LOS ANGELES—I’m the founder of Rowdy Skeleton, a consulting and content agency based in Los Angeles, as well as a host and former tech journalist who has spent more than 15 years refining and updating my AV setup.

Over the years, I’ve covered all kinds of events across games, pop culture and tech, including one of the world’s biggest consumer-electronics shows, CES. When I attended CES 2020 just before the pandemic, my field kit was massive: full-frame camera, three-plus lenses of every focal length, small LED lights and a wired mic to avoid wireless interference and noise.

Covering products and stories at CES took ages to set up, especially if I didn’t have a dedicated camera operator on any given day. After a few booths’ worth of setup, recording and striking, I’d decamp to our press room to unload footage and rest before heading back to the show floor. It was truly exhausting, running from appointment to appointment carrying a heavy backpack while making sure I was still camera-ready and delivering as much enthusiasm as I could muster.

Downsizing With DJI
These days, I’m on the content creator/influencer side of things, and last December, a client booked my company for a last-minute content engagement at CES 2026. I’d been working to downsize my kit, and the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 has served me really well. It’s lightweight, extremely portable and its versatility made shooting field packages a breeze.

However, I hadn’t found a lighting solution that matched the Osmo Pocket 3’s usefulness. Mass-produced lights I had tried were small and inexpensive, but they didn’t throw enough light to make a difference when I was more than an arm’s length away from the Pocket 3’s lens. And I didn’t want to invest in a full-cage system, since they add so much weight and bulk to a shooting solution that’s meant to be extremely light and compact.

After some research, I discovered Frezzi’s PocketLight LED kit for DJI Osmo Pocket 3, a light kit designed specifically for Osmo, and convinced them to let me try it out as I covered CES 2026.

Setting it up was easy—I slid the Osmo Pocket 3’s extended battery into the minimalist-but-sturdy metal case, attached the LED’s long arm and snapped the light onto the strong magnet at the top. Heading out on the show floor, I felt well-equipped and confident, even without a more complex and heavier traditional camera setup. Moving through the crowds was so much easier, and using a magnetic LED mount meant taking a hands-free shot was as simple as snapping the entire system to it and framing my shot in the Osmo Pocket 3’s selfie modem with DJI’s Mic Mini attached to my jacket.

Frezzi’s light is an incredibly well-designed piece of equipment that makes the most of its form factor, and it rounded out my kit exactly as I hoped it would. The range of its brightness meant I was able to have exactly the right amount of light for every shot, no matter if the booth was extra dark, extra bright or backlit.

Versatile and Portable
Many times, I was shooting in areas featuring a product under absolutely beautiful light, but attempting to record in front of those displays would result in a harsh case of backlighting. The Frezzi LED completely neutralized those issues, and using it at less than 50% brightness (which is still really bright) resulted in a massive battery-life boost that was a sincerely pleasant surprise.

Because the light isn’t fixed to a cold shoe (it uses a magnetic mount instead), I can swing it around in any direction regardless of what I’m recording. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this setup has been an absolute game-changer for me as a content creator, and I’m excited Frezzi created a lighting solution that matches the capability, portability and versatility of the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 perfectly.

More information is available on Frezzi’s website.

FLUSHING, N.Y.—Interface Communications is an ENG & mobile production service provider in the New York metro area and we provide production services for major sporting and corporate events including the NBA Finals, Super Bowl, World Cup Soccer and the Olympics.

One of the key camera power products we use is the Frezzi 300WH High Power Lithium Ion Battery. This battery is capable of powering our camera for hours, which made it ideal for covering the Kansas City Chief vs. the Philadelphia Eagles at Super Bowl LVII. During this marquee event it ran for seven hours. 

Extended Run-Time
The 300WH battery is powerful, compact and lightweight, which makes it easy to transport and use on the go. The extended run time we get means we don’t have to worry about running out of power.  It also has four Power Tap ports and two USB connectors to power our other gear and charge the mobile devices that we use to communicate.  We also use these batteries as a “UPS” system for our Hitachi SK 1800 camera in lockdown configuration, when the battery backs up the camera SHED power in the event of a loss of primary power.

These rugged batteries can handle the abuses of daily use and even the occasional accidental drop.  Knowing that it is fully serviceable by Frezzi should anything happen makes it a great long-term investment, something we seriously rely on as a family-owned and operated business.

