped, but you can click to see the original):

f/13 @ 62mm for 1/125 sec at ISO 125

The detail in the fabric, hair, and embroidery are amazing. What’s more, nothing is blown out.  This image had a lot more to work with than the predecessor I had done years back with the GFX 50s.

This next photo represents a lot of what I love about this camera. In this case, I was taking photos elsewhere when I heard a ruckus in the water. I never noticed this guy, but he was winding down for the day. Without the ability to get close enough, I just took the shot knowing that with 102mp I could just crop and still have enough pixels for a reasonable photo. Click the image to see the full uncropped version:


f/5.6 @ 100mm for 1/125 sec at ISO 40

An added bonus of taking this shot was discovering the shadow details – this is the in-camera original with only a crop, yet I can clearly make out details on the face and in the body. What’s more, the sunset sky offers an amazing background as does the faint view of the mountains – captured identical to the naked eye at that moment in time.

Here’s a better view of that sunset and the mountains, off to the right, are a bit easier to see in this one:


f/32 @ 100mm for 1/6 sec at ISO 80

Again, I was impressed with the dynamic range of this sensor – wow! Then again, taking photos of sunsets kind of became addicting with this camera.

Here’s actually the first sunset I took with this camera from a house on the Puget Sound coast in Seattle when I was supposed to taking pictures of something else (hence the odd camera settings):     


f/5.6 @ 45mm for 1/1000 sec at ISO 160

Again, zero edits – just point and click at f/5.6! If you live in Scottsdale, Arizona, this camera is a must for those amazing sunsets! And just because they are so fun to photograph, here’s another one:

Now let’s take a break from landscapes for a bit, and get to one of the surprises I discovered with this camera during the early days of my review. For kicks and giggles I decided to shoot a football game with it just to see if it was up to the task, and it did much better than I expected. Here’s a shot that is really zoomed in for the crop, but you can click it to see the original image:


f/7.1 @ 90mm for 1/800 sec at ISO 200

Even though 90mm wasn’t enough to get me right there in the action, I could toss a ton of pixels and still get a shot with plenty of pixels of the play. Here’s another play:


f/4 @ 100mm for 1/800 sec at ISO 80

It had been a while since I shot football, so it was nice being able to have some breathing room while shooting the play and then using the crop tool to get closer to the action. However, all was not perfect. Despite great light, if I did a pan too fast while shooting the camera couldn’t keep up and the image would get very distorted creating an effect I’ve never seen before:


f/8 @ 100mm for 1/800 sec at ISO 400

I had a few dozen pics like that, some of which were much worse, but I won’t hold it against the camera as this camera was never designed to be a action sports camera. That said, I wonder if it will potentially be addressed with a firmware fix in the future.

Going back into the studio, here’s an unedited shot that shows how amazing this camera is with skin tones and textures, but it also highlights the danger of use the ambiance auto white balance setting when you get back to the studio:


f/13 @ 88mm for 1/125 sec at ISO 125

Fortunately, I have the raw image so that’s a problem that’s easy to fix. However, the HIF suffers from a yellow background and the kids got unnecessarily scolded for not brushing their teeth properly – ha ha!

Speaking of textures, this camera just blew me away with every photo, so I sometimes found myself just trying things to see how much detail it would capture. Here’s another shot of my daughter in her Korean Hanbok:


f/13 @ 81mm for 1/125 sec at ISO 125

The detail in her hair, the dress, and the ribbon just make me grin every time I'm zoom in. It's going to be tough returning this camera back to B&H at the end of this review!

Speaking of detail, look at the detail in the cliff on this handheld shot of Snoqualmie Falls. Now this one is lightly edited in Lightroom due to the mixed light, but you can click the image to see the unedited original:


f/6.4 @ 45mm for 1/160 sec at ISO 320

This is a really tough shot because if you expose for the falls, the cliff is totally blown out. If you expose for the cliff (as I’ve done here) then you black out the falls. Knowing the range of this camera, I just exposed for the cliff and figured I could work it out at home – and I was right. The only problem here was that I needed a wider angle lens so I could capture more sky and the bottom of the falls, but alas the compromised shot still wasn’t too shabby for a handled snap.

