Those look interesting. Never heard of them before a quick Google. Are you pleased with them? They look a bit expensive for LED lights but do seem to have a lot of control.
They are amazing. I learned about them from from
Troy Paiva when he started beta testing the LED1. The LED1 quickly sold out and was replaced with the LED2 last November. I was on a workshop with Troy in November and nearly everybody there had one or the other. It was pretty crazy.
I'm still getting used to the new one as the controls are a bit different. Its shape also doesn't work really well for placing it as a continuous light source. It is definitely designed for traditional hand-held light painting. While the color capability is incredible I also often find myself using them set to a tungsten white balance.
Even though 1ev on the power scale is arbitrary I have found that the stops are pretty accurate. For example, if I find an exposure I like and decide to change aperture from f4 to f8 I only need to adjust the Protomachine by 2ev to get the same exposure. I've used this in the field many times.
The LED1 is built like a tank. I've fallen and used the light to break my fall (unintentional) and it doesn't show. The LED2 has yet to prove itself but has one nagging design issue I'm a bit concerned about. The battery compartment doesn't have any springs so over time it might loosen up and lose contact with the batteries. I don't know if this will be an issue and it can be corrected but just something we noticed.
When viewed as a flashlight it is very expensive. When viewed as a piece of lighting gear it is in line with a descent speedlight. If you do light painting it beats the heck out of a handful of flashlights and pile of colored gels. In the dark is that a red, blue or green gel I'm looking at? It is designed very well and the head is machined out of a block of aluminum (also serves as a heat sink). George (the creator) said that he lost money on every LED1. This would mainly be from the low volume and cost of creating the tooling.
In the picture I posted above all three colors are from the LED1. the far formations are probably 150 yards or so away from the camera. I think I was at 1600 ISO but am not sure of the aperture. It was probably at least f8 judging by the depth of field.
The giant Makita battery on the LED1 goes forever. The smaller batteries can easily run for multiple nights of shooting without a recharge. That is assuming you aren't running it continuously at a full 9ev. The light is quite bright (for a light painting tool). It can easily put out enough light to be effective during a full Moon. Sometimes I find it to be too bright even on the lowest setting but this is when I'm using it as a continuous source on a long exposure. In this case I typically use the local plants as a gobo to cast a dappled light or choke it down to reduce the output. It really doesn't put out much light at 1ev but when shooting for 30 seconds at ISO 1600 and f2.8 it can be a bit much.
I don't regret the purchases in the least. I do sometimes question my second purchase but have frequently used them both together to achieve a shot.
Now I can't wait for the
Pixelstick to arrive. Yes, I like my toys.