We also use the Frezzi SkyLight 200WH HMI equivalent. This powerful lighting solution delivers high-quality light for locker room and sideline interviews, providing a bright and smooth single shadow light, and can run on a single broadcast battery for more than an hour. This is critical as AC is not readily available in such situations, and unlike the Skylight, most DC lights do not have a lot of punch. It’s very compact, weather-proof, easily transported, easy to set up and use.

Hight-Output Lighting
Another part of our kit includes the Frezzi SunLight 600W HMI equivalent that we use for high-output lighting. This powerful 600W HMI equivalent light provides an even, bright light perfect for competing with the sun. It can also be powered by DC, making it great for interviews and other coverage without using AC power. It’s also weather-proof, compact, and very lightweight compared to other high-power LEDs, making it easy to set up. 

Their size and power allowed us to properly light a multicamera morning show for ESPN aboard a moving speedboat in New York harbor last summer—all on battery power. I’m interested to see the next generation SunLight 2 in a smaller case that outputs 800W HMI equivalent.

All Frezzi are ENG-ready and can withstand the rigors of daily use in any weather condition. This allows us to provide high-quality coverage for these prestigious sporting events in any weather and with the confidence that the gear will work. We rely on Frezzi to provide the power and lighting solutions we need to capture every moment.  

For more information about Frezzi visit www.frezzi.com.

LEDs have revolutionized lighting in the past 15 years, and that is especially true for television lighting. Lightweight, compact, efficient, bright and cool, LED lights have kicked all other types of television lighting to the curb.

In addition to the LED light attributes already mentioned, there is one other benefit of LEDs that makes the technology seemingly ideal for television. LED’s components come in a wide range of shapes, sizes and emissivity, so they can be packaged in many different ways. Need lights on a car’s dashboard for an action shot? LEDs are the only choice that will fit the space, provide enough light, run all night from a simple battery and not bake your talent.

One other benefit of LED lights is that you can get devices that use red, green and blue LEDs, creating lights that can be adjusted to produce any color—and some pretty impressive lighting effects.

“The ability to produce any color from a light without gels is quite attractive, and using some number of color effects lights often makes a lot of sense,” said Pete Challenger, manager of U.S. sales and support for Lupo Lighting. “Whether it makes sense to use such lights for every fixture is more open to debate.”

LEDs were the overwhelming favorite of the companies contacted for this article, and the fact that LED lights can be configured in so many different ways is an important factor in their popularity.

Light Quality
One of the lingering questions about LED lighting is the quality of the light that the fixtures make. Tungsten incandescent lights made a broad spectrum of light that worked well with camera sensors. The first LED lights targeted at television production did not have this same quality of light.

Today, lights used in television are rated for their color rendering index, which is a measure of the light’s ability to reveal colors in the object illuminated by the light. The higher the number—up to 100—the better colors are represented.

Some early LED lights targeted for television production were rated at 75 CRI, while current technology is 95 CRI and higher.

“The first panels were rated about 70 CRI and tended to be rather green—but that didn’t stop people using them back then,” Challenger said. “Now if they don’t rate in the 90s, no one would consider them.”

Challenger said that Lupo’s latest Ultrapanel series of lights have lower- and higher-efficiency versions, and the lower-efficiency line has a CRI of 98, while the higher-efficiency model has a CRI of 96.

“Either of those would have been viewed as insanely good just a year or two back,” he said.

ENG Lighting
Frezzi has long made lights popular with ENG crews, combining small size, high durability and punchy brightness that makes on-camera talent stand out on murky city streets at night. The company’s tungsten and HMI lights got the job done a couple decades ago, but it is mostly all LED now.

“Our ENG customer’s primary application is live and in-the-field stand-ups, so they’re looking for the highest-output LED in a compact/lightweight form-factor,” said Kevin Crawford, vice president of engineering for Frezzi Energy Systems in Hawthorne, N.J. “Because our Frezzi SkyLight uses a single-source LED element, it provides a smooth, flat optical field with a single shadow and the intensity of an HMI in a user-friendly and small fixture.”

Are LED fixtures good enough to push HMI lights from the market, however?

“We also see the HMIs are being phased out rapidly for LEDs, even though they produce beautiful light,” Crawford said. “The product trend we see is for LEDs to replace tungsten and HMIs, as LEDs are becoming more efficient and continually improving in quality.”

Crawford said that LED is the light technology of the foreseeable future.

