I've got a couple of "cheap" 970-type batteries and my V1E runs just fine on them, but the newly purchased HVL-LBP lamp won't! Can anybody confirm that it only accepts Sony-made batteries?

A bugger:(

Hey Piotr, I got the HVL-LBP and I tried a 3rd Party battery and the unit didn't recognize it, I was only able to get it to work with original Sony batteries (fyi - the 3rd party battery was the Impact brand).

Thanks Wendell! So, it seems Sony decided to make even more money on us... What a bugger! This adds some 30% to the lamp already high price!

Yea, Sony just keeps on taking my money for all the accessories :) I also bought the bracket so I can mount the DR60 to the back of the V1U, it gives the unit a good balance if I have the HVL-LBP on at the same time.

Yea, Sony just keeps on taking my money for all the accessories :) I also bought the bracket so I can mount the DR60 to the back of the V1U, it gives the unit a good balance if I have the HVL-LBP on at the same time.

Speaking of balance: I'm also planning to buy the bracket and put the disk at the back when I need the lamp at the same time; is it still possible to shoot hand-held with all these on the camera?

It's possible to shoot hand held but it get tiring after a while! I think the whole weight comes out to about 5 to 6lbs or so, depending what batteries you have on them. For me I have the NP970 on the V1U and the HVL-LBP, and I use a NP570 on the DR60. I'm waiting for my NP770 to come in so I can use it on the HVL-LBP to make the whole weight lighter (since the HVL-LBP can't take the NP570, only the 770 and 970 work on it). Just today I shot hand held with the Letus35 Flip and the DR60 on the bracket to balance it out. It worked great for me, the only problem is that I wish I can be more stable :)

Wendell, thank you very much for sharing invaluable information on your experience with both the HVL-LBP lamp and the HVR-DR60 drive. I enjoyed the V1 so much because on its own, it's small and lightweight enough to be handled almost like a handycam. I guess I'll have to get used to it with the drive and/or lamp on. BTW, I'll probably follow your example and be using the 770 battery on the lamp instead of the 970 - lighter and cheaper, yet still 2 hours operating time.

On the other hand, when the whole rig is on a tripod, the weight is not that important so it'd be nice to have a second (970) battery for longer events shooting - but since the lamp only accepts Sony originals, it's going to be expensive...

Again on this issue (in a new post rather that edit, as I'd like to kick the thread up as well): did the specification of the L-series batteries (NP-F970 in particular) change since they first arrived? The reason I'm asking is this:

Having problems with my HVL-LBP lamp not communicating with the cheap non-Sony's, I asked a friend to try it with his original Sony 970 which works just fine with his and my cameras, and - to my surprise - the lamp couldn't "see it", either! Suspecting the lamp was out of order, I visited a Sony retailer and tried it with a brand new Sony NP-F970; it works!

So, it seems like the specs of the Sony NP-F970 have changed over time, and the cheaper replacements are still not up to date with the newest Sony's specs, hence they don't work with the lamp in question just like older, original Sony batteries. The newest Sony battery does work, which means it's not the lamp's fault.

Can anyone confirm this?

I can't specifically confirm this but I can confirm that Sony keep changing the way their batteries and cameras communicate. I have an older 3rd party battery that runs my old D8 camera just fine and it will run the PD 150s, it will not run a Z1 but a later 3rd party 970 does. Haven't tried the battery that will run the Z1 on the V1 / DR60 but I wouldn't be surprised to find that Sony have outfoxed the clones again.

If you're looking for a nice way to mount the DR60, check this out:

http://www.bebob.de/international/box-hvr_eng.html

Thanks Bob for that info.

One anomaly I noticed (and attributed to 3rd party batteries) has been the remaining time display; when I press the special button under the LCD (with the camera switched off), it usually reports some 480 mins for a fully charged battery. However, after switching the camera on and actually having operated it for some time, this tends to go up to even some 600 mins before it ever starts to fall down; interestingly it does the same with the original, oder Sony NP-F970 I tried yesterday (the one that won't communicate with the new Sony lamp).

Do the newer Sony batteries report the remaining capacity in a more consistent manner? While showing increasing capacity can be encouraging (joking, of course), abrupt battery death withing a couple of minutes since when it still displayed 120 mins is less funny...

