2013-09-09T21:00:00
Rated 4 out of 5
Compact kit with a few flaws
The litepanels sola flight kit is a great compact light kit suitable for basic lighting scenarios.
My first light kit as a professional cameraman was a similar setup - 3 lights with barndoors and 3 stands, the difference being those light were 800w each, were big, got extremely hot and would often trip fuses if they were all plugged into the same circuit.
This kit could not be more compact.
Although i am happy with the kit, the following are my gripes.
The included DC coiled cables are too short and not usable to run the lights off battery power without an extension or mounting the battery on the light stand.
The case, though well designed leaves no room for any accessories, like batteries, extension cables etc..
The included color correcting gels can not be used without the barndoors attached and the softbox can only be attached without the barndoors.
The softbox is a little too small to be very useful.
The ball mounts for attaching the lights to a stand are horrible. Not only do they have to be removed to fit In the case but they are big and awkward and one of mine broke the first time I used it. I now use manfroto mounts.
The lights have a very quiet fan inside them and while you would not normally hear them, if they were close to a mic you would definatley hear it.
The lights have a slight pinkish hue, though a bit of 1/4 green will fix it
Besides the above, this is a nice kit and with a few additions, extremely portable.
I have set up my kit with a v-mount battery adapter with 3 d-tap outputs and a couple of d-tap extensions and can easily run all 3 light s from a single battery.
Instead of the included case, I have chosen to use a slightly bigger case so I can also include a few dedolight a and accessories.
DAN S.