Just in case you were wondering, here’s the full shot of the falls in portrait orientation zoomed out to the max at 45mm:


f/8 @ 45mm for 1/80 sec at ISO 1250

And just for fun, here’s another shot taken of the falls at that same spot using the Acros film simulation mode instead of Velvia:


f/8 @ 45mm for 1/80 sec at ISO 1250

Speaking of mixed light, this camera had me embracing mixed light instead of avoiding. The next two photos of my daughter in the park gave me a chance to play with the mixed light and I was rewarded:


f/4 @ 96mm for 1/125 sec at ISO 250

.


f/4 @ 78mm for 1/125 sec at ISO 125

That said, even light and underexposed shots still gave me a lot to work with in post-processing. Here’s one that I’ve left unedited for this article, but it was one of my favorites after cropping it to a portrait orientation and selectively lighting up my daughters face similar to the way God did in the above shots:


f/4 @ 100mm for 1/125 sec at ISO 250

In this next shot, I tried to do too much in one shot. With that gorgeous mountain and beautiful blue sky behind them, I couldn’t help myself.


f/7.1 @ 96mm for 1/110 sec at ISO 80

This shot, using the Velvia/Vivid film simulation mode, exaggerated the colors in a tasteful way that reminded me why I love shooting with Fujifilm cameras. I know some hate it and call it Velveeta, but I’m not in that camp.

Here’s another shot that I intentionally took at 1 stop underexposed so I could avoid blowing out the back right corner. Obviously I need to brighten it up on post processing, but it’s a common shot that I do for a lot of my reviews so I thought I’d include it:


Velvia - f/8 @ 45mm for 14 sec at ISO 80

This was also a 14 seconds exposure about 30 minutes before sunset in the shade, so I was happy with how much the lens and sensor gathered. Here’s one mnore that was done for 15 seconds with the Sepia film simulation applied in-camera:


Sepia - f/8 @ 45mm for 15 sec at ISO 80

For more images, visit https://photos.ronmartblog.com/fujifilm/gfx100sii/.

A Funny Thing

While taking this photo of a creek, I decided to take versions at multiple aperture settings just to examine if there were any diffraction issues:


f/32 @ 45mm for 8/10 sec at ISO 80

In the oddest of things happened, the files got larger as the f-stop number got smaller! As a result, in a few cases I had to crop in order to reduce the size to get the file size under the 64MB limit of my hosting site, Zenfolio!


Zenfolio limits originals to 64mb - who knew?!

This meant I had to crop a little off the edges to get the file under the 64mb limit as shown here in Lightroom Classic:


No important details were lost, but I needed to clip the edges to upload for this review

And below is the file in question at f/16, but ironically the f/22 file was smaller and totally fine to upload:


f/16 @ 45mm for 1/5 sec at ISO 80

The f/11 version had the same issue, but it required even more cropping so I just left it out of this review.

Film Simulation Modes

Ask any experienced film photographer what is the first thing that comes to mind when they think of Fujifilm and the answer will almost always be great color. What sets Fujifilm cameras apart from other digital cameras is that perfect transition of color film to the digital area for amazing in-camera results. I’ve done this type of discussion many times in other articles, so I won’t do a comprehensive review.

Here are just a few samples of the same shot with some different in-camera film simulation modes taken using the handy film simulation bracketing drive mode. This allows you to push the shutter release button once and get up to three different film simulation modes applied to the same shot.

Conclusion

I’m in love with Fujifilm all over again. It’s going to be tough returning this camera because I love the detail that the sensor captures, and the lens was great. Having 45-100mm zoom really gave me a lot of options with only one lens, so I never really felt myself wanting for another lens.

I can easily recommend this camera for the serious photographer and unlike its predecessor, it’s not a tripod only camera best left for landscapes and studio work – this one really can do almost anything.

Where to Buy?

CLICK HERE to learn more or buy today.

Other articles you may enjoy

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy my other recent Fujifilm review entitled REVIEW: FUJIFILM X100VI - Is it better than you smartphone?

Enjoy this and more on the Reviews tab.

Disclosure

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you a penny more, but it does help to support future articles like this.

NOTE: This site requires cookies and uses affiliate linking to sites that use cookies.

If you enjoyed this article, please support future articles like this by making a donation or saving money by using my discount coupon codes. Either way, your support is greatly appreciated!

This blog is intended for freelance writing and sharing of opinions and is not a representative of any of the companies whose links are provided on this site.

The opinions provided are of Ron Martinsen alone and do not reflect the view of any other entity

Saturday, August 24, 2024

REVIEW: FUJIFILM X100VI - Is it better than you smartphone?



FUJIFILM X100VI 40.2MP APS-C with 23mm f/2 Lens

It’s been since 2019 that I’ve reviewed a Fujifilm camera and that’s a shame. I forgot how much I’ve enjoyed the Fujifilm platform. If my memory serves me correctly the original X100 was the first X series camera I ever reviewed!

While there are numerous improvements that addressed my complaints of the early x100 and x100s, the form factor and purpose remain the same – and that’s a good thing. What’s more, the support for teleconverters means that you can get a little more functionality out of this fixed length permanently attached lens – if you so desire.

Overview

You can click the photo at the top of the article to get all the specs at B&H, so I’m not going to bore you with that. I’m also going to get closer to the modern era by introducing this camera with a video overview instead of a wall of words:

It’s a super well built and designed camera that really has few faults for someone interested in this formfactor and feature set.

Real World Images

Click here to see a gallery of some of the photos I took using the X100VI during my time reviewing it. As usual, these are all straight out of the camera with one notable exception. This camera supports HEIF, but Zenfolio doesn’t provide a good way to give you direct access to them, so I had to convert all HEIF files to JPEG (when applicable). Inline images were resized by Zenfolio, but you can download full size originals of the images that Lightroom converted from HEIF to JPG for inclusion in this gallery.

Here are my thoughts on a few photos that I found worth discussing:

Here’s one of the first pics I took with this camera right out of the box with the camera default settings and before I bothered to read the manual to refresh my memory on how to set the autofocus point:


f/2 @ 23mm for 1/125 sec at ISO 1250

As you can see the bokeh is fabulous and the detail is quite good in the raindrops despite, literally pointing and shooting like a newbie to cameras would do! If you want to know what do you really get over a cell phone, here’s a good place to start looking!

I was also pleased that for ISO 1250 that it looked this good to begin with. This particular photo was the exact in-camera JPEG as I hadn’t discovered yet that it supported HEIF at this point in the review.

Here’s another impressive handheld shot at only 1/35 sec yet the gloomy day required ISO 8000! The detail and default processing was amazing:


f/5.6 @ 23mm for 1/35 sec at ISO 8000

I was super impressed with the detail of the fine grain details in the center of the flower that didn’t get destroyed by in-camera noise reduction, and the default color was fantastic!

Here’s a jaw dropping example of the quality of this lens and the in-camera images event at ISO 5000:


f/6.4 @ 23mm for 1/35 sec at ISO 5000

I’m very pessimistic these days about lugging cameras around as cell phones have become so good, but this definitely reminded me that I might need to spend more time with the latest cameras again as this was a very impressive result!

Here’s a pretty boring photo, but again these were camera default settings doing pure point and shoot (except I did manually set the aperture). In this case I was too lazy to lay on the ground, so I just held the camera down at the level of the slug, tapped the screen like I’d do with my phone and took several photos:


f/8 @ 23mm for 1/35 sec at ISO 5000

This did pretty good knowing how I took the shot – especially with a 23mm lens not known for being a good focal length for macro photography.

