Adding quality light to your photos or video is the best way to make them look better. Sandmarc, which is more well known for its iPhone filters, recently released its Prolight Bi-Color and Prolight RGB portable lights that are a perfect addition to the mobile photography kit or a YouTube studio, like mine. Head below to watch the video and see them in action.
Prolight Bi-Color
First, let’s take a look at the Prolight Bi-Color. Coming in at $89.99, the Prolight Bi-Color is the company’s brightest offering with a max of 1,500 lux at .5 meters. With the diffuser off, the panel measures in at 4.4 x 2.8 x .4 inches and is incredibly portable. The panel has a ¼-20-inch thread on the bottom for mounting on tripods or other locations.
Along the top of the panel are the USB-C charging port and the power button. On the right side is the control for adjusting brightness or color temperature. Just press in the rocker to change mode and push it up or down to dial in the value.
On the back, we find the screen that gives all of the information for current settings.
With a CRI of 95+, the Sandmarc Prolight Bi-Color offers quality LED lighting all the way from 3000 to 6500K. It’s easy to dial in the color temp to your shooting location and match it with most lighting conditions.
Packing a 3000mAh battery, the Prolight Bi-Color should last for around 100 minutes at 100% brightness.
Prolight RGB
If Bi-Color isn’t enough or you want to throw some more interesting colors into the mix, the Prolight RGB provides over 16 million hues to match creative ideas. It is a bit more expensive, though, coming in at $129.99.
Design-wise, it’s almost identical to the Bi-Color. It is just a bit thicker, measuring 4.4 x 2.8 x .53 inches, but the power button, mounting point, and dial rocker are all in the same positions. Pressing in the adjustment dial allows changes to hue, saturation, and value or brightness.
Sandmarc Prolight RGB and Bi-Color: Video
One additional feature on the Prolight RGB, though, is the FX mode. With a single press of the power button, the RGB light enters FX mode which enables special effects for an SOS mode, lightning simulation, police lights, and more.
The combination of colors with the special FX modes makes the Prolight RGB a powerful creative tool that is easy to pack along for any shoot.
In-Use
I’ve been using both of these lights quite a bit in videos recently. They’ve been a great way to add little pops of color into my shots. Often, I try to dial in the Sandmarc Prolight RGB to a color similar to the brand or packaging of the particular product. So, like with Razer, I’d dial the light to try and match that bright Razer Green. In the image above, the Prolight RGB is in the lower left of the image while the Bi-Color is adding some light from the upper right.
As a rim light (behind the product and slightly off to the side) I think it adds a nice bit of interest to the shot. Drag the slider above to see a before and after of adding the Sandmarc Prolight Bi-Color on the left and Prolight RGB on the right.
In a recent interview I helped shoot, the Prolight Bi-Color was the perfect way to light up a US flag behind the interviewee. Because of their small size and portability, both lights are incredibly handy to have along for shoots and can be set up in no time to add some creative light to any scene.
Wrapping up
Overall, these lights are both a great way to spice up mobile photography and video or just to have in a lighting kit for special situations. I really enjoy the light they’ve been adding to my videos here on 9to5Toys, but also in other projects, as well.
Buy Sandmarc Prolight Bi-Color
Buy Sandmarc Prolight RGB
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