Hi Paul,
I suspect everyone saw this was a video question
Glad to hear the Nanlite worked out. I looked at those a year or so ago, but you just couldn't buy them easily in the UK at the time. The chip is larger than most COB lights which limits its use a bit as far as using it with a Fresnel or projector is concerned, but makes no appreciable difference in a softbox. I think heads like this are the way to go rather than LED panels - you can make the light from an LED head bigger (softer) in a number of ways but you'll struggle to make hard light from a panel (ie make it smaller).
I don't think you'll find many takers for Elinchrom's LED lights looking at the spec of the chip tbh, and personally, I find the Elinchrom mount to be an exercise in frustration. Mainstream budget options are Aputure and Godox. Both make LED heads with Bowens mounts on them. You need to give each a rattle test, as the Bowens mount was never designed with audio in mind, so if you intend to move the light during shooting, it will be nicer if the modifier doesn't rattle. There's always gaffer tape of course
I'm with you on the mono-block design. The last thing I need is to have to assemble the light before we can start shooting with separate control boxes, and then a separate PSU, or battery mount.. Not to mention it then has to be carted around in a massive case with all these bits in, or you risk the wrath of the tangle fairy.. Makes the head lighter of course, but not by as much as you'd think - the battery version of the Godox SL150-II - the VL150 is only about a kilo lighter at the head at 2kg (possibly due to the lump of aluminum and fan cooling the chip). I'm almost always using LEDs inside (as tbh, heads in this price bracket are nowhere near powerful enough to beat back the sun), so there's almost always plenty of mains power around, and if there isn't, I wheel out the Godox LP800 and plug em into that.
I've been looking for a lower cost LED Fresnel head solution for a while, I have a Falconeyes 1600TDX which works well, but it is the size of a small moon, and weighs in at 5.5kg. I've recently tested a £60 Bowens mount Fresnel lens with the modelling lights on my flash heads and it works surprisingly well. It's not technically a Fresnel but a honeycomb, insect-eye design made up of lots of hexagonal lenses, but it works on the same principle. It has "Neewer" written on the side, however I have no idea who actually makes it. It makes very a nice graduated spot and acceptably crisp shadows when on full flood (ie slightly soft, but no double edges or other eye watering artefacts). This opens the door to using the much cheaper Bowens mount LED heads as opposed to dedicated Fresnel spots. Plus I then have the option to make soft light with softboxes using the same light.
On the mic, I really like my Rode Wireless Go
https://www.amazon.co.uk/RØDE-Wireless-Compact-Microphone-System/dp/B07QGGBNMN/
The transmitter has a built in mic so you don't have to attach a separate lav mic (although you can if you want). Audio quality is excellent. They now have a MIKII version with two transmitters that will actually record locally in the mic as well as transmitting. This is quite frankly, the simplest and most reliable solution - as long as you don't mind syncing the audio in the edit. I use DaVinci resolve for editing and this is really really simple - just select all the clips and auto align them on the audio tracks.
If you're ever looking for comprehensive reviews and comparisons of video lights (and other video/audio gear) - Gerald Undone is the gold standard:-
Love to see your results btw - where can we find you on Instagram?
Owen
