Check out the Lumapad!
Check out the open source photo light you can control with your phone.
Today, we have a guest post from SparkFun videographer Gregg (of Engineering Roundtable, new product post, and According to Pete "fame"). Check it out:
As the videographer here at SparkFun, I get a lot of questions about the type of equipment I use. As a general rule, I try to pick out equipment that will give me the most bang for my buck. Nowadays it's pretty easy to find affordable deals on cameras and sound recorders, but the same cannot always be said for lighting equipment. I shoot different types of videos all over the SparkFun building, and at other locations, such as Pete's dark scary basement. Therefore the lighting equipment I use needs to be lightweight, portable, and able to run on battery power. LED's fit the bill nicely, but a single 1' x 1' LED light panel can run over $1200.
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I was recently approached by Richard Haberkern, creater of the Lumapad. The Lumapad is an open source LED light pad that incorporates many of the platforms we offer here at SparkFun, such as the Electric Imp and Arduino. By incorporating the Electric Imp, the Lumipad's intensity and color temperature can all be adjusted from a smart phone. You can also network a series of lights together, and program them to do a variety of lighting effects, such as simulated lightning or strobe flashes. The Lumapad only draws 88 watts (not 1.21 gigawatts), so it can easily be run on battery power, but it puts out the equivalent of 1000 watts of tungsten power. In addition to drawing less current than other light sources, it's also much smaller. The Lumapad measures in at just 6.75", making it extremely portable, even more so than other LED options on the market.
Richard was kind enough to send me a prototype version of the Lumapad. I have been using it for two weeks now in all my videos and I absolutely love it. Check it out!