“LEDs are here to stay and always improving output, quality of light and efficiency,” he said.  “HMIs have a much higher cost of operation/ownership, plus UV concerns, and lamp life is typically only 200 hours vs. 50,000 hours for LEDs. With new tunable LED single-source elements, we are mapping out adjustable color temperature fixtures [3200-5600K], while maintaining HMI-type output in a compact fixture.”

Form-Factor Finesse
LED lighting fixtures are available in many more shapes and designs than was possible with tungsten and HMI fixtures. One reason why is because of the high-efficiency/low-heat nature of LEDs—you can just package them in many different ways, and use a range of diffusing techniques to get the lighting effect you want.

“For LED fixtures, there are many different types of light modifiers now available, so end users can bounce and diffuse the light to change the size of the illuminated surface area, to get the desired result,” said Michael Herbert, product manager for Litepanels. “What is increasingly important is that the LED light itself has enough output to be used with a range of different modifiers.” 

This is partially why Lietpanels is seeing a trend toward “hard” LED light sources, Herbert added. 

“These high-output fixtures can throw beams of light through windows to simulate midday sunlight, but then can be pushed through multiple layers of diffusion to create a much softer lighting effect,” he said.

One benefit of LED lights is its excellent efficiency: They make a lot of light using a modest amount of power. Will this efficiency continue to improve over time?

“It has been increasing for many years, but we’re starting to see it level off,” Herbert said. “Unlike the general lighting industry, television and film lighting has to pay attention to the color quality of the LEDs. There’s an inverse relationship between color quality and LED efficiency—the more you focus on a broad, full-spectrum LED, the less efficient it’s going to be at converting electricity into light.”

How does the efficiency of LED lights compare with tungsten and HMI lights?

“Film lighting fixtures are now typically surpassing 100 lm/W, which is much more efficient than tungsten, but only about on a par with HMI,” Herbert said. “I think we will continue to see smaller, more incremental improvements in LED efficiency, but with an increasing focus on improving the color quality.”

White vs. Color
As is true for many technical situations, having flexibility is a good thing—if you understand how to use it and keep the parameters of the device in mind. Beginning several years ago, there was great interest in lights that had red, green, blue and white emitters; lights that could create light of any color and even produce effects like ambulance lights or mimic the light from a fireplace. 

Such lights are still popular for many applications, and they can be the right thing for a range of applications. However, the key is that you need to understand what the light can do and how to get it to produce the light you need for your project.

“Just a couple of years ago everyone wanted RGBW lights, but in recent years the market has been asking for high-quality white light in fixed color temperature or in bi-color without RGB,” said Toby Sali, co-owner of BB&S Lighting. “What we hear from professionals is that the option to use RGB is not needed, and most of the time creates issues because of the option to add colors to the white light.”

Although LED components are generally stable, there is a little aging over time and slight variations among similar components.

“The problem with most RGBW fixtures is the calibration of the mixing of the different LEDs,” Sali said. “No LED is the same, and variations from diode-to-diode affect blending the RGBW colors to get the color temperature you want.”

A Match for Cameras?
So just how good are today’s LED lights? Ultimately, a camera has to capture the scene that the light is illuminating, so how well do today’s lights work with today’s cameras? Do tungsten lights still have an advantage in color purity?

“Matching tungsten really doesn’t matter much anymore in most cases,” Challenger said. “The issue is that all LED sources have non-continuous spectra— different manufacturers’ cameras have quite different spectral response, so it comes down to how the peaks and valleys of the LED spectrum align with camera sensors. My personal recommendation is, despite whatever color index is popular at the time, you should test lights you are considering by viewing the results through the cameras you have, or are considering. Anything else opens you up to the risk of unpleasant surprises.”

Frezzi’s Crawford said that modern lights and modern cameras are a good match.

“Today’s cameras can balance to all types of light sources,” he said. “The LEDs we use have a very good broadcast-quality spectrum, and our SkyLight is balanced at 5600K for maximum output to compete with a full-sun day. If tungsten color temperature is required for an indoor shoot, we have a flip-down converter filter that will balance to 3200K without significant loss of output.”

It may sound trite, but in the past 15 years, LED lights have revolutionized television lighting. In addition to being all the good things mentioned above (low-weight, low-heat, high-efficiency and available in a wide array of shapes and sizes), LED lights are also economical. They are no more expensive than the technologies that preceded them, and in many cases are less expensive.