On a camping trip to the North Cascades in Washington, I woke up to see this beautiful scene so I grabbed the camera and just did a quick snap before going back to bed.


f/16 @ 23mm for 1/35 sec at ISO 800

This shot would be one of my first experimentations with a large f stop number to see if there have been massive improvements with diffraction, but ultimately that didn’t appear to be the case.

A little later I’d try again (below), but still the trees in the background are pretty soft for f/16:


f/16 @ 23mm for 1/35 sec at ISO 500

In brighter conditions at a low ISO, the f/16 results were significantly better so the poor quality of the previous two photos may have been attributed to the fog and losses caused by noise reduction.


f/16 @ 23mm for 1/40 sec at ISO 125

By this point I had also enabled the Velvia film simulation mode which Fujifilm is famous for, and it did not disappoint. The colors were amazing for this scene – if you like vivid images. If not, there’s a wide variety of film simulations to suit your taste.

I love the Velvia film simulation in the woods, but some might be turned off with how it crushes some of the shadow areas as shown at the base of the trees in this shot:


f/11 @ 23mm for 1/35 sec at ISO 2000

It also gives the water a more of an unnatural tint so some might find it better to manually process a shot like this from raw to get the best results.

Without resorting to manual settings or flash, I just took this picture of Kai (yeah, he’s grown up) the way a newbie would using default settings:


f/2.8 @ 23mm for 1/150 sec at ISO 125

This is a type of shot where modern phones with their in-camera HDR can’t be beat – the results are very disappointing, so amateurs will need a better understanding of light (e.g., turn Kai into the light and avoid harsh backlight) or they’ll be frustrated compared to what they see they can accomplish with their phone.

Case in point, here’s what a iPhone 13 Pro photo of Kai taken in the same exact spot looked like straight from the phone:


Apple iPhone 13 Pro f/2.8 @ 9mm for 1/121 sec at ISO 64

So, if your goal is to take advantage of the shadows and get a more creative lighting shot then iPhone will be frustrating, but if you want a no brainer shot that is easy and just does HDR perfectly, it’s still tough to beat the best smart phones.

Here’s another example where the lighting was much more favorable:


f/4 @ 23mm for 1/250 sec at ISO 125

Yet, despite great light and God’s soft box being out in full force, with no exposure compensation the image was rather dark. Again, compared to the iPhone where the results were much more pleasing:


Apple iPhone13 Pro f/1.5 @ 5.7mm for 1/1377 sec at ISO 50

Right after this shot I started experimenting with the eye auto focus feature and got a much better result:


f/2 @ 23mm for 1/480 sec at ISO 125

This made me suspect that the default metering was to blame, so had I changed that setting I could have got results that are actually superior to the iPhone.

This also made me think about selfies – the feature that smart phone users seem to love the most. While I was out on the lake with my wife, I took a shot of my ugly mug completely blind but using the eye auto focus feature:


f/4.5 @ 23mm for 1/35 sec at ISO 160

This time, despite the sun setting with mediocre light, it did great. I’m also pleased to report that my old face didn’t destroy the camera. The Velvia mode made my skin appear a little more red than I’d like, but the rest of the scene looked great.

I was very satisfied with the quality of the lens and the super sharp details found in so many of the photos I took:


f/8 @ 23mm for 1/35 sec at ISO 500

This combined with great high ISO performance and visually satisfying colors (IMHO), made me happy to have this camera with me for my trip to the mountains.

I got a chance to give the burst mode a shot out on the ice, and while my framing was terrible, the results were good for this class of camera. Shooting on ice is tough so this is where you’ll need to experiment with the exposure compensation (+2 in this case), the white balance (florescent), and much more:


f/2.2 @ 23mm for 1/500 sec at ISO 1250

For the shots in this series I used the eye autofocus to see what it could do and I was satisfied with the results. I sucked, but the camera did its part. The iPhone was much easier to use, but I preferred the color I got using the X100 VI.