There's NO way for any battery to really know how much time is left in the battery. It seems to be based on some kind of running estimate based on how much power has / is being consummed. So you take two identical batteries that have been used on two different cameras and put them onto charge on the same Sony chargers. When fully charged one will report much less "time" than the other.

The displayed value starts to get closer to accurate the more you discharge it but that is easy to fool depending on what power you're making the camera use.

It's a bit like the miles to empty calculation on a car's trip computer.

I agree this is actually a quite complicated algorithm, but I thought the original Sony batteries would be more precise. I was more forgiving on a 3rd party battery reporting 600+ hours available on the camera even after an hour of work, but now I can see the originals do the same error of overestimating the remaining time. For instance an NP-F570 I use with my DR60 drive still displays 240 mins after a couple of hours working (and the picture only showing less than 1/3 capacity).

I guess if they cannot be precise, I'd rather they underestimated a bit!

Sorry for the silly question...

I have a similar on-cam lamp. Tried to use once, it turned to be very low light, plus the light was something like a circular spot. So I never used again, its in the drawer.

Anyone can explain a situation where these on-cam lamps are useful?

Zsolt,

The question isn't silly at all, simply there are good lamps and... well, not so good ones. Regarding the light volume, the HVL-LBP is a LED lamp, rated 600 lux; it's also very efficient (3 hours with the 970 battery). Also, its shape is rectangular and corresponds well with the 16:9 scene proportions.

Of course, on-cam lamps are seldom strong enough to lit big areas and at a long distance. However, this one is OK for indoor shootings; for instance at a party in a dim room it's great to brighten people's faces (it has a dimmer, so is not very obtrusive).

Piotr, do you feel the Sony light is worth the money?

I would be using it mostly for weddings. I have two v1s so I will have to buy two.

That being well over a grand I want to make the best choice of price, performance, and convenience.

Ron,

The lamp is solid built, elegant and - using the same batteries as the V1 - convenient. However, it's also quite heavy; also you cannot count on the distance effectively lit to be longer that some 5-8 meters. Anything within this distance is very nicely brightened; you have a choice of a diffuser or concentrator flaps, and a dimmer control.

As a sample, here's a grab from a clip shot with the lamp in otherwise completely dark room - the distance was some 3-4 meters:

One thing Piotr

The HVL-LBP is renowned to be somewhat cool on the color temperature. i.e. has a tendency to be a little bit blue'ish. It is, after all, daylight balanced and therefore under MIXED lighting (tungsten and the LBP itself) you would expect that people's faces, for examples, end up being slightly cool looking. If the LBP is ONLY source, then the cam's white-balance could more or less fix it, but under mixed indoor lighting, i am wondering if you find it's coolness (5600K balanced) a problem? If I got that light, i would think an amber filter would be needed to warm things up a little, but I have read some conflicting reports on whether thats necessary or not.

I would appreciate any feedback you could give on the LBP with reference to shooting people pics, especially indoors with other (warmer..) light sources in the room.

thanks in advance

Stu, I personally don't find it to pose any serious problems. I have found this clip as the first one handy, so apologies for the quality - but as you can see, my doughter's skin looks quite natural under the mixed light from a regular (weak) bulb and the LBP LED light... The camera was on AWB, and the lamp's diffuser flap on, if I remember correctly! Please comment - perhaps some flaws are there, and it's just me who cannot see them?

EDIT
I took another look at my own grab, and I can see the effect you're mentioning Stu. Not so much on the skin, but on the wall to the right: the closer to the lamp, the more bluish it is (or due to AWB, it's actually white); further away where the proportion of the yellow light from the bulb above to the LED light from the camera changes in favour of the bulb light - the wall turns a bit reddish...

EDIT 2
Inspired by the above 'discovery', I searched for other shootings with the HVL-LBP lamp. I'm posting a grab from the church where I shot a musical performance a while ago; this is the audience sitting in the first raw, within 1-3 meters from the camera, filmet at the moment I turned the camera on the tripod after the musicians finished, to catch the ovation. The WB I had set manually to objects at a much longer distance, seems completely wrong here - the faces are a bit bluish, indeed (especially when one compares the grab to the right with one of my other church grabs here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=709631&postcount=1)

Also, the grab looks ugly because the lamp's concentrator was on (rigth for the longer disctances, completely wrong here), and the beam was directed too high (also because it was set for the longer distance). These are not real faults, of course - it's just that there's no single setting of the lamp which is always right...