Good-quality lights at common-sense prices is one more tool that the industry has used to drive down the cost of film/video production. It’s a win-win situation for creators—the gear keeps getting better, while the cost goes down.

It’s a great time to be creating content.

NEW YORK—I’m a long-time user of Frezzi batteries and lights and I've worked with them for awhile during my work with Spectrum News, when our Long Form department bought a number of FB-100 batteries to power our Sony FS7-M2 cameras and at least six Frezzi HMI Skylight kits for remote entertainment and Broadway-show interviews.

More recently I bought a number of camera batteries and chargers for our east and west coast operations—four camera batteries and two chargers for each coast. Even though I have no trouble flying the Frezzi FB-100 Lithium Ion batteries, it just makes life easier to not have to wrap them up in plastic and carry them with me on the plane since I fly between Newark and LAX 3-4 times a month.

Small But Powerful
Also, to make traveling and hauling lights easier, I bought two Frezzi 3-light kits, one for each coast. These Frezzi LCL-180 led video lights are small with built-in batteries (Photo 1). They can be placed on the included light stands or mounted onto your camera. They’re dimmable and have variable color temperature and as small as they are, they’re powerful and easy to charge. 

Photo 2 is a freeze frame of an interview with author Allison Pataki, daughter of former New York Governor George Pataki. A lot of outdoor window light hit the left side of her face so we needed to off-set that with enough light, about 4900 K color temperature. It was easy with these LCL-180’s: Having white balanced for 4900 K you’ll notice that the lamp over her right shoulder looked a little amber, probably about 2600 K, just what we were looking for.

The biggest advantage of the LCL-180 3-light kit is that Frezzi has packed a lot of portable power in a small case. Three light stands and 3 LCL-180 lights are so lightweight and easy to carry that we recently climbed Mt. Baldy in Southern California to conduct an interview in a cabin a mile-and-a-half up the mountain.

I had to carry a large camera and a Miller tripod, which were both heavy, especially given the treacherous conditions on the trail with mud, snow and ice. I also threw the Frezzi light kit over my shoulder on top of everything else and I couldn’t believe how light it was. 

The lights were also necessary for the Pataki interview because we had to off-set outdoor light coming through big windows. So we put the windows behind the subject and lit her up so well that the background wasn’t washed out—the trees and snow in the background looked great. The goal is even lighting, and that was easily achieved with these very portable LCL-180 lights.

No Mic Shadows
You’ll also notice in Photo #1 that the camera on the left has the Frezzi Pro Light, which I use for red carpet interviews. It taps right out of the Frezzi camera battery and positions high on the camera, with no camera-mic shadows. It also makes a nice fill light when using the LCL-180’s in a 3-point lighting configuration. I’m looking forward to using the LCL-180 on-board the camera as well—it will be nice to be able to match the color temperature of the bright red carpet lights behind us.

Finally, I really like the 2-port Frezzi FLC-2AP and FLC-2AV chargers—they’re very portable and I try not to go anywhere without them. I always go to the Frezzi factory to buy my equipment and the service is so good and everyone is so friendly that they make me feel like I’m part of the family. 

Robin Sanders is a freelance cameraman/editor/associate producer cameraman. He can be reached at 646-234-8341 and at robin.sanderssr@icloud.com.

For more information, visit www.frezzi.com.

SEATTLE—When a news photographer jumps out of a vehicle to cover a breaking news story, the last thing they need is a science project when putting together the video gear. Makers of camera support, portable lighting and battery packs go to great lengths to make their gear on the go quick and easy to deploy.

CAMERA SUPPORT

Tripods have always been important for steadying the camera shot, but they’re even more important now to support the camera while the video journalist also reports the liveshot.

Miller Camera Support addressed the need for one-handed tripod deployment with its Sprinter tripod. “We have a dual, independent locking system with two levers that are side-by-side at the top,” said Miller Regional Manager Gus Harilaou. “That allows opening the tripod with one flip of the lever, and it deploys both the bottom and the top stages of the tripod. The tripod is opened in a few seconds.”

The Sprinter tripod is paired with Miller’s Compass X18 fluid head. “This is basically for any newsgathering where guys have little cameras, whether that would be handheld or full-blown shoulder-mount cameras,” Harilaou said. “CX18 has a capacity range to take any payload from zero to 35 pounds.”

Vitec brands Vinten and Sachtler co-developed the flowtech tripod family designed for fast moving news coverage. “What makes it so appealing to the news folks is the speed of deployment, which can determine whether you get a shot or not on a breaking news story,” said Tobias Keuthen, director of global product marketing management.

