Revolutionary Rotolight Anova Shoot at BBC Studios

Will Strauss#

Author: Will Strauss#

Published 1st October 2012


The Worlds Most Advanced LED Floodlight the Rotolight Anova (www.rotolight.com) was recently the light of choice for a shoot at the home of British Television, with Philip Nash, Multi-Award Winning Photographer and Videographer(www.nash.net) shooting both Video and stills with one of the worlds leading models.
The shoot was both indoors against photographic hi-key and low-key backgrounds, aswell as outdoors which brought several challenges to the shoot, most notably having a light that would provide enough punch outdoors in direct daylight, whilst also offering the flexibility of providing a soft diffuse light output with variable colour temperature control in a typical TV Studio environment.
Due to the challenges of this particular shoot, The obvious light of choice for was the Rotolight ANOVA, a British made, Bi-Colour, 1000W equivalent LED Flood light that uses just 38W of power and creates an amazing soft shadowless lighting effect with its 110 beam angle, perfect for photography and video.
Anova’s Bi-Colour LED System developed at PineWood Film Studios is capable of accurately reproducing white light from candlelight through to full daylight in 10 degree Kelvin Steps, with a real time colour temperature display. This was particularly useful on the shoot as when working in the Studio the lights can be matched perfectly to any existing light sources. In this case the Studio was lit exclusively with the Rotolight Anova, and for the outdoors shots the Anova’s were used with specially designed Raincovers from Portabrace, allowing them to be used in all weather conditions whilst the light was able to be set to 6300K direct daylight to perfectly match the ambient lighting.
“For location shooters it's hard to beat the flexibility of the variable light temperature the Anova provides” said Nash
One of the other key challenges of this shoot as with most was time, and there again the Rotolight Anova really comes into its own. Aswell as featuring DMX as standard, the Anova incredibly also features its own in built Wifi Network allowing wireless remote control of brightness, colour temperature from an iPhone or iPad which allows more time to create the perfect shot. Using Rotolight’s Magic Eye iPhone App, we were able to control all of the lights in the Studio in one hand and even create custom “Designer Fades” for the perfect fade to black first time round.
Utilising the wireless features of the ANOVA, the highly experienced photographer simply created a 3-point lighting setup in the studio. “Being able to control them from an iPad or iPhone means that they can be mounted from the ceiling with cables rooted safely away from your clients.” Said Philip Nash.
In addition to providing wireless control of your lighting, Rotolight’s new ‘Magic Eye’ APP allows users to accurately ‘sample’ both the colour and intensity of ambient light using any iPhone or iPad, which the Anova will then accurately reproduce, enabling perfect synchronization of colour both on location and in the studio.
One of the problems typically associated with using LED lighting in professional Studio environments to date is that LED manufacturers often market themselves as being a 'continuous light source', whereas infact they are utilizing a lighting control technique known as 'Pulse Width Modulation' (PWM) which means that in reaility the light is not totally continuous, it is rapidly 'pulsing' light but at rates not visible to the human eye. Whilst the human eye may not notice the difference, Video and Photographic cameras can and as a result, when operating at higher frame rates and speeds, or from a photographic perspective shorter exposure times, the result is black/dark frames rendering the video or photo useless. The Rotolight Anova does not utilise PWM at any brightness level and therefore was the ideal light of choice for this Studio shoot.
“One of the great advantages of using LEDs is that they produce little or no heat. This is especially useful when using multiple units in a studio environment - and this is also when the iPod/iPad control comes into its own” said nash.
“Being able to simply vary the colour temperature and the light output of each head means that beautiful lighting doesn't have to be complicated. There's no question that these Anova lights can really change the way you work. It's about time we brought some art back into our work and these new Anova’s are perfect tools for the job. These are beautifully made and engineered lights. I strongly suggest you try them out for yourself”. Said Nash.
To see the results from Philip’s shoot visit www.rotolight.com/media-gallery/
The Rotolight Anova is in stock and available to buy from Visual Impact(www.visuals.co.uk) and CVP(www.cvp.co.uk), aswell as to hire from VMI (www.vmi.tv) and Alias Hire (www.aliashire.com) amongst many others.
The Magic Eye App is available now from http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/magic-eye/id508524206?mt=8

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