As all professional photographers and filmmakers know, lighting can make or break your shot, and having the right equipment on-set is what makes the difference in the output of your work. And the latest offering from Litepanels — the Gemini 2×1 Soft Panel () — can do just that.
Now in a brighter, wider, and lighter form than its predecessor (the 1×1 panel) the Gemini brings with it a combined daylight, tungsten, and red-green-blue LED that give you precision color control and a light that’s flicker-free at any frame rate, shutter angle, or intensity, for optimal workflow. The 325 watts of light include a Kelvin color temperature is adjustable, starting from 2,700 and reaching 6,000, and can be adjusted using green and magenta fine-tuning.
With a full-spectrum white light and a smartphone control system that lets you remotely dictate the color and levels you’d like at any given time, and a gel mode that has pre-programmed gels (a huge plus for studio and portrait photographers!).
The larger surface area of the Gemini, and a wide range of colors and color modes, makes it a powerful addition to your lighting setup, given the control you have over hue, saturation, intensity, and more.
The soft diffuser panel, and its size, provides a solid option to smooth out skin, and regardless of frame rate or levels, it truly is flicker-free. Built-in Bluetooth (an industry-first, in fact) and wireless options allow for remote controlled adjustments, and modules can also be controlled via DMX or Wireless DMX, and a menu system on the rear of the unit can give you a hands-on option.
Starting with a daylight-to-tungsten base, you can easily adjust your color as needed (any color from the 360-degree wheel), to match the available ambient lighting. You can also choose from any of the popular gel options (more on that in a second) and save your presets for faster implementation mid-shoot.
With three lighting modes — correlated color temperature (CCT) mode that has daylight-to-tungsten lighting with plus/minus green level adjustment, HSI mode that gives you power over hue, saturation, and intensity, and a final gel mode — you can avoid any color shift as you change intensity from zero to 100 percent. Added lighting effects modes, that include TV, emergency lights, fire, hue burst, paparazzi, fireworks, party lights, pulsing, square, and strobe modes, give you even more on-hand lighting options. Better yet, with realistic skin tone accuracy, it means you won’t be spending time color correcting in post-production.
The unit comes with a built-in power supply — which makes it far lighter than other panels at just 22.2 pounds — but allows for an additional battery (via 3-pin XLR) or daisy-chaining that can be great for location-based shooting, yet with less cables. Plus, the helpful LCD screen and controls make it easy to operate from all heights.
Accessories including honeycomb grids and barn doors give you even more options for your lighting setup, and a master/replica mode allows for several lights to be connected together, letting you control all units from a single location.
To see the Gemini in-use, and for more information, check out Adorama’s own Daniel Nortons do a hands- on review of the product, and check out the video below:
