Small is Beautiful (that's my excuse anyway)

Aladdin Mini kit and Broncolor Picolites

So how do you confuse someone in a lighting operations role?

Simple, give them some new kit to label with bar codes but make the kit smaller than the stickers that they need to attach. The result, total and utter pandemonium!

I’ve seen this twice so far this week to my great delight and entertainment.

We have increased our lighting inventory in a couple of very small ways.

I presume despite getting another arch in Hoxton and doubling the size of our Tottenham depot that we are running out of room again hence the new kit we are buying is a bit, well little.

So, starting out with some Broncolor kit. We have invested in the fabulous Picolite range. My days working for the Broncolor importer in Australia educated me in the delight of the Picolite and its attachments. Despite its size the Picolite puts out a very impressive 1600 j of power. They come into their own when you need extremely precise lighting and are frequently used in macro shoots and still life subjects such as food and product photography, but they are equally as useful for portrait set ups.

To compliment the Picolites we have also purchased some of the accessories available.

Picolite projection attachment (including matte protection glass, gobo holder and aperture plates)

Ideal to project fine lines, patterns, gobos and slides.

Picolite barn doors (4 wing)

A very small 4 wing barn door to further enhance the Picolites precise light control

Picolite grids (3 different grids)

Similar to a snoot but with 3 different interchangeable grids inside

Picolite Pulso adaptor

This allows any Broncolor Pulso attachment to be attached to a Picolite (within reason)

The Picolite system is a very versatile addition to our range of Broncolor kit, it integrates seamlessly into the rest of the Broncolor range and can be run off the Scoro 3200 j packs (at ½ power 1600j !) or even the Broncolor Move system (the modelling light will not work with the Move however)

I’ve always liked the Picolites and consider them pretty cool about 8 / 10 for my BCR especially as we now have some.

To continue the theme of small being beautiful our next purchase has been the rather snazzy Aladdin Mini Kit. This little pelican case looks like something Q would give to 007 before his latest assignment (am I the only one who wonders how Q knows exactly what Mr Bond will need in the way of secret agent gadgets before he needs them?).

Inside the box are no less than 6 lights and various mounts, holders, batteries and chargers.

Everything you could possibly need to set up a studio in a Smurf village.

Presuming you are shooting something a little larger than Smurfs the Aladdin Mini Kit is still an incredibly useful addition to any lighting set up, containing 2 Aladdin Eye lites and 4 Aladdin A lites and all the mounting hardware required.

Both the A lites and eye lites are robustly made form aircraft spec aluminium and fully dimmable from 100 – 5% with a colour temperature range from 3000 – 6000 deg. Each has a runtime of about an hour on full power but can be run via a USB from a mains supply. A foldable diffusion screen is included for each of the 4 A Lites to soften the output.

Now you can’t expect to light the Albert Hall with this box of tricks but if your portrait of Blowfeld and his (nameless) cat is lacking a little oomph a well-placed Eye lite or an A lite or two could just add that evil glint to his eye or perhaps it’s a close up of the ejection seat button in 007’s Aston that needs a little extra exposure but you don’t want to squeeze a Skypanel in through the sunroof! again reach for the Aladdin mini kit and your problems are solved.

10 /10 for my BCR but I do love gadgets and especially secret agent ones

Anyway, to see our massive range of tiny lights feel free to pop in whenever

Just one last thing, how come Blofeld never mentions his cats name, I presume it was Tiddles or something else that wasn’t particularly evil.

Cheers BB