Dedo on camera and wide eyed

The new Fillini Plus on-camera light from Dedo Weigert Film provides more than three times the light intensity of its predecessor.

The LED light looks similar, but instead of having four internal AA batteries, it now uses compact broadcast batteries from Sony, Panasonic or Cannon. It can also be powered from the DC output of professional video cameras or Anton Bauer Gold Mount plates. The LED’s output daylight colour and the fixture includes a tungsten colour correction flip down filter "designed to withstand a heavy beating".

Also new is Wide Eye, an attachment that makes classic Dedolight's even wider. The Dedolight dual lens already offers "an unprecedented focusing range" (1:23) compared to many small studio lights (typically 1:3). This translates into a change of angle from 60° to 4°.

However, when lighting in very confined spaces, even 60° may not be wide enough. Adding diffusion material can help, but the light is no longer controlled. Instead, Dedo has borrowed an approach from camera optics technology: an aspherical wide-angle attachment is commonly used on video camera zoom lenses, but not on lights.

These Wide Eye attachments, for the 200W daylight Dedolight and the Series 400 lights, gives wider angles (from 58° to 84°), "perfectly even light distribution", minimum light loss, and still allows focusing. They can include barn doors for control, and the barn door leaves can rotate (one of Dedo's patents). "Practically all lighting is done from an angle where shadow edges of traditional barn doors are no longer parallel and you end up with trapezoidal shapes. This is not the way rooms, doorways, paintings or most anything is built. Rotate the Dedolight 8-leaf barn doors and you can light vertical or rectangular objects with precision," said the company.

By David Fox