I'm only doing this for the thumbnail,
I've already done all my tests on this light.
Let's get Undone!
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What is happening, everybody? I'm Gerald Undone
and today we're taking a look
at the SO-28TD from Falcon Eyes.
"28", because it's a 28W LED light panel, "TD" because
it's bicolour from Tungsten to Daylight, and "SO" because
it's part of Falcon Eyes' Sophiez Series, for which
you can get two bigger lights, a 48W and a 68W.
It's a pre-diffused light so it's already pretty
soft without putting any modifiers on it
and I'll tell you right now that I am pretty impressed with it,
but let's start off with what you get in the box.
The light and its accessories
come in a well-padded, zippered soft case.
Inside, you'll find the panel itself,
a manual, and the two-piece power supply.
There's also a recess in the case for a Sony NP-F battery
because this light can also be run on battery power,
but a battery is not included with this package.
This light got several things right
that many other manufacturers seem to struggle with,
the first of which involves that battery vs. power supply.
I'm happy to report that they both produce
the same illuminance, regardless of the power source.
Often times, in other lights, there is a reduction
of output when you switch from the dedicated power supply
to a battery, but that's not the case here.
Also, you get an impressive amount of life
out of it when you're on battery power as well.
I get close to two hours at a 100% power, using an NP-F970,
that's the larger of the Sony batteries, and because it only
takes one battery instead of the more common two, if you do have
two batteries, this is going to last you a really long time.
Quick note on that, by the way, there's no charging
of the battery when you're using the power supply,
they're on two completely separate systems,
and you switch between them using this switch right here,
with the middle position being the off position.
And, this back panel is actually where I expected it to be
the weakest, because it comes in quite affordably at around
$189 US, or $249 CAD, and a lot of lights in that price range
have quite a few annoyances on their back panel,
the most common ones being the colour temperature.
Often, you don't actually get a colour temperature display and,
instead, you have to balance it yourself, with, like, different
knobs, one for the warm lights and one for the cool lights,
and you never actually know what temperature you're on,
and you, kind of, have to figure that out.
And the second thing, going along with that,
is there's usually a lack of information in general on the
back and the displays themselves don't usually have any kind
of touch controls, so they can be a little bit more tedious.
Well, the Falcon Eyes suffers from none of that.
First of all, it's all touch control
and it works surprisingly well.
You control the brightness and the temperature,
which ranges from 3000 to 5600K, with logical up
and down arrows that move quickly enough
to prevent annoyance, and a visual display for both.
I found the temperatures to be pretty accurate, and the panel
itself has a colour accuracy rating of 95+ on CRI and TLCI.
It also displays your battery life, which I love,
and then it has information for group and channel
for controlling multiple lights. Now, one con to this panel
is that it doesn't come with a remote control,
so there are going to be some limitations on the controlling
of multiple lights, but if you do have multiple lights
set up in series, you can control them all,
with just the back panel of one light, and that's pretty cool.
The build quality, I would say,
is above standard, for the price.
The U-bracket and front bezel are metal
and the back plate is plastic, but the plastic
is well-moulded and doesn't feel cheap.
Now, one thing I discovered that isn't mentioned anywhere
is that there's a AA battery compartment underneath
the NP-F battery tray, but none of the battery contacts
are in there, so you can't actually use it.
They don't advertise it as taking AA, so perhaps
this design was used in another light that did take AAs,
and rather than increase costs by retooling, they just decided
to use the same compartment in multiple lights,
but I did think that it was kind of funny to, one,
find the compartment, and then to try
and put AA batteries in there.
The U-bracket allows for 360° rotation
and it locks down well and easily.
If I did have one complaint about the mount, though,
it would be that the 5/8ths inch socket is a bit narrow.
I find it hard to fit on some of the thicker spigots.
It takes a bit more force than I'd like sometimes to get
it on and off light stands, so if they were to just make it
a millimeter or two wider, I think it would be perfect.
Another thing that I'm really impressed by
with this light, compared to other manufacturers,
is the consistency of output through temperature changes.
Something you'll find often in lights is that the middle
temperature on a bicolour light is the brightest one
because that's the one when most of the lights are active,
and if you go all the way to warm, or all the way to cool,
the power generally, sort of, rolls off, on each side of that.
