[music]
Don't worry. It's just a video light
Good evening, everyone. Tonight,
we'll be talking about lights and more specifically about these two lights from
Sandmarc that I use to film the intro.
So have the Prolight mini RGB light and a Prolight bi-color light right
here. If you're like me, when I started out,
you might think that these lights are not very useful and that you shouldn't
really listen to this video,
but you're gonna see it's probably a lot more useful than you're maybe thinking
right now.
So we're going to talk about how you can use them for a studio setup like I have
right now, how I can use them to get better zoom, video calls,
how you can use them in a more cinematic setting,
how you can use them to get better pictures and also videos at night,
and also how you can use them in settings.
Like when you're doing a trip or things like that. So overall,
they can be very useful in so many different settings.
I'm also going to end with a little comparison with the Aputure MC,
which are the most similar lights to these ones and the more popular ones.
So stay till the end for that comparison.
But now let's get started right away with the intro
a young photographer and filmmaker on a journey to become better at this art.
Channel. I'm Loïc Bellemare-Alford,
So let's talk about the specs of these little lights right away to get away with
it right at the beginning of this video.
So if you look at this light right here,
so I have the Bi-Color light and back alert simply means you can be able to
adjust the color temperature of the light.
If you don't know what is color temperature,
it basically means that it can be either more on the blue side or on yellow
side. So if you're taking the light outside during the day,
it's usually more bloom, but once you're inside at night,
it's usually a little bit more yellow. So you can adjust this,
which is the light,
which is pretty neat to match the lighting that you have around.
So right now I have it at 5,600 Kelvins and that's basically the color of
outside during the day,
but it's also what I have from our other video lights around here.
So that's why I'm leaving it at this setting right now. Now,
if we look at the light here, we have a few ports and different things around.
So first of all,
we have a quarter inch screw at the bottom here and actually comes with this
nice little thing to can screw around, to be able to put it on your camera,
in the hotshoes of your camera. Then there's a USB-C port right here.
There's the button on the side.
And there this little thing on the top that you can remove or add to get more
diffusion from the lights.
It's nice that you have this little thing to be able to get more diffusion
directly from the light.
If I have one complaint about this slide is that the USB-C port is located at
bottom of the light right here.
And this is a problem because once you put it on a tripod or something like
that, last time you cannot access it.
It makes it hard to be able to power the light winters nor a battery,
or recharge it without having to remove it from a tripod.
So this is definitely one of the disadvantages would be better for us on the
side or things like that. So talking of the buttons here,
it's actually really simple to use.
We also have a little screen on the back here. So first of all,
we have a button right here to be able to turn it on and off.
So simply press it a few seconds to be able to turn it on enough,
then we're going to have right at the top here. The first,
but in here is actually allowing us to choose between the two modes. So color,
temperature, and also brightness. And at the bottom here,
it's simply person minus. So you can make it better by pressing plus,
or you can make it darker by pressing minus. So that's how easy it is to use.
And this is really great because it's super simple to use.
You don't have to think too much about how to navigate the menu,
to get where you want. This is also only $69, and it might seem a lot,
but video lights are using very expensive.
So $69 is actually a pretty good value for this small little light,
especially becomes really, really bright.
And I'm going to show you a little bit later,
how bright is the light can become enlightened.
I have right here is a Prolight RGB. And if you don't know what RGB stands for,
it's for red, green, and blue,
and this basically means that it can be able to get whatever color you want by
using this slide. I'm going to put the details on the screen, but again,
the form factor is exactly the same as the other one, very small, very portable,
and I forgot to save, but they're both have really good build quality.
So that's a good thing,
cause don't want them to break when you bring them around in your backpack or
something like that. If you look at the menu,
it's again very similar four buttons on the side,
but now if we look at the back screen here.
We have an option to change the Hume.
And the hue is basically which color you're going to be choosing.
Then you can change and select a situation,
and this is how intense the color is going to be.
So it can be more intense or less intense. And finally,
we have an option to select the brightness of the light. So again,
super easy to use, but what makes this one really special? It's actually,
if you go back on the power button right here and you click on it,
once it's going to go into effects mode. So right now I have it on lightening.
So there's a first morning we're flattening.
So now there's a second lightening mode right here. Then we have cup cars,
we have other security, light spread here, two different types.
We have some lights,
a little bit more like a party where they just continue to change lighting.
There's another mode like this. Then finally there's fireworks,
which can be pretty cool if you want to similarly having a firework outside.
And finally you have SOS mode. So we have eight pretty useful different modes,
especially if you're doing a short film or something like that.
