When a network photographer is chasing news, it can be more than an inconvenience to stop and change a light filter when running from daylight to indoors. But two companies working together, Lamina, a leading developer and manufacturer of high-power LED light engines, and Zylight, specialists in developing LED light instruments for the film and video production industry, have changed that, as well as the level of ease with which film and news photographers all over the world do their jobs.
“Prior to the Zylight units, there was no light in the industry that was portable and that could adapt to different light conditions by changing color temperature,” said Collias. “Clear daylight is very blue, or cool. Indoor light at night is orange, or very warm. It’s difficult to reproduce that accurately on film or video. But the Zylight, which carefully mixes the red, green and blue components of the Titan module, enables photographers to change white light output according to the needs of a particular situation or scene, and do it at the touch of a button.”
In the past, a photographer or lighting professional would have to stop and change a bulb or flip down a filter to achieve similar results. The Zylight unit containing the Titan LED allows a photographer to, for example, follow a football player from bright sunlight on the field into a dimly-lit locker room, with no sacrifice in time or film quality.
Lamina and Zylight have collaborated by integrating Lamina’s Titan LED, the highest-output LED light engine available, into Zylight’s intelligent LED Z50 and Z90 light units. The result is a palm-sized computer that creates not just light, but the brightest light available for film and video production. The units, which clip easily onto a camera or just about anywhere else, are used by photographers covering news for CNN, NBC, Fox News and ESPN. They are also a favorite of both independent and Hollywood filmmakers, and have been used in environments as extreme as Mount Everest.
The collaboration between the two companies and the resulting units represent an industry first.
“We started communicating with Lamina as far back as 2004,” said Jim Collias, Director of Engineering for Zylight. “This type of thing had never been done before and Lamina was extremely helpful in working with us to develop a product that would successfully address the issues of the film and video industry.”
“It’s just one more great use of our ground-breaking Titan LEDs, and a terrific way to maximize the Titan’s compact size and powerful output,” said Dan Polito, Vice President of Marketing for Lamina.
Compact size is a key attribute for equipment used by photographers on the move, whether they are “run-and-gun” Electronic News Gathering professionals, filmmakers lighting an intricate scene, or adventure documentarians shooting at 26,000 feet above sea level.
<font size=1>Source: Business Wire</font>
