Which SOLA video lights do you recommend and why?

[DiverLaura]

Laura - incredible macro footage, thanks for sharing that. Is that you with the pink fins?

Yup, me and pink fins... like peas and carrots

---------- Post added October 7th, 2015 at 11:37 PM ----------

The new SOLA's are 110% worth the upgrade.

Thanks again for the comments. I used to have a second career working as an in house videographer for a dive company in Thailand. These days my primary career has taken over and I am not currently making sub aqua movies like I used to. When I was filming, the subject matter varied from scenic shots of the dive sites to closeup macro work when I had some time on my own... and everything in between, wrecks, caves, marine life and divers. I am new to video lights and never really used them much when I was working.

Just before I left my videographer career behind me, I purchased a couple Sunray 2000X lights which worked fine for a short while before I discovered the batteries were much less than 100% and the housing slightly leaked.

I may have some opportunities in the next few years to pick up a few short gigs with my camera and housing (Amphbico Dive Buddy II) and I'd like to have the right lights for my rig.

The cave light option is probably the best but here's my quandary. I sent my lights to Sola for repair but replacement batteries cost USD $150.00 each plus a $200 repair fee. That's $500.00 USD to just get my old lights back up and running. Sola has offered me 20% off a replacement purchase of my choice... so do I pay the $500 to get my old lights back or do I put that $500 bucks towards a new set of lights from Sola?

---------- Post added October 7th, 2015 at 03:04 PM ----------

Nice Nudis Laura! Holy kit batman Good work.

 

[tursiops]

I'd look very hard at the UWLD-60V if you want some serious video lights.... or the 130V if you want a video light that no one else can think about touching.

Jeez, this seems to be your default answer recently to all questions about lights. Are you on commission?

 

[tbone1004]

negative, but as an engineer and having used both lights side by side, there is no comparison for cost/features....

Laura brought up the 8000's
$1600 on fall sale down from normal price of $2300, but we'll use the sale price. They have the quick charge which is hell on the batteries, with 50 minutes on high of burn time, and hellaciously expensive battery replacement costs.

$1750 I can get the LD60V which while it doesn't have quite the lumen output of the sola, has over a 3 hour burn time on high, so you sacrifice a bit of light to not have to charge your light after every dive, or worry about it dying on you in the middle of one.
$2500ish I can get the tall canister, with a pair of LD60V heads, 1.5hr burn time and 12000 lumen output. So now I have two lights, 1.5x the cost, but 1.5x the lumen output and double the burn time. Bit of a no brainer for me unless you have to ditch the canisters, but if you're doing big video trays, just attach the canister to the tray and call it good.

 

[aaen]

The Uwld lights are pretty impressive lights.


Regards

Steve

 

[DiverLaura]

I think its all about personal preference. I have canister lights (a set each of Halcyon 24's and 50w HID's) and non canister lights. I really really like not having the extra weight and cable of the canisters. Of course most of my diving is shore diving so lugging cameras up and down beach can be brutal. Maybe not so much of a deal if you shoot with a compact camera system but when you start adding in full size video cameras and housings it adds up. these days I put the Canister lights off axis either on light stands or on mobile light stands AKA my UW lighting crew

 

[gkrane]

I use the Sola 2100 S/F and it is fantastic. When I am not shooting video I use the light on the wrist mount as my primary for night dives.