LitePad Kits: The Proper Kit for the Proper Use

As a part of our recent upgrade to LitePad HO+ and LitePad Axiom, we have also released a new range of LitePad Kits going from two LitePad Kits to nine different LitePad Kits to choose from. Today's Spectrum post will offer some guidance to choosing the proper kit for your project and highlight how one cinematographer used the LitePad Quick Kit AX on a recent project.

Our two original LitePad Kits, the LitePad HO Quick Kit and Gaffer's Kit, have been the most popular LitePad items we offer. Below is an introduction to the new Rosco LitePad Kits and we're sure they'll be just as desirable:

LitePad HO+ Everywhere Lighting Kit: Two LitePad HO+'s of 6 different sizes - one of each color temperature = 12 LitePad HO+ units and a wide range of accessories.  This is the only kit we offer that contains both color temperatures of LitePad inside.

LitePad HO+ Everywhere Lighting Kit

LitePad Quick Kit AX: One LitePad Axiom of 6 different sizes = 6 LitePad Axioms and a range of accessories - Available as separate Daylight or Tungsten Kits

LitePad Quick Kit AX

LitePad Gaffer's Kit AX: Two LitePad Axioms of 6 different sizes = 12 LitePad Axioms and a larger range of accessories - Available as separate Daylight or Tungsten Kits

LitePad Gaffer's Kit AX

LitePad Digital Shooter's Kit AX: Selection of LitePad Axiom units and accessories for 3-Point Lighting, including three light stands - Available as separate Daylight or Tungsten Kits.

LitePad Digital Shooter's Kit AX

The Quick Kit and the Gaffer's Kit continue to be the perfect choice for professional filmmakers that need the broadest range of LitePad choices and accessories. The Digital Shooter's Kit is perfect for the 'Run-&-Gun" professional that needs their lighting kit to be compact and portable - this kit even has three lightweight light stands to round out it's line of accessories.

The Digital Shooter's Kit is recommended for any professional shooting with HD-DSLR cameras. The three 12"x12" LitePad Axioms inside the Digital Shooters Kit gives you extra punch for traditional lighting set-ups and the Still Photo Kit gives you an array of smaller units and accessories that allow you to attach LitePads right to your camera or hide in the shot just out of frame for a little extra pop.  Shooting with HD-DSLR technology means that your camera package is compact and maneuvers with you no matter where you go. Adding a Digital Shooter's Kit and a Still Photo Kit to your arsenal ensures that your lighting package is just as lightweight and portable as your camera package.

UPDATE: Rosco LitePads were upgraded in 2015 with LED emitters that feature output with CRI of 90+ and renamed accordingly to: LitePad HO90 & LitePad Axiom 90. The above kits all feature the upgraded LED technology. You can read this blog post for more details on the upgrade.

Cinematographer Art Adams utilized a LitePad Daylight Quick Kit AX  on a gaming console commercial he shot on the new Arri Alexa. Here is Art's reaction to the LitePad Kit's performance on the job:

Originally this spot, a national commercial introducing OnLive.com's streaming game service, didn't have an actor in it. This project was originally intended to be a web and regional spot. Once the client saw the Alexa footage they commissioned a second day of shooting and made a $2 million national ad buy and they added an actor... that we hadn't lit for.

The trick was to come back on the second day of shooting and add light for the actor in a way that matched our existing footage. The talent was a gray blob under the existing lighting and it became clear that I had to pop him out of the darkness. The light had to come from the far side of the actor, casting its shadows toward the camera, in order to preserve the mood, some of the light had to come from a side that did not have an established light source. It had to be soft and shadowy without feeling overly directional. The Axiom LitePads were perfect as we were able to quickly arm them over the talent on C-stands and dim them to taste without having to worry about a shift in color temperature. The quality of light was perfect and felt a bit like ambient light bouncing around the room.

The Onlive.com controller was a black object in a dark room, so I placed a frame of diffusion under the 12”x12” LitePad in order to create a very soft glow in the top of the controller.

We also had to light the product’s beauty shots, and naturally those shots happened at about 3am. We hid one LitePad behind the TV, where it created a soft wash across the top of the product that blended very well with the moonlight effect, and then used another skinny LitePad to illuminate the front of the unit. The product is a gray shiny box that has to be lit like a car.  The LitePad Axiom Quick Kit gave us a number of very soft sources in a variety of sizes and shapes allowing us to very quickly pick the exact LitePad we needed to reflect in the product's surfaces.

If we hadn't had the Axiom LitePads we would have been there a LOT longer, and I can't imagine what kind of crazy rigs we'd have had to build to create an extremely soft but very controlled light source hidden in 5" of space between a TV and a wall. Instead we quickly rigged two small LitePads, dimmed them accordingly, and rolled. At ISO 400 I shot at T5.6, which is a very healthy stop for a macro shot.

These are the only LED lighting units that I know of that don't project a beam, and that's what I love about them. An Axiom LitePad is, in my opinion, very much like a flatter, sturdier and more portable China ball. They both illuminate a volume of space with beautiful diffuse light, but the LitePad is easier to control and will last a lot longer than a China ball.

LitePad Axiom: a flat, sturdy, portable China Ball. Photo Credit: Matt Polvorosa Kline

Whether you're shooting a major motion picture, photographs at a wedding reception or a corporate video - there's a LitePad Kit designed for your needs. For more information and exact contents of each kit, please visit our Rosco LitePad Kit web page.