Low Degree Lighting with Lume Dice

Authentic Lume Dice 1.0 1.6″ x 1.6″ (about golf ball dimension)

Lighting with Lume Dice. This November marks the fifth yr anniversary of Lume Dice, the superb little firm in San Diego, California that began a photographic lighting revolution. The preliminary idea got here to life through a Kickstarter Marketing campaign. Their highly effective little LED lighting cubes have been rugged and waterproof, making them excellent for GoPro digital camera customers who wished so as to add lighting to their journey sports activities movies and nonetheless photographs. Cellular phone digital camera customers {and professional} photographers additionally began adapting the Lume Dice for his or her wants. As soon as the dice began to rise in recognition, requests started to pour in for equipment to make them extra helpful in quite a lot of lighting conditions. Authentic equipment included a snap-on filter holder that allowed magnetic diffusion filters and varied shade filters to connect in entrance of the sunshine.

A bit too shiny! At 1500 lumens (750 LUX @ 1M), the Lume Dice was very highly effective for its dimension. Manually adjustable through an influence button on the highest, it may do 10 totally different brightness ranges in 10% increments, from 100% to 10%. This energy vary works nice for my common picture initiatives, particularly as fill and accent lighting for outside portraits. Nevertheless, even 10% was too shiny for Low Degree Lighting (LLL) of some shut nightscape foreground topics.

Dimming down the Lume Dice: Early customers of the the Lume Dice discovered they’d to make use of a number of layers of material or tissue paper to filter-down the depth. A few of these similar customers discovered that Lume Dice’s early cell phone app may remotely cut back the unique Lume Dice depth even additional (the above picture was lit with the early Dice diminished to 1/32 energy). The present Lume-X iPhone/Android App will wirelessly management the unique Lume Dice 1.0 and the brand new 2.0 model from 60 toes away (each are Bluetooth enabled gadgets). The app permits distant brightness changes in 1% increments, all the best way right down to 1 p.c!

Moon Caves (slot canyon) in Cathedral Gorge lit with moonlight and a Lume Dice, with a diffusion bulb and a CTO warming gel hooked up to the entrance of the sunshine. Brightness @ 50% strolling into the cave. Lowest brightness strolling out of cave ~ © Royce Bair

The NEW Lube Dice 2.0 is LLL prepared! On the surface, the newly redesigned Lume Dice 2.0 would not look quite a bit totally different than the unique, however inside, it’s full of some nice new options and know-how. For Low Degree Lighting customers, essentially the most thrilling is its new 2 button management system to extend and reduce brightness manually. Though you should utilize the Lume-X app to remotely go to decrease mild ranges, now you can manually allow the LOW LIGHT MODE by holding down each buttons. This permits tremendous fine-tune low-level brightness management from 1%-10% proper from the Dice’s buttons! Value is $89.95 per unit.

2.0 with included equipment

Gentle modification equipment included: The two.0 additionally comes with a Magnetic Softening Diffuser and a Magnetic Warming CTO Gel for warming shade temperature (Down from 5600K to 4500K), plus a Modification Body for mounting these and different equipment it’s possible you’ll selected to buy in a while.

Longer operating and higher mild high quality: Full energy mild output from the two.0 is identical 1.0, however runtime has been elevated to an incredible 1.5 hours (I used to be getting solely about 20 minutes with the unique)! After all, whenever you decrease your brightness right down to 10% or much less, you’ll get a number of hours of runtime, which is ideal for timelapse work. Gentle shade high quality has gone from a considerably bluish 6000K to the extra pure 5600K, and from a 91 CRI to a 95+ CRI (whereas this will not imply quite a bit to panorama photographers, portrait photographers will love the higher pores and skin tones).

Different included options: 5 different options I like within the 2.0 are 1.) wider 80º angle beam protection vs. the older 60º beam; 2.) quicker USB-C charging; 3.) the brand new cost indicator mild that extra clearly exhibits energy situation of your battery; 4.) a brand new 360º optical sensor for slave flash functionality; 5.) and the brand new aluminum physique that’s far more rugged and sturdy.