But with this panel, there's very little variance
between the 3000K and the 5600K when it comes to output.
There is, sort of, a peak around 4500K,
but it is minor and the total variance of the entire light
is less than a third of a stop, and that's pretty impressive.
So, that's pretty much it for the technical stuff.
Now, there's two usages that I want to talk about
that I'm pretty excited about.
The first is for product photography.
Because this light is so compact and because it's already
so soft, it really opens up the opportunity for me
to get close and find some unique shots when it comes
to shooting the cameras and the lenses that I do,
for these videos and for my product photography work.
It can be quite cumbersome sometimes to try and fit
an umbrella or a softbox in a tight product photography
setting without it getting in the way or blocking your shots,
but then this light actually solves most of those problems
and it competes pretty well against
those other configurations, when it comes to softness.
And this model is quite compact.
Now, there are bigger models, like I was saying,
if you want something to give you a fuller wrap with
the 48 and the 68W versions, but like I was saying
in my previous video, I've been looking for something
to replace those paper lanterns that I have in terms of
both better colour accuracy, but also just giving me a little bit
more versatility, and I think I might have found that solution
with the Falcon Eyes here, because, yes, it's compact.
It's actually similar in size to those Philips LEDs inside
of the paper lanterns, but it's much more colour accurate
and I can really get it and move it around to give me,
sort of, the best light that I want.
So, I'm really excited to keep using this for my bench work.
The second application that I've been testing this light
for is using it as a keylight in this type
of shooting environment right here.
Now, right now, I'm using an Aputure 672 behind an umbrella,
and I chose that because it was already smaller
and more compact than, say, a 120D with a soft box, but it
still does take up quite a bit of space with an umbrella on it,
and price wise, if you put, say, a cheap umbrella
from Amazon on it, it'll cost you about
a $110 US to a $150 CAD, more than the Falcon Eyes will,
but it carries most of the same benefits.
It can run on power supply or batteries,
just like the Falcon Eyes, but it does take two batteries,
like I was saying earlier, and it's not bicolour,
so you can't adjust the temperature at all,
you'd have to use a CTO, if you wanted to warm up
the colour, but, it does come with a remote control.
Now, it's definitely more powerful than
the Falcon Eyes when you have no modifier on it, in fact,
it's about two stops brighter, but then you get this harsh
light with weird LED effects, so once you throw an umbrella
in front of it and diffuse it and bring it down to this nice,
soft light, it actually becomes, almost,
exactly the same output as the Falcon Eyes.
An advantage, however, to having the Aputure
behind an umbrella is that you get a bigger light source
than the Falcon Eyes, which of course,
is one of the two key components to getting soft light.
The size of the light, and the proximity to the subject.
The Falcon Eyes also has a much wider spread of its light.
The Aputure has a clear beam angle, you know,
depending on whether you get the wide or the spot,
whereas the Falcon Eyes, it's just a 180° circle,
spread out completely wide in every direction.
But I didn't find a huge difference when it came to
either the spread or the size of the light in this particular
scenario, between the two, when it comes to how much I like
the light or the softness of it, but I'll let you decide.
So, right now, this is my regular situation
with the Aputure 672 at 33% power,
being shot through an umbrella, and it looks like this.
[gentle relaxing music]
And now, here it is with the Falcon Eyes
in the same position, at approximately the same distance
and angle, and also at 33% power, but not behind
an umbrella because the Falcon Eyes doesn't really need one.
This is what it looks like.
♪
And now here's both, side by side.
♪
So, let me know in the comments which one you like better.
I like both, but it's hard to ignore the added value that
you get from the Falcon Eyes, and for me, its adjustable
colour temperature, consistency in output,
great battery life and compact versatility,
while remaining significantly cheaper than the competition,
make it a very compelling product.
But that's going to be it for me, I hope you found this video
helpful or at least entertaining and if you did,
make sure you leave it the old thumbs up
and consider subscribing if you haven't already,
but if you did not find this video helpful or entertaining,
feel free to hit the dislike button twice.
Alright... I'm done.
♪