This slide is a little bit more expensive costing around $99.
So it's definitely a bit more investment,
but if you're doing something like a short film,
it can be very useful as a line. This brings me to my first use case,
which is for creating some short films and more Sonic videos like music videos
or things like that. Actually,
all the insure was filmed using only these two lights. Immidiate shy pocket too,
which isn't a very good camera in the lights.
It's pretty impressive results with God by using these little lights.
I think an area that most beginning to do that I definitely done in the past was
swinging the lighting.
Wasn't very important and investing more money on things like the camera and not
investing enough in good lights, using a little video,
especially the RGB light like this with the effects that are built in,
can get much more creative results and just a much better looking videos in the
end and more creative videos,
which is very important when you're creating a short film music video with
something like that.
So I definitely think that buying these little lights can be a really good
investment if you're creating some short films or music videos or anything else
that want be a little bit more cinematic.
I usually don't interrupt the video to tell this,
but I would really appreciate if you could leave a like down below and also
share this video because it's not one that I think YouTube is going to be
recommending too much, but I think it can be very useful for multiple friends,
family members and people like that that are interested in getting started in
video and also photographing. Okay, it's time to care about the second use case.
And this is the studio look,
which is very useful if you create like mean YouTube videos or if you want to
make some interviews, product shots or all kinds of things like that.
So I have a little bit more expensive setups.
I have to Aputure and see in the background here. I have it,
I'm around 200 that I bought today that I'm real excited about.
Probably going to make another video on that one. Am I ran late over there?
I don't remember the model,
but these are all lights from Aputure and the whole suburb is actually quite
expensive. So I'm going to show how you can replace all of it.
And using only these two lights and get something that's going to look pretty
similar in the end,
but it costs a lot less money by using only these two small lights. Okay.
It's the first thing we're going to do is closed.
If the background lights we have right here.
So I'm just going to come here and close the first one right here.
I have a second one right here. So I'm just going to close this one.
So now we have no more light in the background right here,
and I'm simply going to come here and I'm going to open this one here.
I think it's on pink right now,
which is fine for the background and make sure that the saturation
and that the brightness is at a hundred percent.
So I'm going to leave it right here.
And now we have our background light for our setup. Okay.
So I now close the two other lights that I had in front of me here and a nice
little pink light the pink light in the background right here.
But this lady is actually only at 20% right now.
So if I come here and I bring it up, that you just check, it's going up, up, up,
up, up, up, up.
So this must be close to a hundred percent on the 82%,
still not a hundred percent. So it's bring it up above. So that's a hundred,
it's actually really hard to look into it because it's actually really,
really bright. You might not see it right now, but some,
a bit too bright for having it in your hand and just holding it close to
yourself.
But I actually have a solution right here for this is actually going to make it
a much better lighting than just having it because even I've just put it away,
it looks a little bit better,
but a little bit too harsh to shadows on the seminary thing.
So I'm someone to take here and I have an Ikea light right behind here.
So you have this little light here.
So I'm just going to put this inside of the Ikea light bread like this.
And now if I come back, it's going to look much better.
So right now you might see that it's a little bit too dark some.
So I'm going to come on my camera here and I'm going to bring up the ISO
to 1,600, and now it's looking much better,
especially have a pretty decent lining with delight bread here.
So I'm actually just going to bring it,
turn it around and bring it closer a little bit.
So now we have a pretty decent lining and we're only using two tiny lights,
which is pretty impressive.
It definitely doesn't look as good as the whole setup with all the other lights,
but if you're starting out,
this is definitely more than enough to get some pretty good lining. Actually,
if you only want one light,
I would go with the cheaper by color one because that's the most important to be
lighting your face. So definitely start out with this one. Okay.
So my next use case for using the smaller light is actually for an activity
we've all been doing way too much in the last year and a half.
And it's for our Zoom meetings, team meetings, uh, WhatsApp calls,
FaceTime calls or whatever you're using to make calls we're family, friends,
and especially for work.
So one of the problems there with all of these cars is actually the front facing
cameras on a tablet, cell phone laptops,
or whatever you're using are usually pretty bad.
And you need a lot of light to have a picture quality that actually looks kind
of good. So if look at the image right now that I have,
it actually is very grainy and really doesn't look good.
And they to have a lot of light coming from the windows on the side here and
also have my video light on. So even if other slide, which is quite a lot,
it looks not that good. So I didn't this little light here.
We're actually see right away we're going to get much better results.
If look at my face here,
we're going to see that my eyebrows and just the detail in general on my face
looks a lot better. There's a lot less noise and image to just looks in general,
much better sharper and just has a better look.
