Buy Lighting Now or wait till the next round? 

We are  seeing a kind of spec-sheet mentality across the board — TLCI, lumens, output, efficiency, features. All of those things are important, but I think we’re sometimes starting to forget about the quality of the light itself.

Because you can’t really tell what a light is going to do from a spec sheet. You have to turn it on. You have to stand underneath it. You have to put your talent underneath it. You have to put a camera on them and actually see what that light does.

Light isn’t just about output. There’s a feeling to it.

And I think, in some ways, we’ve lost a little bit of the soul of lighting.

It’s amazing sometimes when an old 2K tungsten lamp comes through our service department. You turn it on and think, God, that’s beautiful.

That’s not to say that some of the new technology isn’t beautiful in its own right. It absolutely is. The colour of light is important, and the ability to change colour temperature or colour on the fly is incredibly useful. Some of the new LED fixtures deliver genuinely beautiful light.

The first LED fixture that really made me feel that way was the BBS Area 48. That fixture is now around 13 years old. It was a remote-phosphor fixture, and even today, when you turn on a 3200K remote-phosphor panel, there’s something about the quality of that light that just looks right. It has the same feeling you get when you turn on an old tungsten Fresnel or a good soft light.

I think we need to keep thinking about lighting in those terms.

Technology is going to keep moving. People worry about buying a light because the next model might come out next year and be brighter, have more features, have better control, or do something that the current fixture can't.

And, realistically, it probably will.

But the question I think you should really be asking is: Does the light you have do the job you bought it to do?

Will it function as designed? Will it deliver the quality of light you need? Will it be reliable? Will it continue to be a useful tool five, eight or ten years from now?

If the answer is yes, then you shouldn't be afraid of the next generation of technology.

The ARRI SkyPanel S60-C is another perfect example. It is now more than ten years old, and it has been surpassed in many ways by newer fixtures. There are lights today that are brighter, lighter, more efficient and have considerably more features.

But the S60 was a game changer.

And it’s still being used to light sets today.

It is still a great soft light. It will continue to be a great soft light until it stops working. There are better things on the market now, absolutely — but that doesn't mean the S60 has suddenly become useless.

It has become a workhorse.

It replaced some of the things further down the chain, like Kino Flo fluorescent fixtures and the way we used to approach certain jobs such as lighting green screens. It found its place, and it has stayed there.

The Creamsource Vortex8 is another great example. It built on the success of coloured LED lighting on set by delivering something that had real punch, combined with weatherproofing and the versatility that productions needed. It helped kick off a huge technology race in LED lighting — and that technology race is still rolling on.

But the Vortex8 was released six years ago, and it still dominates film sets to this day.

That tells you something.

It proves that a light that does a job, and does it well, will continue to be used years after the technology around it has moved on. The technology changes. New fixtures come along. Specifications improve. Features evolve.

But good lighting will always be good lighting.

I don't think I've ever seen a good gaffer throw out a light simply because something newer has come along.

If a fixture works, if it is fit for purpose, if it delivers the light the job requires and you can rely on it, then it still has value.

That's something we think about a lot at FrameLight.

Technology will continue to change, and it should. We want better lights. We want better control, better colour, better efficiency and better tools for the people using them.

But we shouldn't confuse newer with better.

A light is ultimately a tool. Its job is to put beautiful, useful light where you need it, consistently and reliably and all the better if it sticks around for 10 years or more!

And our service department will make sure it keeps doing exactly that.