Extra lighting equipment: The Lume Dice 2.0 and the unique 1.0 have many different lighting modifiers out there to them through the Modification Body. As soon as the body is snapped onto the entrance of the Lume Dice, any considered one of these filters or diffusers (and mixtures in stacks) can magnetically connect to the body. System gadgets might be bought individually or in bundles for higher financial savings:

Ought to I purchase the cheaper Lume Dice AIR? The Lume Dice AIR is $20 lower than the Lume Dice 2.0, and is a superb product. It’s a little smaller and lighter, however it has diminished options that will not be the most effective mild product for some photographers, particularly these doing LLL nightscapes. Listed here are a few of the main variations between the AIR and the two.0:

• AIR doesn’t have the “Low Gentle Mode” characteristic
• AIR solely has 4 brightness ranges: 100%, 75%, 50% and 25%
• AIR doesn’t have Bluetooth, so is not going to work with the Lume-X app
• AIR’s 1000 lumens (400 lux @ 1M) at full energy is 33% much less shiny than 2.0
• AIR’s useful magnetic again is an issue for drone use (can intrude with GPS)
• AIR will not be a rugged as the two.0’s aluminum body

NEW Lume Dice Panel! I’ve saved this superb new product for final. It is quick changing into my favourite mild. The Lume Dice Panel is a bi-color LED panel mild and likewise features as an influence financial institution to recharge my cell phone! It is extremely small—in regards to the dimension of my cell phone, or about 1/4 the dimensions of different panel lights I’ve been utilizing up to now for my LLL. That includes an intuitive LCD display on again, the Panel not solely permits you to modify shade temperature and brightness, however offers you rapid suggestions on how lengthy the sunshine will final at every brightness setting. Though its compact and glossy design permits it to suit properly on prime of your digital camera, the place I take advantage of it as a fill mild in my portrait, macro and video pictures; I usually use it off-camera (on a lightweight stand), particularly for my LLL work, so I can create extra modeling, texture and drama in my foreground landscapes. Value is $149.95 per panel.

Click on to enlarge and consider options

LUME CUBE PANEL Specs:

• Shade Temperature: 3200K – 5600K
• Brightness Vary 5%-100%, adjustable by 5% increments 
• Max Brightness: 400 Lux @ 1M
• CRI: 96+
• Run Time on 5% Brightness: 7.5 Hours
• Run Time on 50% Brightness: 3 Hours
• Run Time on 100% Brightness: 90 Minutes
• Rechargeable through Micro USB and USB-C
• Constructed-In Li-Polymer Battery: 3.85V 4040mAh
• Energy financial institution Output: 5V 2A
• Dimensions: 151x80x9.8mm
• Weight: 180g

How does the Lume Dice Panel examine to different panel lights I’ve used? For a few years I’ve used the Z96 LED Panel Lights that I’ve talked about on this weblog and in my Milky Manner NightScapes eBook. This is likely one of the oldest and most compact panel mild designs, but it’s about 2X bigger and heavier than the Lume Dice Panel. This previous design requires magnetic snap on CTO filters to alter the colour temperature from 5600K to 3200K (and there aren’t any in between shade temperatures out there). Energy comes from 5 replaceable AA batteries (about 15-20 minutes of run time at full brightness) or snap on Sony fashion NP-F Li-ion batteries (bigger NP-F batteries sizes gives you longer run instances). Batteries are usually not included, and the NP-F batteries can get fairly dear. The real F&V Z96 model will price you $159. Chinese language rip-offs on Amazon normally price beneath $100. F&V has a more recent bi-color Z180S panel mild design, that permits you to dial in your shade temperature just like the Lume Dice Panel, however it will price you $365.

Earlier than the Lume Dice Panel, I used the Genaray LED-6200T 144 LED Variable-Shade On-Digicam Gentle after I wished a bi-color panel mild. It is about 4X bigger and at the very least 20% heavier (relying the battery dimension you purchase) than the Lume Dice; and it’ll price you $139. The Genaray solely makes use of the snap in NP-F batteries (a small NP-F550 is included). Full energy brightness is about 25% higher than the Lume Dice panel, however minimal brightness stops at 10% with the Genaray, whereas the Lume can go all the best way right down to 1%. Two large downside I see with most mild panels is that 1.) none of those different panel lights have any kind of a battery meter, and a pair of.) almost all use a low-tech analog dimmer knob with no brightness reference markings. The Lume Dice has a digital LED brightness readout that may be precisely referred to or repeated in future picture setups, and so they have an incredible battery meter with correct projections as to how lengthy the battery will final on the present brightness.

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