So another trick here is that I don't want to be holding my light all the time
with my hand here.
So I'm just going to take a clinic's box or something like that.
We all have kinds of these boxes and you can just put it on front here and
you're going to get a much better results when making video calls with people.
This is especially useful. If you're making a call for like an interview,
if you're talking with somebody higher up in your company or whatever,
we don't want to have the image possible and look at best when using your little
computer. Does that sound really,
really great when you're doing causes a bit later at night and you might not
have as much lining inside of your house because when you're putting on like
your normal lights,
usually it's a very yellow and not a very good color for when you're making
video calls. So these are, the lights actually have become pretty useful for me,
for my video cost, just to get some better results in general. Okay,
so now let's talk about my next use case. And for this one,
I'm going to go pretty quick because it's been really hard finding a night that
wasn't raining, but I finally have one.
So the next one is using it as a video light on your camera for either taking
videos like I'm doing right now,
so if you've seen any as to photograph your videos,
I've been using a little light like this one,
and it's actually pretty surprising. Cause right now it's only at around 10%.
It's really not that bright.
You don't need it to be that bright because it can become so bright.
But I think one really great thing is that if I would decided to bring it up,
so I'm going to bring it up right now.
So now it should be about a hundred percent and it can really move away and
still get pretty good lighting with this.
So it's pretty great that this little light can be so powerful and really allow
you to get some good lighting outside at night that you're bringing it back
down. So yes, if you plan on doing any video at night,
this is definitely a light that you should buy.
And this is actually the reason why I bought similar lights to begin with
because I was making astrophotography videos and I really needed some good light
to be able to show my face, uh, with the light. If I close it,
I'm just going to show you. We won't see anything at all.
So I'm just completely gone. So without this slide,
you cannot see anything at all. So it's pretty incredible.
The difference you get when using it.
So now I'm going to take it off from the camera right here.
I'm going to talk about the next use case.
And this one is using it as a little light for taking some images.
So it's actually a little bit too strong right now.
So I'm just going to come here and I'm going to,
going to bring it down at only two, 3%.
So I already talked in some other videos that I really don't like using the
flash on the phone to take some pictures because I think it doesn't look really
good.
So if I come here on my Google Pixel 4a and I took a portrait mode photo of
me right here, we're going to see that using this light we
can get some much better results from the photos.
I'm going to take another picture by closing this light,
I'm going to put this back on here and I'm just gonna close it for an instance.
I can take a picture without the light and you see, we don't see anything.
Even if I put on elimination,
you're gonna start having the little light is really a saver when you're taking
any pictures at night. So for this reason,
I think it's also a really great option.
You can also use it to illuminate the whole scene one when taking pictures at
night. So it's definitely worth the investment for either photo video.
If you're taking pictures or videos at night,
I had these two lights for a little bit over a month now,
and they've been very useful in our kinds of situation.
We're never really expected to be using these little lights of, for example,
they were very helpful when I was taking out some things from the car,
I needed a little bit of light to see what I was doing.
They're also really useful when you're inside a tent and you want to have some
light at night to see what you're doing to also really great.
When you're walking around with your camera bags, we're feeling that,
and it just went to clip one on it, to be able to see where you're going.
So just in general,
they've been very useful and they're very useful because they're battery powered
in super small.
So they're super easy to put inside of your backpack before wrapping up the
video, let's make a good comparison with Aputure MC.
So I'm going to go get one in the background made here so we can make a
comparison. Honestly, both of these lamps are very similar.
On paper, tyhe Aputure MC should be a little bit better because it has Bluetooth
connectivities, which allows you to use an app to control the light.
It also has magnets in the back and it's also $10 cheaper and has a longer
battery life. But in reality, I might use a little bit more Sandmarc light,
at least that's the one that's going to be coming inside of my backpack because
of it's size.
So the Bluetooth connection is gonna be much more useful on the Aputure MC for a
studio like, like right now, I want to have them in the background,
but when I'm going around,
I prefer having a smaller light that can easily go instead of my backpack and
especially the smaller one, the bi-color one,
that I can leave pretty much all the time instead of my backpack,
because whenever I need a little bit of light at night,
it's going to be a saver to have the small little compact light inside of my
backpack at all times. I hope you enjoyed this video,
but remember what I talked about instead of this video,
don't only apply to these lights, even though I clearly recommend them also,
what did you think of the intro? Definitely let me know in the comments below,
if you enjoyed this video,
please let me know by hitting the like button below and also subscribe for more
content on photography and filmmaking soon. The next one.