Keuthen noted that the flowtech’s unique clamping mechanism was placed on top of the tripod where the head fits, helping news photogs deploy more quickly. “You don’t have to bend over; you can open the braking clamps for all three legs from the top of the tripod and extend the legs easily,” he said. “You can close the clamps also without bending over, and you can adjust the legs for working on stairs or uneven ground.” The company just added a 100mm bowl version of the flowtech for larger payloads.

Several years ago, Libec launched its Hands Free Monopod (HFMP) designed for free stand operation, according to Jose Larios, manager of sales and marketing for the company. “Our monopod is different by the fact that the base is wide, and it allows the user to put it into a vertical position just by simply stepping on the base,” he said.

The HFMP can stand on its own on the wide base to allow a oneman- band photojournalist to securely position the monopod then step in front of the camera for a liveshot standup. Libec conducted some focus groups to determine what users wanted from a monopod, Larios said. “And when we found out what were the best features, applications and benefits that are going to our product, we put that into place when designing the Hands Free Monopod.” This included placing a fluid head on the top.

Shotoku found that stringers and news departments at smaller stations were turning to lower cost camcorders and even DSLRs to capture video, which opened its market to lower cost, simpler tripod systems. “Our tripods for these customers vary from the SD 20 with really basic level features like fixed drag and counterbalance,” said Graham Ramsey sales director, manual and robotic products for Shotoku.

Two slightly higher level versions—SD 80 and SD 150—can handle higher payloads of 8 kilos and 15 kilos, respectively, and feature a step counterbalance system, and step drag system. To keep things simple for working faster, “with the SD 20 you can leave the balance and drag settings exactly where they are,” Ramsey added. “You don’t have to change anything, take off tensions or lower drag settings, or anything like that.”

LIGHTING

Lighting equipment has come a long way since the introduction of LED fixtures, with time-saving features like dimming without color shifts and the ability to dial in a desired color temperature.

Video journalists are not necessarily lighting experts, according to Kevin Crawford, vice president of engineering at Frezzi in Hawthorne, N.J. “A lot of these people don’t really know about how to light up a scene, so our Skylight product provides a wide, flat, optical field,” he said. “This thing is brain-dead simple to use, and throws a lot of light.”

For working fast in the field, the Skylight can be powered by a broadcast brick battery pack or off AC. It provides high CRI single source 5600K daylight light without pixelation or color fringing.

Fluotec’s StarMaker color-tunable panel fixture has found a home in ENG vans for a number of years, and the company’s upgrade to the StarMaker HP model will make it even more desirable to news crews said Fluotec Chief Marketing Officer Jose Maria Noriega.

“The StarMaker HP now has the same technology as our Cine Light, so it has a much better CRI of 97.7, and it now delivers an output of 37 percent more light than the previous version,” he said. “Incorporating our NEBULA Diffusion Chamber Technology makes a 70 degree throw and softer light than when it’s used without this attachment. And this allows you to use barn doors. Although most panel manufacturers put the barn doors on the light, but they throw a multi-shadow on the background. Our diffusor attachment behaves as a single source point of light, which is very controllable by barn doors.”

With the built-in battery attachment, there’s no need to run cables.

Litepanel’s most popular ENG light is its Astra Bi-Color, according to Byron Brown, program product manager for parent company Vitec Videocom. “It can be easily hand held or put on a stand, it can be installed with a battery adapter, you slip the battery on it and you’re ready to go.”

The color agility of the Astra Bi-Color is another feature that allows for working fast, Brown added. “What we find oftentimes is that guys out in the field will start off with the light dialed in to daylight, and then warm it up to taste,” he said. “The color temperature dial on the Astra also has color temperature readings, so if you know your favorite reading is 4500K, you just dial it to that number and you’re there.”

For situations where a photographer needs a longer throw of light, Litepanels also has the Astra Bi-Focus, with lenses to narrow and intensify the light.

Tama Berkeljon, managing director at Outsight in Australia, said its most popular light for ENG shooters is the bicolor Creamsource Micro. “It’s punchier, and you’ve got more options for diffusing it or softening it back,” he said. “It’s extremely flexible and can be deployed in seconds with a battery attached.”

