Hi everyone, Gio here, and this is the Godox SL-60W, a pretty awesome LED studio light
I've been using for the last few months for my photo and video work.
I've used in different scenarios and for different purposes, so here are my
thoughts.
Out of the box, the light comes with a small cap, a standard reflector, the DC cable and
a small remote.
To give a few numbers, the light maxes out at 60W -as you could expect by the name.
It's roughly equivalent to a 500W tungsten source in terms of output, at 4100LM at full
power.
It's balanced at 5600K, and it offers a CRI of 93+ and a TLCI of 95+.
While on paper it's a pretty great score, you can notice a slight magenta cast, which
is however easily fixed in camera or in post.
The output is pretty great, and the cool part is that it's fully dimmable in 1% increments
from 10 to 100%.
To give you a reference, for my still life shoots I can easily shoot at f/9 on my G7
and still get proper exposure even through a layer of diffusion.
Sometimes I did wish it could go even lower than 10%, but it's overall still pretty flexible.
And by the way, you can control the output by using both the knob on the back or the
included remote.
One neat trick on the remote is that if you buy multiple lights -like I did- you can actually
group them on different channels.
By doing this you control each channel via the same remote, which can be really handy
especially if you can't easily access the lights.
The only power option available is DC power via the included adapter, so no battery slot,
which is reasonable given the relatively high wattage.
The light comes with a built-in fan that kicks in immediately and can't be turned off.
While it definitely helps to keep temperatures down, it can be heard in your videos if
the light is really close to the microphone.
Still, in a small room like this one and with a simple mic like my VideoMicro,
it doesn't pick up much noise at all and the rest is easily removed in post.
As for temperatures, the light actually gives you a real time estimate on the small monitor
on the back.
With my typical usage, even after a few hours of use at full power I've never seen it go
beyond 50 degrees Celsius, which is great.
Plus, if you dial down the intensity for just a couple of minutes, it immediately goes back
to around room temperature.
The only case in which I've found it gets very hot very fast is when proper airflow
is blocked, like when you're using a snoot, but apart from that I've had no problems so far.
While these are all great features, the decisive one for me was the standard Bowens mount.
This allows you to use a ton of available light modifiers like softboxes, stripboxes,
octaboxes and whatnot.
The only other Bowens compatible LEDs that I know of are from Aputure.
However, those tend to be quite more expensive, so for more budget oriented productions like
mine you'll definitely wanna go with this one.
Of course the whole light+modifier setup is quite heavier than your standard small LED
panel, so you'll want to have a good sturdy light stand and a few sandbags.
In terms of pricing, I've seen this light go from $130 to about $180,
but even at $180 it's a great deal compared to the competition.
Solid color, great output, easily enough light to use it for a bounce, and the additions
of the remote and the Bowens mount are super sweet.
Overall, I find it a really solid option and I wouldn't think twice about grabbing one
if you need to light small to medium sized environments.
Keep in mind that in case you do need to expand your kit, there's a whole series of these
ones at different power levels and different color temperatures.
So that will do for this video.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed this quick gear review because
I'm cooking up some more for the upcoming weeks!
Of course, if you did don't forget to like this video, and subscribe for more content like this!
As always, thank you so much for watching, this was Gio,
and I'll catch you guys in the next one!