Soon Im getting the SONY LED light and need sometime to adjust when is when to used :)

So, what is the answer should we have an amber filter?

How much would that hurt the lights performance?

Should I look to a more traditional light like the Varalux?

What if you took a Sony HVL-20DW2 20-watt Video Light and mounted it sideways for a more wide-screen profile?

Ron,
I've tried to answer you original question as exhaustively as I only could; now the decisions are yours;)

I can only add that my previous conventional tungsten lamp wasn't better in any aspect, and I had to carry a heavy bettery around which only lasted for 1/2 hour with a 100W bulb, or some 2 hours with a 35W one. The HVL-BP brightness is more comparable to the 100W tungsten version, and yet - with the 970 battery - it lasts for 3 hours between charges.

Thank you Piotr. That was the information I was looking for. Your comparison to a 100w tungsten light puts it in terms I can understand. With the 970 you are getting three hours of burn. Is that continues?

Thank you Piotr. That was the information I was looking for. Your comparison to a 100w tungsten light puts it in terms I can understand. With the 970 you are getting three hours of burn. Is that continues?

Frankly, I never actually tried to have it burning continuously for that long, this is what the specs are saying. However, after around 1 h of continuous work, I still saw 3 out of the 4 green diodes...

Yes i think the ability of the light to run about 3 hours is great.

The problem with tungsten lights is that use much more power (LBP is only 16watts consumption) and tungsten lights need a pretty hefty powerpack which may only last 30-40minutes. And if the event you're shooting lasts longer than that what are you going to do?? Have ANOTHER hefty battery pack ? all a bit of a pain.

I think the LBP is fine, and, maybe, as long as you don't mind a small output loss, an amber gel filter may warm things up a little in certain circumstances.

Well, I am really starting to lean toward this light. I will probably buy one next month we have budget for one now and if all is well then the other one the next month. I love having two V1s but buying accessaries are double also. Thanks again for your help.

What if you took a Sony HVL-20DW2 20-watt Video Light and mounted it sideways for a more wide-screen profile?

One more word on the ugly spot of light on the right one of the grabs above: it's perfectly possible to cover the whole area with even light, provided your subject is within the lamp's effective distance. To achieve that, it's enough to carefully position the light beam (some degrees downward), and engage diffusor rather than concentrator. Also, the LEDs are placed in a pattern that is well suited to the 16:9 aspect ratio; in fact, even with the Sony 0.8x wa adapter, it's possible to evenly brighten for instance a group of people from some 3-4 meters away.

So, don't misjudge the lamp's capabilities basing on that particular grab - I posted it in order to show possible problems and flaws, resulting from misconfiguration!

I have this light and cut a small piece of CTO gel to fit against the glass for use indoors. It works like a charm and I just tape it to the glass, the lamp stays cool so it doesn't melt. If I need to use it outside, I just peel it off. I keep it in a small toilet paper roll when not in use!

I found it too blue indoors mixed with just incandescent lights, in a mixed light situation it works well with or without the gel.

I'm using it more and more and really like this light. FWIW! It works well on an overcast day to add that glint in a subjects eyes.

Zsolt,

The question isn't silly at all, simply there are good lamps and... well, not so good ones. Regarding the light volume, the HVL-LBP is a LED lamp, rated 600 lux; it's also very efficient (3 hours with the 970 battery). Also, its shape is rectangular and corresponds well with the 16:9 scene proportions.

Of course, on-cam lamps are seldom strong enough to lit big areas and at a long distance. However, this one is OK for indoor shootings; for instance at a party in a dim room it's great to brighten people's faces (it has a dimmer, so is not very obtrusive).


Actually this is very misleading, they advertized the light at 600 lux, but forgot to mention like in the manual that it is 600 lux only will the intensifier, and when you use the intensifier it is very narrow beam and not spread out at all, but I still like it, it sure beat wearing a 17lbs battery pack for my old light.
BTW this light is 5600K so if you are using indoor, you should put a CTO filters on it, loose another 1/2 stop with the filter, as for using this with the V1, it will only be good less than 5 feet from your subject, V1 is not sensitive at all unnder low light.

I don't know if the 600 lux is for the lamp with the concentrator on or off, but I agree there's a substantial difference in the brightness between the two configurations. I'd also add it's misfortunate in that you usually need the concentrator when the object is far away, but then the narrow spot is even more visible...