Video

While I did experiment a little bit with the video features, those who know me know that I’m not really a videographer. As a result, I can only say that it offers a wide variety of formats and settings that are certain to be superior to results found on a phone,

Viewfinder

The viewfinder on this camera supports both optical as well as digital, and that’s a good thing. The optical offers a traditional photography experience whereas the digital offers a way to see photos as they will appear on your computer or phone even in the harshest sunlight. It also provides a way to save battery when you elect to enable the EVF and turn off the rear display.

Conclusion

Once again I was reminded of the magic of Fujifilm and wasn’t disappointed one bit. Thanks to the Q menu, the touch screen and great controls, I was able to quickly dial in my favorite settings in a hurry to get the shots that I wanted. While I haven’t included many of those photos here for personal reasons, I do find this to be an extremely easy camera to use for those who understand the settings and features it offers.

I never had any battery life issues and could easily go a few days under normal usage without having to worry about recharging. When I did, I appreciated the support for USB-C to get a quick charge right in the camera.

Overall, this is a camera for photographers – not newbies – mainly because the best results will be achieved by knowing how to dial in the best settings. If you want smartphone results, use a smartphone, but if you are wanting better control over the lighting, color, shadows, and shutter speed, then this camera is going to be much more satisfying to use. If that's you, then I highly recommend this camera. 

Where to Buy?

CLICK HERE to learn more or buy today, or click here see other great cameras in the Fujifilm X-Series line up.

Disclosure

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you a penny more, but it does help to support future articles

NOTE: This site requires cookies and uses affiliate linking to sites that use cookies.

If you enjoyed this article, please support future articles like this by making a donation or saving money by using my discount coupon codes. Either way, your support is greatly appreciated!

This blog is intended for freelance writing and sharing of opinions and is not a representative of any of the companies whose links are provided on this site.

The opinions provided are of Ron Martinsen alone and do not reflect the view of any other entity

Thursday, January 11, 2024

REVIEW: Angler Bi-Color Ring Light Kit with Light Stand (18")

Angler Bi-Color Ring Light Kit with Light Stand (18")

Hey friends, long-time no blog! :)

I’m writing today because I had a need for an affordable ring light for use with my iPhone and I wanted to tell you what I thought about it.

In my world these days it’s becoming increasingly rare for me to need to use my DSLR, so like a lot of people I frequently use my phone camera for internal use only product shots and education videos. That said, for amazing as modern smartphones are for creating phenomenally good HDR images and pulling off amazing results in low light, sometimes you just need more light to get your desired results.

In my case, I found myself wanting something that would allow me to interact and record a tutorial video or review of something I was interacting with, but I still wanted to see my cell phone while I was doing it. I also wanted the light to be very good – you know, like pretty much every YouTuber these days!

When I started looking for options, the prices were more than I wanted and some of the purchases I made from Amazon were pretty bad. As a result, I reached out to my friends at B&H to leverage their expertise to find something that worked well but also didn’t break the bank.

My key criteria were:

  1. Affordable
  2. Diffused light
  3. Ability to control the temp
  4. Big enough to use for products as well as face lighting
  5. Ability to see my phone screen while recording, so this meant a phone mount as well as a pivot arm design.
  6. Easily portable for many use cases.

I’m happy to report that the Angler Bi-Color Ring Light Kit checked off all of the boxes and was almost perfect.

This shot was taken using JPEG only (doh) and mixed light (ambient light was tungsten with sources in front and behind the subject and edited heavily in Lightroom to make it suck less:


Kai with his dog Teddy using Canon 1DX II JPG and low brightness

Kai was struggling with the brightness, so I cranked it down low enough for him to tolerate it. If it wasn’t a quick and dirty shot (and a bit of luck with the dog), I probably would have taken a bit more time to make it much better. That said, that is what I like about this light – it allows me to do a lot better than my cell phone with very little effort. It makes experimentation much easier than traditional lighting methods thanks to the lightweight portable stand and battery powered light with adjustable temp and brightness!

