3 Tools to Light the Way

1. FJ Westcott Flex LED
LED lights have many virtues, including that they’re low power and stay cool even after hours of non-stop use. They can also be manufactured in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. We’re only just beginning to scratch the surface of what LED lights can look like—and do.

The Westcott Flex is a good example. This 10 x 10-inch light features 256 LED diodes on a frame that can be bent and shaped in a variety of ways. Need a circular light tube? Roll the Flex. Need a curved light source mounted in a hard-to-reach angle? Bend the Flex and clamp it where it’s needed. Need an inconspicuous light source on a set? Pop the Flex into just about any nook or cranny.

The Flex LED mat will be available in both tungsten and daylight versions producing 55W of illumination. Opt for tungsten and you’ll enjoy 1,600 Lux output at 1 meter with a 98 Color Rendering Index (or CRI, which measures a light’s ability to accurately render all the colors of its spectrum with 100 being the highest possible score). The daylight-balanced version of the Flex, which we tested, delivers 1,900 Lux at 1 meter with a slightly lower CRI at 95. The light is dimmable from 5 to 100 percent brightness. The Flex kit includes a dimmer module, X-Mount bracket, 1/4-stop front diffusion cloth and dimmer extension cable. It retails for $720.

DESIGN
The design of the Flex is its obvious selling point. Once you’ve bent it, the wire frame retains its shape. You can, however, also mount it to a light stand with the X-Bracket mount that affixes to the four corners of the light and clamps onto a stand. Photographer and fellow product tester David Patiño said he would have liked a traditional light stand mount as an option, too. Nevertheless, the .4 pound Flex is super light, so you can clamp it just about anywhere. It’s slender, too, at just .25 inches. “If you’re traveling, it’s super easy to drop one or two of these in a bag,” Patiño observed.

WHAT WE LIKED
The Flex does a very nice job holding its shape. Its power cord is extendable via a series of threaded extension cords that are tough to accidentally pull apart so you won’t worry about someone tripping over them on a set. We also like that it’s water resistant so it can take the occasional coffee spill or spritz of rain in stride. The light is also surprisingly powerful despite its small size and thin dimensions.

WHAT WE DIDN’T LIKE
For all its versatility, there’s not yet a battery option for the Flex. Westcott says one is in the works but details and pricing on that option weren’t finalized at press time. Also, for $700, you’re still getting a fairly small LED, even if it does bend in interesting ways. You’d have to really prize the Flex’s portability and bendability to justify the investment.

HOW IT COMPARES
The most direct competitor to the Flex (at press time) is a product called the RagLite, which ended a successful crowdfunding campaign at the end of last year. We don’t know the final price yet, so drawing a direct comparison is difficult. Still, if the Flex concept intrigues you, the RagLite promises to do much the same, but also has a battery and is available in more than one size. Westcott has also promised additional sizes and battery options for the Flex, so we’re only at the beginning of what looks like a novel and exciting evolution in lighting technology.

2. Rosco LitePad Axiom
Rosco has over a century’s worth of experience with lighting gels and filters. While LED technology can’t claim such a long ancestry, the company’s Axiom line of LED light panels channels Rosco’s heritage with a housing designed to accept the company’s Roscolux and Cinegel filters and gels.

The LitePad Axiom is available in either tungsten or daylight color temperatures in sizes ranging from 3 x 6 inches up to 24 x 24 inches. We kicked the tires on a 12 x 12-inch daylight version, which has a CRI of 90 and retails for $649.

DESIGN
The Axiom is housed in a very sturdy steel and aluminum frame. You won’t worry about knocking it around, but it’s also fairly heavy at just shy of 4 pounds. In the box you’ll get a 1/4-20 baby pin and a 1/4-20 Axiom bracket, but you’ll have to shell out about $35 to get the Swivel Arm attachment. The back of the Axiom has a quick-release mounting system so you can use a variety of hardware to mount the light to a stand, wall plate or more.

