Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan. Today on The Slanted Lens we’re reviewing the Cobra Interview LED light kit from Savage. This is a great little light kit that you can easily take on location for photo and video.
I’ve used the Savage seamless backgrounds forever, and they’ve always been great to have on set. But let’s look at their LED‘s. This Cobra LED kit includes three of their luminous pro LED lights, three of their drop stands, three Sony F750 batteries, which is a great power source for these lights. It includes charging cables to be able to charge the Cobra LED’s. There’s a 40 inch flexible arm with a counter balance, and a great super clamp that gives you the ability to boom a light. And last of all, there’s a little clip that will clip these lights together if you want to make them into a bank of two or three. All this goes into a great case. You can roll that out on location and you’ve got a great little video interview kit.
The most important thing is the LED. I mean, that’s really what this is all about. The stands and everything else are great. But the Cobra LED is what’s important. This is a great LED. It’s lightweight, it’s got that chip on board technology which makes them a little lighter. A little less expensive. These are variable color LED. You can go from 200, which is tungsten, to 5600, which is daylight. That allows this interview kit to be used in a lot of different lighting situations. And that’s really important. They also have a dimmer on the back, which is really essential to be able to give you the ability to make your light a little bright or a little darker. They have a 90CRI index, which means the color is clean.
They have about 1440 lumens at about three feet, or 1 meter. That’s pretty close, you’re gonna use these usually a little further back then three feet. It’s gonna be more in the four to give foot range. These run on a Sony MPF750 battery. Which is very standard. A lot of people use these in their kits. You get about three hours of light with this one battery. So if you’re shooting throughout the day if you have a couple of batteries you can go for a long time with this. Three hours is a really good time. Now if you’re in the studio in a situation where you’re close to power, you have the ability to plug them in and run them on AC, which is really nice. But I almost always use batteries. It’s just easier to get them in, do your work, move to the next shot. I love battery operated LED’s. These Cobra LED’s are great in that way. It’s a nice sized panel which will give me a little softer light on people’s face. To kind of open up the area in front of me.
It has four different points on the back of it, and each one of those allows you to connect it to a cold shoe bracket that comes with it. Or you could take one of the small brackets and hook it onto the side. And now you can hook them together in a panel of three or two. Either vertically or horizontally because these attachment points are on all four sides. It gives you a lot of options. So if I want to put the light on a post I can just simply screw it in to the bottom and it goes right on my light stand without a problem. If I want to put it on the camera, each one of these lighting brackets has got a cold shoe on it. So I can put that on the camera. Becomes a great interview or kind of an event light if you’re gonna be out working an event, doing BTS. Gives you a little something to open up the shadows. You could also use that setup for a quick interview. If you’re just gonna get in someone’s face to do a quick interview. That’s a great use for this light. It’s lightweight enough that it works really well that way. I don’t feel like I’m dealing with a lot of weight. It’s really great if you’re working in an intimate lighting situation. Get these in very close. Get your rim light in there, or a hair light. Then you’ve got one you can turn and dial it down and give you a little bit of fill in front. So it’s a nice interview kit.
This is a great LED for starting out because it has multi-purpose. You’re not going to overpower the sun with these, they’re not made for that. But you can use it on your camera in a situation where you’re running and gunning, and just interviewing, doing an event, or you can use them as a three light interview setup. You can set your lights, be able to get your interview. So in that way it’s very good. If you’re a YouTube channel this would be fabulous.
So I hope you’ll check these out if you’re in the market for a great, portable, inexpensive interview lighting kit to hang out.
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