- Hey guys, my name is Matt Johnson
and today I want to talk to you
about my favorite new light for wedding receptions,
the Kinotehnik Practilite 602.
This light is incredible
and it has enabled me to get a lot
of awesome shots at weddings this year.
But coming to the decision to buy this light
has been a journey.
If you've watched any of my
wedding filmmaking behind the scenes videos
or my how to film amazing wedding dancing video,
both of which I will link to down in the description,
then you will know that I love to light
the reception dance floor with this,
the Arri 150 watt fresnel spotlight.
It's a lightweight light that's built like a tank
retails for about $340,
flarers beautifully,
works with a dimmer,
and most importantly it's discrete.
I can set this thing up on the side of the dance floor
and it will easily illuminate all of the dancers
without me needing to worry about light spilling off
onto irritated family members that are sitting on the sides
that might complain about glare.
Sounds awesome, right?
What could make me want to upgrade from this light?
Well, the Arri 150 has a few issues that are shared
by many other non-LED lights.
First of all, it only takes AC power,
meaning that you have to plug it into a wall.
And this can be an issue,
because if there's not a power plug by the dance floor,
then I have to make the light brighter
and shine it across the room.
I also have to worry about a guest
potentially tripping over this cord
and knocking over the light.
That leads into the next major issue
that I have with this light,
and really all other non-LED lights
and that is this thing gets hot.
Like, crack an egg and fry it on top of it hot.
Hot enough that there was always a worry
in the back of my mind
that this thing could get knocked over
and someone could get burnt.
I realize that's a very low chance scenario
but can you imagine the news reporting
local bearded videographer burns down wedding venue.
More at ten, Jan.
I joke, but my last issue I have with Arri 150
is that this is a single color temperature light.
This light puts out a 3200 Kelvin light beam,
and that is all that you get.
So if you have a wedding venue that is currently lit
using daylight balance lights,
you are not going to be able to match them with this light.
So with these shortcomings in mind,
starting this year I began looking at other lighting.
And I knew that I wanted it to be an LED light,
and I wanted it to be a spotlight.
I have lit wedding receptions using LED light panels
like this Ikan panel,
which I'm actually using to light me talking right now,
so I think they work good in certain scenarios.
But what I do not like about these LED panels
is that you do not get the control of a beam
like you do from a spotlight,
so it is much more difficult to control spill,
and you do not also get the beautiful flaring that you get
from a fresnel spotlight.
JJ Abrams and I love our flares.
After a lot of research back in February,
I found the Kinotehnik Practilite 602 and I fell in love.
This light not only overcomes
all of the shortcomings of the Arri 150,
but it also adds more features
that make filming wedding receptions easier.
And to be clear, before I start talking about this light,
I want you to know this is not a paid review by Kinotehnik.
They do not even know that I am making this review.
I bought this light with my own money.
With that, lets talk about why this light
is better than the Arri 150 and other non-LED lights,
in my opinion.
First off, it supports power over four pin XLR.
Meaning that it supports battery power.
And I power it using this Vmount battery.
I've run the light with this 150 watt hour battery
for four hours at about 60% brightness
at a wedding reception.
And I ended the night with 75% battery life left.
I love that I do not have to plug my light
into a wall anymore at a reception.
I have also built a custom rig
with a clamp and a battery mount
to connect the battery to a light stand.
This makes this whole setup super portable.
I can also strip down to just the light and the battery
if I want to and be able to do things
like backlight the couple in the dark while it's raining.
That turns out pretty dang magical.
Believe me, as long as it keeps
raining at my wedding receptions,
I am sure I will keep doing this.
I will link to all the mounting pieces,
as well as the light stand and the battery
down in the description,
if you want to build something like this yourself.
Keep in mind that all this battery power
means that I do not have to worry
about a guest tripping over the power cord.
And, because it's an LED light,
I don't have to worry about it getting hot either.
Even whenever I turn it up really bright.
Speaking of turning it bright, yes.
This light is dimmable,
and that is controllable from five to 100%
by spinning this dial on the side of the light.
When lighting a dance floor,
I usually keep this light at about 55% brightness,
but it has a lot of flexibility to go brighter
if I need it to.
In my experience, this light is plenty bright enough
to light a dance floor.
