Newest video lights

[Jonathan Bird]

For those of you who haven't heard yet, our own Daniel Bodenstein, son of Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarl, has been developing a new underwater video light system, based on some REALLY bright LED technology. He came down to the Bahamas with us to test his prototypes. He had been talking about them for a few months and I wasn't sure what to expect. Here is this 25 year old mechanical engineer saying he was going to do what none of the other big video housing companies could do. (Bright, reliable, 5600 degrees Kelvin, long burn time, wide beam pattern and not too expensive). What did I expect? I'm not sure.

So he shows up on the boat and pulls out the light heads. They are tiny, weeny teeny little things. About the size of a film canister (for you old school types). Damn, I'm impressed. He plugs them into the battery pack and they are bright as hell, even illumination, 5600 degrees Kelvin (daylight) and no hot spots. The kid is seriously on to something.

So he took them underwater, let the sharks abuse them. Found a few things to improve in the battery pack, and now he is working on the second version. I will be using them on an actual shoot in Australia next month. I seriously believe that these are going to be the best underwater video lights on the market. They are 2400 lumens (brighter than the 2000 lumen system made by Light and Motion) and good coverage angle. They are not too blue as many of the LED systems are. They are light, small and powerful with good burn time. More updates to post. These are going to be the lights to own!

Jonathan

[sorvju-f]

For those of you who haven't heard yet, our own Daniel Bodenstein, son of Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarl, has been developing a new underwater video light system, based on some REALLY bright LED technology. He came down to the Bahamas with us to test his prototypes. He had been talking about them for a few months and I wasn't sure what to expect. Here is this 25 year old mechanical engineer saying he was going to do what none of the other big video housing companies could do. (Bright, reliable, 5600 degrees Kelvin, long burn time, wide beam pattern and not too expensive). What did I expect? I'm not sure.

So he shows up on the boat and pulls out the light heads. They are tiny, weeny teeny little things. About the size of a film canister (for you old school types). Damn, I'm impressed. He plugs them into the battery pack and they are bright as hell, even illumination, 5600 degrees Kelvin (daylight) and no hot spots. The kid is seriously on to something.

So he took them underwater, let the sharks abuse them. Found a few things to improve in the battery pack, and now he is working on the second version. I will be using them on an actual shoot in Australia next month. I seriously believe that these are going to be the best underwater video lights on the market. They are 2400 lumens (brighter than the 2000 lumen system made by Light and Motion) and good coverage angle. They are not too blue as many of the LED systems are. They are light, small and powerful with good burn time. More updates to post. These are going to be the lights to own!

Jonathan

Here is couple of picture s from Daniels project.

At least the lemon sharks were impressed.

Finally one lemon shark bite the wires broken.

http://sorvjuf.1g.fi/kuvat/Bahama%2010-16.04.2010/Lemon%20B9%20WM%20800.jpg/full

http://sorvjuf.1g.fi/kuvat/Bahama%2010-16.04.2010/Lemon%20B8%20WM%20800.jpg/full

Jukka

[Sharp]

That sounds very interested!

Let us know about the updates.

[Bodie]

Sharp- Will do. Look for a big information update in about a week.

A little information about the prototype in Jukka's pictures:

What your seeing a mockup battery box. Its job was simply to get the electronics underwater and see how the light heads worked in a real diving environment. As these were prototypes, nothing was anodized or even polished. Don't take any of the form factor in the picture to be what the real battery box will be. The production version coming next month will be lighter, smaller, user-friendly (rear oriented magnetic controls), and designed to mount to housings quickly.

The light heads are 1 3/8" in diameter and roughly 1 1/4" long.

Still finalizing the price, but I think everyone will be happy with where it will end up.

The design is all but complete- we've even machined the first half-dozen but if anyone has any must have features, post them up and if we don't have them already- we can see about getting them incorporated. We perform all our own machining in-house so we can perform changes quickly.

We're also going to start making mounting kits for housings so post up your housing model if you want to get it included in the first round of mount offerings.

If you've got more questions, post them here or feel free to email me:
dan @ boulderes.com

-Dan

[Neptune7]

Sharp- Will do. Look for a big information update in about a week.

A little information about the prototype in Jukka's pictures:

What your seeing a mockup battery box. Its job was simply to get the electronics underwater and see how the light heads worked in a real diving environment. As these were prototypes, nothing was anodized or even polished. Don't take any of the form factor in the picture to be what the real battery box will be. The production version coming next month will be lighter, smaller, user-friendly (rear oriented magnetic controls), and designed to mount to housings quickly.

The light heads are 1 3/8" in diameter and roughly 1 1/4" long.

Still finalizing the price, but I think everyone will be happy with where it will end up.

The design is all but complete- we've even machined the first half-dozen but if anyone has any must have features, post them up and if we don't have them already- we can see about getting them incorporated. We perform all our own machining in-house so we can perform changes quickly.

We're also going to start making mounting kits for housings so post up your housing model if you want to get it included in the first round of mount offerings.

If you've got more questions, post them here or feel free to email me:
dan @ boulderes.com

-Dan

One set of lights for moi!
Amphibico Phenom Z1 housing
Pierre