Accessories include diffusion and lensing, Berkeljon added. “Dropping in lenses changes the beam angle from 30 to 60 to 100 degrees,” he said. “Unlike most bi-color fixtures, the Micro maintains constant power output across the whole CCT range, so users always get the unit’s full potential. There is no reason to have to choose between a bi-color or daylight system. And because of the Micro’s wide 10-32V operating voltage, users can power the fixture from a single 90WH battery, or directly from a car.”

Zylight spotlights its F8 200 LED Fresnel as its most popular with ENG camera crews for its durability and outdoor IP protection. Charlie Collias, director of fixture sales for the Cypress, Calif.-based company.

It’s also very quick to deploy when breaking news is happening. “Its 5 inches thick and packs into a milk crate, pelican case or in padded travel cases we sell,” Collias said. “In other words, the F8 200 is easy to find space for in a van to bring it along, and doesn’t take up much room. The camera person can pull it right out of the bag, place it on a stand and throw a camera battery on the rear and it’s good to go.”

BB&S Lighting recommends a pair of fixtures for speedy ENG work, one for closer work and a second when some throw is needed. “Our Reflect 1-foot or 2-foot wedge-shaped LED fixtures feature an internal reflector system that spreads a 160 degree beam angle,” said Toby Sali, partner in BB&S. “They can be used singly or ganged up in banks. They give you instant and soft lighting.”

Where the subject is some distance away, he points to their Compact Beam Light. “the front is 6 inches, and it’s 5 inches across. It is a 40W draw, like the other one, and it is a 7 degree, 11 degree, 14 degree or 17 degree beam light. So it isn’t a hard light. It doesn’t give you a ridge like a LEKO ellipsoidal profile light. It’s got 15 percent roll-off on the edges.”

During the fluorescent lighting era, Kino Flo sold a lot of its Diva lighting fixtures to news shooters who liked the soft modeling light it produced. “As LEDs took over, we developed a fixture called the Diva Light 21, which is the latest version of our LED Diva Light,” said Scott Stueckle, who handles sales and public relations for the Burbank, Calif.-based company. “It’s lighter weight from any other Diva Light we’ve had. It still has all the functionality. You can pull it out of the case and you can run full daylight and tungsten.”

One high-end feature of the latest firmware for the Diva 21 is the ability to color match the light to a particular camera. “Cameras have different sensors, different spectral curves that they use to see light—they don’t all see light the same way,” Stueckle said. “We’ve pulled out all those spectral sensitivity curves of those cameras, and we’ve downloaded them onto our software profiles. You can also go in and pull up a Panavision or Panasonic or Sony or Canon camera, and lock those color profiles in.” If a news shooter has to change cameras, it’s easy to change the Kino Flo fixture’s color properties to match, Stueckle added.

POWER SUPPLIES

A news shooter can have everything else going fine, and when the power runs out the shoot rudely and quickly comes to an end. Battery makers have gone to great lengths to provide high-capacity battery packs that are also feature rich.

Anton/Bauer unveiled its Dionic XT battery family last year and it’s found a quick market for news photographers, according to Chris Gaughan, product manager for Vitec Videocom’s Anton/ Bauer brand, who said Dionic battery packs are designed to live on the back of a camcorder “and you’re ready to go at a moment’s notice. You pick up your camera, push a button, and it’s running.”

Another feature that assures the shooter isn’t chasing a news story with a nearly empty battery pack is a fuel gauge display. “When the battery’s not under load it tells you how much battery is left, gives you a percentage,” Gaughan said. “When the camera’s running, it gives you the run time you have left, based on the load. And by touching the back of the battery you can cycle through and see what kind of current you’re drawing and temperature of the cell pack.”

Jet-hopping news crews were the focus of IDX System Technology when it designed its Dual C 98 battery packs. “Because it’s at 98W—under 100W—you could carry 15, 20, 25 on the plane,” said Jun lshizekai, associate manager of marketing & regional west sales. “It features two D-taps and one for USB, so it has enough accessory ports to fill all of a camera guy’s needs.”

Dual Cs have a five LED fuel gauge on the side, and because the individual LED is either fully lit, blinking or dark, it actually indicates battery power remaining in 10 percent increments, lshizekai added. “There’s also an LED on the Vmount side, and if you’re in total dark and it’s hard to see to change batteries, you can turn this LED on. It stays on for 30 seconds to let you maneuver around when remounting a battery pack on the camera.”

