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On paper, LEDs with flash
capability have a lot to offer: They can recycle instantly at any power level, they have easily adjustable and often very precise white balance control, and they’re famously energy efficient. But in the real world, making an LED flash has proven tricky for many lighting companies to master. One of the few companies to have sustained the effort is Rotolight with its NEO and ANOVA product lines.
With Rotolight’s NEO 2, the company has melded a compact video light with the ability to flash at high speeds with zero recycling times. Is it too good to be true? We turned the NEO 2 over to N.J. commercial photographer David Patiño to find out.
Features
As a continuous light, the NEO 2 offers an adjustable brightness from 0-100 percent in 1 percent increments and is flicker free at any shutter speed. It offers a CRI of 96, including an R9 value of 98 and an R15 value of 91—both important scores for pleasing skin tones. The NEO 2 delivers 2000 lux at 3 feet (at 4110K) with a 50-degree beam angle.
As a flash, the NEO 2 offers the aforementioned zero recycle time and is integrated with Elinchrom’s Skyport radio technology. Thanks to the radio receiver, the NEO 2 offers HSS at all power levels of the light and the ability to control multiple off-camera lights (up to 10 lights in four groups).
While the NEO 2 doesn’t offer TTL metering, you do get some exposure assistance in the form of a feature they call True Aperture Dimming. In this mode, the NEO 2 will tell you a light brightness value as an aperture setting, using the distance to your subject, your ISO value and shutter speed as benchmarks (all three of which you must input manually). With these measurements saved in the light, you can dial brightness up or down and see the optimal aperture value for your exposure. You can also vary the parameters so that, for instance,...