One of them is plenty.
You do not need to buy two.
You may have also noticed this other dial here on the light.
What does that do, Matt?
This other dial is one of the main reasons
that I bought the Practilite.
Because this light has an adjustable color balance
from 3000 to 6000 kelvin.
Which is amazing for matching your light
to the ambient color temperature
of other lights in the room.
I'll talk about this more in a minute
but now know that this is incredible.
The last thing that I want to tell you about,
and one of the things that made me
fall in love with this light the most,
is this light has an app.
And I realize that that's
one of the most overhyped statements,
especially in this day and age
where every piece of video gear has an app
and they're usually horrible.
But hear me out.
I have never found an app more usueable on the wedding day
than the practilite app.
And I realize this is also an overhyped statement
but it just works.
You open the app on your phone
and your phone will connect to the Practilite
over bluetooth within seconds.
And you do not have to be close to the light either.
You can be across a big room.
Like, say, a wedding dance floor.
And your phone will still connect to the Practilite
nearly instantly so you can control it.
Now here's some examples of why this is a big deal,
and why this app has changed my life
whenever I film weddings.
One of the first weddings I ever shot with this light,
we were filming the bride and groom
doing a last dance in the reception hall.
All the guests had already lined up outside
for a sparkler exit and it was just us,
the photographer and the couple.
Things always happen quickly at weddings.
This dance only lasted for about one to two minutes.
As the dance started,
I realized that my light on the dance floor was too dim.
If I had my old Arri 150 light set up,
I would have had to run over to it,
adjust the brightness,
and lose about 30 seconds of filming time in the process.
But, because I was using the Practilite,
I was to whip out my phone, unlock it, open the app,
have it connect nearly instantly to the light,
and make it brighter in less than 10 seconds.
I am missing less shots because of this app.
One other story for you.
Earlier this year, I was filming a wedding reception
at a venue that had a large glass garage door
that was letting in a lot of bright sunlight.
As the reception dancing went on and the sun set,
the color temperature changed from the 5500 kelvin sun
to the venue's 3200 kelvin tungsten lights overhead.
What's incredible is that instead of me needing
to adjust the knob on the side of my Practilite
to change the color temperature,
I was able to open up the app and adjust the temperature
and brightness throughout the sunset and it was so easy.
So as you can see, the Practilite has a lot of benefits
over my Arri 150 and it's app does make it very compelling.
That said, though, we do need to talk about the price.
This light is not cheap.
I paid $967 for this light,
and I completely understand if you can't afford it.
You should also be aware that if you want to make this light
battery powered and buy a case to transport it,
I ended up spending over another $400
on top of the price of the light to do it.
I'll link to the light as well as the case
and the accessories that I recommend
down in the description of this video.
All that said, though, about the price,
as someone that has spent a lot of money over the years
on dubious video gear that may or may not
have actually been useful.
I will say that I have never regretted investing
in a high quality light.
Do not worry, though.
If you cannot afford this light,
I am considering making another video
that details different lights at various price points
that I would still recommend for a wedding reception.
If you would like to see a video like this,
leave me a comment down below.
Overall, between the solid build quality
incredible battery life,
adjustable brightness,
adjustable white balance,
and the amazing app,
I am a big fan of the Practilite 602.
And it has made my life filming weddings easier.
I do not see myself going back to the Arri 150.
So if you are a wedding filmmaker
or really any other filmmaker for that matter,
and you are looking for a high quality fresnel spotlight,
I think the Kinotehnik Practilite 602 is a fantastic choice.
I know that I love mine.
With that, thank you so much for watching.
I hope this video's been helpful to you
and given you some insight into how
you could light your wedding reception.
As always, if you have any questions or comments,
please feel free to leave one below
or get in touch with me through my website whoismatt.com.
All the gear that I talked about today is linked
down in the description of this video.
It is also a megahuge help to me if you would consider
liking this video, giving it a thumbs-up,
and subscribing if you want to see
more videos like this in the future.
Also, there are a ton of links down there,
to my instagram,
to my Facebook,
and to Matt's music list,
my new subscription service aimed at helping
wedding filmmakers find music for their film.
That's so much for watching and have a great day.
(spatula scraping against pan)
It doesn't look very appetizing.
But it did cook.