PAG’s PAGlink batteries provide the ability to gang several battery packs together on the back of a camcorder, creating a number of advantages, according to John O’Keefe, marketing consultant for PAG. “Unlike the conventional Gold Mount batteries, a single battery with a single capacity, PAG makes 90Wh and 150Wh battery packs that can be linked together,” he said. “For most guys who are shooting news, they would probably want just two, and that would let them shoot for eight hours without having to change batteries.”

PAG’s Power Hub sandwiches between two battery packs, and will let the shooter power a light, wireless microphone, small monitor and similar accessories off the camera when both batteries are linked. “The battery closest to the camera acts as your hot swap and the camera drains from the rear battery,” O’Keefe added. “That power hub is in the middle, and you can remove the rear battery without interrupting power to the camera and accessories.”

Frezzi’s FLD 100 battery packs are 100 Wh capacity, the company’s largest legally transportable battery. “It’s got a push to test fuel gauge, so it doesn’t drain the battery when it’s not being used,” said Crawford.

“It’s weatherproof, fully sealed. It can be charged with our existing desktop chargers; and it has a small port that’s used with a portable power supply to charge it, like a small desktop charger, a single channel. So if you have a little go bag and you don’t want to bring a desktop charger, like a four position station, you could use this little power supply to charge it that way.”

SEATTLE—Speed—the faster a news photographer can get shooting, then get on to the next location, the more productive he or she can be. As the sign over Charles Osgood’s radio reporting desk reads: “Quantity is Job One.”

LIGHTING
The lights a news photog carries are a good place to start. Adding attachments to a piece of equipment can be a real time waster, which is why Zylight built an articulating arm into its LED Newz on-camera lighting fixture (see review). When not in use, the arm folds up to the light fixture’s housing and when it’s showtime, the arm quickly attaches to the camera and allows movement of the light into the desired position.

The Newz fixture provides variable color temperature adjustment from daylight to tungsten, along with smooth dimming. It sports a water-resistant IP54 rating for shooting in extreme conditions like hurricanes and blizzards.

Whether in the studio or out in the field, today’s cameras offer high resolution and sharpness that can reveal every flaw and blemish on a reporter or interviewee’s face. The solution is a wide, soft source, like Kino Flo’s Diva 415, a four-bank fluorescent fixture that can be interchangeably lamped for daylight or tungsten.

Diva lights provide on-board ballast dimming and feature builtin barn doors along with a reflector, louvers, Flozier diffuser, lamp case and fixture carrying case. Kits combining Diva 415s and the smaller 201s provide all the fixtures needed for a full-fledged interview setup.

The color rendering properties of metal-halide gas discharge lamps, HMIs, MSRs, etc., are well known. But since many of these lamps require time for cooling before being restruck, the off-again/on-again nature of news shooting made their use for “run-and-gun” shooting problematic.

Videssence Little VID KIT K5600’s Joker 200 News provides an ultra-fast restrike lamp starter that assures quiet and immediate lamp ignition and re-ignition, so the fixture requires virtually no setup time. It can be used without optics to become a Bug-Lite, while it can also evenly fill a Lightbank or Lantern, making it the perfect light for interviews. The company’s Joker News kit operates in 110V and 240V environments as well as from a pair of 14.4V camera batteries or a 30V battery.

Three-point lighting is a staple of modeling a face, and Videssence’ Little VID KITS are designed to deliver just that in a rolling canvas trolley case. The kits are available in daylight or tungsten, with 50W focusing or non-focusing LED Fresnel fixtures.

Each Little VID fixture is powered off 120-230V AC power, with battery power an option. The kits include stands, barn doors and gel frames or gel holders. Each fixture has a 12-foot cord to remote power supply that allows easy programming for dimming or DMX control.

Cineo Maverick The 12 x 12-inch 1x1 LED panel lights have defined soft source lighting for over a decade. Cineo’s Maverick fixture applies its remote phosphor design to that same form factor to take the best of both advantages, with a 160-degree even spread of light and full, on-fixture dimming control. The phosphor panels can quickly be interchanged to change color temperature from 3200 to 5600 or 6500K.

With the rigors of field use in mind, the lightweight Maverick features DC power and waterproof construction and delivers a volume of light equal to a traditional 1K soft source, with a wide array of accessories, power supply and mounting options.

Podcasters and traveling correspondents often deliver their on-camera work from a desktop with a laptop webcam. BBS Lighting took the challenge of image quality from a minimal workspace when it designed its two-light Pipeline Remote Phosphor LED Reporter Kit.