WHAT WE LIKED
During his time with the Axiom, Patiño found it to be an excellent all-purpose light source, casting a pleasing illumination over his subjects. It’s not powerful enough for still photography at ISO 100 unless you want to place it super close to your subject, he told us, but it is ideal for video. The ability to easily slide the full range of Rosco filters and gels into the light is another useful feature—Patiño frequently turned to the Photo Lighting kit to modify his LitePad.

WHAT WE DIDN’T LIKE
There’s no on/off switch for the Axiom. It’s powered on the minute you plug it in, which can be a hassle because it’s not always convenient to work your way to an outlet. Fortunately, the light stays cool and LEDs are long-lasting so we found it easier to keep it plugged in during use. Also, there’s no dimming capability in the standard package, so you’re stuck with a single output setting and can’t dial it up or down based on your needs. You can buy an optional dimmer for $105 and Rosco sells certain Axiom kits that include dimmers, but many competitive panels include built-in dimming.

HOW IT COMPARES
There is no shortage of LED light panels these days and the Axiom fares very well on price. However, many of its competitors include dimming capability and if that’s important to you, the price of the Axiom will go up. The ability to slide in Rosco gels is a nice value-add, the performance is consistent, and the mounting hardware worked well for us.

3. Godox QT-600
Godox is attempting to stake a claim in the U.S. market by carving out territory held by lower-cost lighting manufacturers like Paul C. Buff. The QT-600 nicely encapsulates their pitch: it’s a highly functional studio strobe at a price that won’t bring tears to your eyes.

The strobe, priced at $439, is capable of firing up to 10 flashes per second with a flash duration between 1/5000 and 1/800 of a second (depending on your power setting). Recycle times range from .05 at low power to 1.2 seconds when firing at full power. You’ll also find a 150W modeling lamp. Power is adjustable from full to 1/128 in 50 steps, although not uniformly. Power is adjustable in 1/10th-stop increments down to 1/32 power and then in 1/3-stop increments over the last three stops. Godox promises you’ll maintain a consistent color temperature of 5600K plus or minus 100K over the entire power range.

DESIGN
The QT-600 weighs in at 6.6 pounds and is enclosed in a solid hard shell that reminded us of the more expensive Elinchrom ELC Pro HD 500. While Godox is pitching value, the QT-600 doesn’t feel cheap. The menu and control buttons on the back of the light are straightforward, with two dials, four buttons and a small LED to read out your power setting. We did have one design quibble though: The wireless transmitter has four channel settings that you set by moving tiny sliders up or down. These are quite small and bunched together and it wasn’t always easy to set the channel we desired. Also, the flash tube bulb is not completely enclosed like other moonlights we’ve used. There’s a circular opening to make room for the modeling lamp bulb. That means you are on clumsy umbrella poke away from buying extra flash bulbs ($69 a pop) or modeling lamp bulbs.

WHAT WE LIKED
We enjoyed a consistent performance from the flash in the studio and were pleasantly surprised by the shot-to-shot performance in burst mode. We used the QT-600 with the new Canon 7D Mark II, and while it couldn’t keep up with the 7D Mark II at full power, we saw consistent results from the lowest power setting to 7.5. We appreciated how easy it was to set up the strobe, and the price is most definitely right.

WHAT WE DIDN’T LIKE
Wireless reception isn’t built into the flash, which isn’t surprising given the price, but this proved to be a hassle since the USB dongle that delivers wireless capability doesn’t fit very well. A slight bump will cause the wireless receiver to lose its connection with the transmitter—sometimes we’d lose just the ability to control the power setting, at other times it dropped the connection completely.

HOW IT COMPARES
Stacked against Paul C. Buff’s Einstein light, the QT-600 is heavier, larger and doesn’t offer as much control at the lower power settings, plus advertises slightly less color consistency shot-to-shot. It’s also sturdier and slightly less expensive than the Einstein. Not only that, but it bundles an S-Mount reflector for adding modifiers and includes the wireless transmitter/receiver, both of which aren’t included when you spring for the Einstein. The Godox QT-600 is not the absolute cheapest 600W/s strobe on the market, but it’s definitely the most capable for the price.

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