A Closer Look

Here’s a closer look at the ring light itself:


Excellent diffusion panel on the front


Plenty of hot shoe mounting points for the camera adapter

Notice the inside and outside hot shoes all over things thing. It’s also shown with the batteries installed (included on some bundles), but it also includes the ability to just plug it into an outlet which saves weight.


Camera adapter could easily fit my iPhone 13 Pro with extra space left over

The camera adapter can be placed in any of the hot shoe mounts, but I elected to put it in the 6 O’clock spot. One side is spring loaded, so it supports many phones. My unit had a pretty strong spring, so I could only get it to open to just under 3 inches in width.


The hot shoe phone adapter could easily be moved to where I needed it

I used a Impact C-Stand  along with a grip head and extension arm
for added flexibility and reach for this scenario


With this setup, I could peek through and interact with the lens
on the table while monitoring the video
Notice how the captured content has drifted off the table!

Remember, my goal here was to test the ability to record where I was both interacting with and viewing the video of with an object on a table using my iPhone. I hate video editing, so I’ll spare you that boredom and just show a shot that I did with the iPhone 13 Pro and enhanced with Topaz AI:


iPhone 13 Pro static image taken using the ring light configured as shown previously

As a lighting tool, it did great. Where it failed miserably (as you can see if you look carefully in the prior image is that the ring light would drift and often overshoot the table. This seems to be due to the lack of any sort of teeth or serrations on the adjustment knob, so I really grew frustrated at this problem. While it might be fixed by adding a rubber washer or something, know that going in won’t “just work” for this scenario, It’s fine when upright vs this extreme angle with the weight of the camera on it, so if your goal is to do a podcast or more practical angles, then it will be great.

Testing in Complete Darkness

I wanted to test with a real camera in a normal scenario where the camera isn’t hanging from the hot shoe. For that scenario, it did great.

Light makes up for the lack of shutter speed, so I decided to push things to the limit, and this time using RAW, to see what I could do. Here were my light settings:


61% brightness in total darkness at 5400k

Even though the room was lit (by the ring light) for the shot, it was done at night with no ambient light beyond the Christmas tree for this shot.

For fun, I decided to use the Passport ColorChecker to make sure the foreground color was as accurate as I could get it, but for those who are new to the complexities of lighting – that only impacts the subject (Kai) and has zero impact on the ambient light on the background.


Canon 1DX Mark II f/2.8 @ 70mm for 1/10 sec at ISO 100 from RAW

Here’s a behind the scenes look but I didn’t make any effort to get accurate colors or light for this shot:


The camera was on its own tripod for this series and just shooting through

Conclusion

For the price of about 1 to 2 tanks of gas these days (at the time this was written), I think this ring light offers a lot of bang for the buck. Its ease of use, portability and overall quality of light were way more than I was expecting.

Will it keep up with my studio lighting? No, but it’s great for on the go video that is all to common these days with social media influencers who need professional looking light when on the camera as well as when interacting with products.

The Impact Air-Cushioned Light Stand (Black, 8') included in this review was perfect for cost effective portability, but I wouldn’t recommend it for the product review scenario I mentioned. For that, you’ll definitely want to invest in a C-Stand or even better, a base with wheels  along with a grip head and extension arm. While you are at it, don’t forget a saddle bag (bring your own sand).

Where to Buy?

CLICK HERE to learn more or buy today. Don’t forget that you can apply for the Payboo card and get special financing to make it easier to purchase in these difficult times.

Enjoy more classic reviews on the Reviews tab.

Disclosure

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you a penny more, but it does help to support future articles like this.

NOTE: This site requires cookies and uses affiliate linking to sites that use cookies.

If you enjoyed this article, please support future articles like this by making a donation or saving money by using my discount coupon codes. Either way, your support is greatly appreciated!

This blog is intended for freelance writing and sharing of opinions and is not a representative of any of the companies whose links are provided on this site.

The opinions provided are of Ron Martinsen alone and do not reflect the view of any other entity