The various possible configurations of the HVL-LBP lamp are described in the interesting brochure here:

http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/docs/brochures/hvllbp_broch_6-07.pdf

Looks like Khoi is right; engaging the concentrator can indeed output the 600 lux mentioned, while producing spot-light effect (see attached grab from the last wedding party I shot in a very dark room). On the other hand, using the diffuser flap will spread the light evenly, but will only output 300-400 lux (all measurements at 1 meter distance).

Edit: I forgot to mention the diffuser changes the light temperature from 5600K to 4400K, which can be noticed on the right grab - no spot, less bluish...

One thing I notice on all these shots is that the LED lamp is a higher color temperature than the surroundings. This may be due to it being 3200K while the lights in the room are dimmed 2700Kelvin bringing them even further away from the LED. If the LED is daylight-balanced, some amber CTO gel would be a good idea. Gelling down in color temperature is not as lossy as going up, so it shouldn't be a problem. If you are concerned, use half or quarter CTO gel which doesn't cut down the light much at all.

If you are concerned, use half or quarter CTO gel which doesn't cut down the light much at all.Could someone please provide a link to the CTO gels at an online store. That would be helpful as i have done a quick search and come up with nothing obviously cheap etc.

thanks

The various possible configurations of the HVL-LBP lamp are described in the interesting brochure here:

http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/docs/brochures/hvllbp_broch_6-07.pdf


Thanks for the pdf and learn more on the SONY Led light

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/163132-REG/Rosco_E20511__205_Filter_1_2.html

There are hundreds of gels there. Look in the Lighting/Lighting Controls and Modifiers section.

One thing I notice on all these shots is that the LED lamp is a higher color temperature than the surroundings. This may be due to it being 3200K while the lights in the room are dimmed 2700Kelvin bringing them even further away from the LED. If the LED is daylight-balanced, some amber CTO gel would be a good idea. Gelling down in color temperature is not as lossy as going up, so it shouldn't be a problem. If you are concerned, use half or quarter CTO gel which doesn't cut down the light much at all.

Thanks Markus, but considering that with the diffuser flap the lamp in question produces 4400K at 300 lux with quite good results (see my edited post above), I guess further loss of light caused by gelling it down is not worth bothering...

I don't like color temperatures to be mismatched unless I'm going for an effect. I also think it is more pleasing to go a bit low than too high. Amber is more flattering to skin tones than blue. Since full CTO changes color temperature from 5600K to 3200K, that means it changes temp. by 2400K. Half of that is 1200K which would make 4400K go down to 3200K. This should mean that Half CTO should be just about right. Really, it seems that the HVL-LBP is bright enough to take the small hit from the amber gel.

Color temperature for your lights is subjective, but I think it's a good idea to have options. A few strips of 1/4 CTB and 1/4 CTO in your pack wouldn't take up too much space and can make a big difference in some situations. On the other hand, I've use mixed sources and balanced to the highest temperature and it worked out fine. Lower temperature practicals in the scene go amber, but that looks natural.

Piotr, how much gain do you use when shooting with the LED light at a dim wedding reception?

Piotr, how much gain do you use when shooting with the LED light at a dim wedding reception?

Thanks Markus for your advise; I'll certainly consider the Half CTO amber gel.

As to the gain: of course it depends on situation (lighting and distance), but I try to never exceed 9 dB. Of the two grabs posted above, the left one certaily used 12db however; the right one was shot with 6dB or even less (can't remember now; in general the church was not as dark as that particular part of the reception room - besides, I made a horrible mistake of not adjusting my shutter speed when entering the room from the bright outside; the result: the picture on the left was taken with 1/100th shutter! I only corrected it a couple of seconds later; still decided to post the grab because my perception of darkness (due to the fast shutter) had made me engage the concentrator, whose effect I wanted to show here :)

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/163132-REG/Rosco_E20511__205_Filter_1_2.html

There are hundreds of gels there. Look in the Lighting/Lighting Controls and Modifiers section.many thanks MArcus - exactly what i'm after.

"I made a horrible mistake of not adjusting my shutter speed when entering the room from the bright outside..."

I HATE when I do things like that. To make it worse, I then have to rub the salt in my own wounds by watching it over and over during the editing process.