The foot-long cylindrical fixtures come with desktop stands and full range dimming to provide modeled light to match illumination on the correspondent whether in a dimly lit room all the way to filling in sunlight-generated shadows. Using battery power at a paltry 10W per fixture, there’s no need to string power cables.

POWER SUPPLIES
There’s an old news photographer joke that has him looking for a “currant” bush to plug into when his batteries run down. But drained batteries are no joke in the field, and that keeps fueling battery development.

With many newsrooms migrating to one-man-band VJ operations, headcount may be reduced, but the actual number of field-ready camera systems—and their attendant rechargeable batteries—can increase. The more batteries a station has, the more charging wherewithal they need.

PAG found a way to maximize the amount of charging that can be done in the footprint of a single charger by developing its PAGlink system. The four-position PL16+ allows up to four PAGlink batteries to be piggybacked on each of four charging positions to simultaneously charge up to 16 batteries simultaneously. Intelligence built into the system figures out the best and most efficient way of charging each battery pack.

A news shooter carrying a large-enough capacity battery pack to power multiple devices is one thing, but getting at that power can be another.

This led IDX to put a pair of D-taps on its Duo 95 and Duo 150 battery packs, which can power other devices that need a 12V source. And because there are other peripherals like cellphones and tablets that can need a charge during the workday, they’ve even added a USB port to the battery packs.

With all the ways of going live from news stories, it’s important that the photogs be ultra portable and able to move fast and get to the scene first.

Frezzi FLB-100 Frezzi came out with its FLB (Frezzi Lithium Battery) 100 series with enough power and life to provide power to not only the camera but also on-camera light and bonded cellular transmitter, cutting down on the bulk and weight that several batteries would add. The companion charger is the four-position FLC-4.

Anton/Bauer developed its Gold Mount battery pack attachment system that became so synonymous with the company it’s commonly called the A/B mount. But to make the company’s battery technology available to those with the alternative Sony L-Series battery mounts, Anton/Bauer rolled out its L-Series 7.2V battery packs.

The L-Series battery packs come in 4400mAh (30Wh) and 6600mAh (47Wh) models, and sport single and double position chargers. The chargers also include a USB port for charging peripheral devices such as cellphones and tablets.

CAMERA SUPPORT
Tripods were always important when a news crew had a reporter and a photographer, but with a one-man-band the sticks are even more necessary to hold the camera while the video journalist does a liveshot or interview.

Libec RS-250D tripod Shooting run-and-gun style may seem a far cry from using a camera rigged cinestyle, with matte boxes, flags, filter holders and focus assist tools, where the weight and balance changes sometimes shot to shot. But news shooters have their own variety of optional extras, including big or small batteries, on camera lights, wireless mic receivers and video transmitters.

When Miller designed its Compass 23 tripod system, it aimed for a lightweight but robust support for the camera package that can handle a counterbalance range of 8–30 pounds. It also provides a 120mm sliding camera plate with 60mm of travel to reset the camera balance as accessories are added or taken off.

The Compass 23 offers three selectable positions of high-performance pan and tilt drag, plus a zero position.

Most camera crews use a tripod at eye level for interviews and standups. But for shooting steady B-roll material it’s handy to be able to go high and low.

Sachtler FSB8 tripod with Touch & Go plate and SpeedLock system Shotoku addressed this need with its spreader-less TT-66/L/S tripods, featuring extreme low angle shooting or the flexibility to add stability where a floor or midlevel spreader might not be practical. The tripods employ a simple twist lock grip to allow quick, easy and individual adjustment of each leg length.

The speed with which a news shooter can move from setup to setup is dictated by how quickly the camera can be mounted and dismounted, and the tripod deployed and broken down for carrying.

Sachtler’s FSB8 tripod with Touch & Go plate and SpeedLock system addressed just this in a lightweight package. For cameras weighing less than 20 pounds, the three section TT 75/2 CF telescopic tripod quickly erects to a steady camera platform, then collapses to a portable 17 inches.

Most days a news shooter doesn’t have time to use a slider, but Libec designed their tripod heads so if there is a need for a slider, skater, etc., they can quickly mount the fluid head and get shooting.

The RS-250D (for smaller cameras) and the RS-450D (for mid-sized cameras) feature a 75mm ball for quick leveling on a tripod. But the bottom of the ball is cut flat or quick bolting to slider, skater, jib arm or other camera support device.