Last week’s IBC Show was literally dazzling. Every year the Amsterdam power grid is under less strain as exhibitors switch to LED or other low energy lighting products. It made Hall 12 at IBC Show 2016 a much cooler place to walk around. These days there is much less risk of being fried by an HMI as you pass a stand!

Kino Flo Select – gel free colour matching

The standout selection for me this year had to be the Kino Flo Select. I was lucky enough to have it demonstrated to me by Frieder Hochheim . I have so much respect for this guy. When working as a gaffer he created Kino Flo. His real life experience makes Kino Flo products so useful on set and I’m alway excited to visit them. This year the Kino Flo Select has made a real step forward. The new colour options are a game changer.

Kino Flo have added a colour mode to the Select which matches the light output to literally hundreds of gel shades at the touch of a button. They’ve also added extras like green/blue screen matching, candle flame and other useful effects. Now you can match the colour of a specific gel on either a tungsten or a daylight fixture. So you can replicate the output from any other light you have on set or compensate for any magenta/green bias in your camera.

This is a really exciting development. Imagine how much time and money you’d save without gels. We’d save so much waste across the industry!

We’re looking forward to have this light in our inventory by the end of this year.

Zylight app – handsfree fresnel operation

There was a lot of talk at IBC Show 2016 about remote operating via smartphone.  Great to see that Zylight, one of our favourite suppliers of powerful LED fresnels, has taken up the challenge.

The new Zylink bridge, worn on a lanyard, turns your iOS device into a virtual DMX controller via the free Zylight app. You can control brightness and other options on up to 10 channels. So now you can programme individual Zylight fresnels or groups of fresnels up to 20 metres away.

Zylight have thrown in extras like strobing, flame effects and police lighting to give you even more options. Once you’re happy with the light you can save the set up within the app to use next time.

Again, you can tell that the Zylight team include Gaffers and DPs. They’re constantly adapting their products in response to customer feedback.

Cost versus Value in energy efficient lights

As usual there were loads of companies at IBC Show 2016 offering cheap versions of smaller fixtures like the Icelight and the Flex Lite.  I understand that these are attractive options if you are building your own lighting kit and need to keep costs down.  However, I’ll be saving my ££s for more of our Fomex Flex Lites and keeping an eye on the new Dedo version.  Dedolight engineering in flexible LED panel is going to be a product worth adding to our rental kit.

I also had a good look at some more powerful battery options while at IBC Show 2016. Being able to work off batteries on set is something that more and more customers want from us. Batteries aren’t as exciting as lights but the opportunities they offer for working off grid are.

Keep an eye on our website for these new options, we’ll let you know when they hit the shelves. In the meantime the Kino Flo Celeb, Zylight Fresnel and the DLED Fresnel Bicolor kit are just some of the options we already have ready to go. If you see something on our lighting list that you’re not familiar with and are based near West London, do get in touch and come in and give it a test.