On the planet of images and videography, nothing is extra vital than lighting. A smartphone digicam with good lighting will outperform the nicest mirrorless in the marketplace if it has unhealthy lighting. Figuring out that, photographers and videographers put some huge cash and energy into their lighting. That in a short time turns into costly, however does it must? LEDs are fairly reasonably priced lately and provide very respectable efficiency. To avoid wasting cash within the studio, Gokux designed and constructed this cheap RGB video gentle.
Lights like these are extremely popular proper now, with corporations like Aputure promoting pocked-sized fashions that provide respectable output in any coloration. However good fashions from respected corporations are a bit of dear, whereas a budget fashions from generic corporations have a tendency to go away loads to be desired. Gokux’s DIY design is the very best of each worlds. It’s reasonably priced to construct, whereas providing nice options and efficiency. And since it isn’t constrained by proprietary firmware, customers can customise its conduct nonetheless they like. Need to add fancy animated results? That’s so simple as programming them and flashing the brand new firmware.
As it’s, it is a 20W moveable video gentle with RGB LEDs and an inner 5000mAh battery. It will probably connect to the highest of a tripod, a digicam’s sizzling shoe, or on any ferrous floor because of the magnetic mount. A intelligent magnet system additionally lets customers snap on numerous diffusers. Setting coloration and brightness is extremely easy, as a result of the one management is a rotary encoder. Rotate the knob to set coloration, press it, then rotate once more to set brightness.
The sunshine comes from six panels of WS2812b individually addressable RGB LEDs, every with a 4×4 grid of LEDs. Which means there are 96 LEDs in complete. A tiny Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32C3 growth board reads enter from the rotary encoder and units the LEDs accordingly. Energy comes from two 2500mAh 18650 lithium batteries through a charger/booster module. All of these elements match inside a compact and engaging 3D-printed enclosure.
And this design has quite a lot of further potential. Gokux isn’t benefiting from it within the present firmware, however the ESP32C3 would permit for WiFi and/or Bluetooth management of the sunshine. And since each LED is individually addressable, it will be doable to program attention-grabbing animated results.
However at the same time as it’s, it is a very helpful gentle. Mount it on prime of the digicam for key lighting or to the aspect for some colourful fill. You’ll be able to even connect it magnetically to one thing within the background for some placing sensible lighting.