Gaffer & Gear 261 SLITE Review

[@helloslite]

Andrew, as someone who has come to Gaffer & Gear for MANY YEARS to justify all of my past lighting purchases and needs, it is such an honour to see our humble Slite in your hands! I felt like a parent watching their child run off for their first day of school when releasing Slite, and now as reviews start rolling in, I feel like a parent nervously reading their child's first report card. Besides making ME personally grin from ear to ear seeing Slite on your channel, there has been so many new Slite customers that thank Gaffer & Gear for introducing them to a lighting solution that fits their needs. So thank you so much for taking the time to review Slite and say so many kind things. You hit the nail on the head. From my time on big sets to the more run and gun content I found myself doing more often, I wanted a portable solution I can quickly set up and capture talking head content in very varied, often small and busy locations in a moments notice. I wanted something I could slide into my bag, jump in the car/on a plane/in a train, arrive and be set up quickly, putting my USB-C powerbanks that I already take with me everywhere to use and get the shot without limitations or sacrifice. We are all about the right tool for the job, and if I can create my work with something I can slide into my single camera bag, rather than packing another separate bag for lights, power, and modifiers, I am reaching for the one bag solution. Not to mention I feel like MacGyver every time I walk on set and magnetically slap on a Slite into a hair light position or clamp Slite into some super tight impossible to reach position. For me, Slite is absolutely perfect for how I like to work and am glad to see other folks put Slite to use for the same reasons! As our first-ever product, we are incredibly proud of turning an idea for a light I had in sunny Beechworth Australia into a light that has shipped to thousands of talented folks across the globe. We created our LEDs from scratch and allowed Slite to be recalibrated via firmware updates from the Slite App (shout out to Mrs. Gaffer & Gear for saving the day). We will continue to calibrate Slite's outputs and values to increase colour/Kelvin accuracy, dimming accuracies, power draw, AND output efficiencies as we continue to gather more information. The Slite community has shared some very cool ideas for the Slite App that we are currently developing-more granular control of green/magenta (we hear you loud and clear), smart home/stream deck integration, custom effects, etc. As we gear up for another run of Slites (almost sold out!), we are currently prototyping some very novel approaches to the edging/beam angles and LED configuration and really testing how much output we can achieve with Slite. There is some very cool new tech we will be introducing that is going to open a bunch of possibilities for portable lighting so Bring on 2024! Thank you so much again, Andrew. You’ve put an enormous smile on our dial. Alex

[@efleschner]

Thanks for staying open to testing lights not typical to many professionals. It’s nice to see new stuff on the market reviewed from a professional perspective, even if it’s not really meant for them.

[@helloslite]

Andrew is the best. I personally had been spending less time on big production sets and more time doing small teams/solo run and gun work. I wanted this lighting solution for the way I loved to work, pack light (no pun intended) set up quick, tell the story-get the shot and pack down into a single bag. It has been awesome seeing Slite used on some bigger sets, but it is SUPER exciting seeing Slite be so many creators first foray into lighting. From tattoo/makeup artists to influencers to doctors and lawyers who just want to look their best on zoom calls, Slite being a part of so many different journeys has been a blast.

[@missionabandoned]

looks good i like the power option like with a power bank

[@helloslite]

My first thought for Slite was "why can't the thing that powers my laptop also power my lights?" Then came the realisation of "that would mean I could also use my powerbanks and NEVER bring the wrong v-mount battery EVER AGAIN" haha. Big fan of being able to run 2 Slites in the middle of a forrest of a single powerbank for 2 hours. Very proud Slite parent.

[@manhattanvideoproductions]

Like your presentation style

[@helloslite]

Andrew is the lighting oracle. Huge fan.

[@karsten24]

Thanks for the review. What about the new nanlite fc-300b and fc-500b lights? Would be very interested to see a review 🙂

[@gaffergear]

Nanlite doesn't seem to be interested in me reviewing these. That's because my time is limited and they have to carefully select what I review. So for example they have to choose between me reviewing one of these or the new Fresnel for the Evokes

[@Ranger7Studios]

I actually backed the Slite on Kickstarter. Whilst I think this is a great idea, I thought the executions was not as great as it should have been. On both units I purchased, the front plastic is warping, due to lack of proper ventilation. The grid around the LEDs have also warped and are now blocking the emitters, which is effecting the light quality. Changing the light settings in the dark is also a problem, as they made all the buttons all black. I wish they had added some illumination around them. Also, both of my clamps broke with in hours. I have a feeling, that the two I bought were early production models. I know they had production problems and a pandemic, so I understand some of the quality control issues. However, at the end of the day, these sit in a closet, due to a lot of the cons I had with them. I still would love to see a version two. Maybe they should look at the Pavoslims, as that is probably the closest thing I can think of to this.

[@gaffergear]

On the two units they sent me the grid around the leds is bowed out slightly, even when not in use, After a few hours of continuous use it does bow out some more but doesn't seem to affect the light except for the very edge of the beam. The grid seems to just be decorative and not offer any structural integrity so it didn't worry me. The clamps sent to me seem to be very well made and rock solid. I wonder if the first clans were from the same supplier. The black buttons are something I forgot to mention, during my testing. I put fluorescent tape over the up and down buttons so I could find them in the dark. These units were sent to me about 9 months ago so I doubt they are from the first batch. The review was put on hold pending better firmware as the lights were in definite need of better calibrations at 3200K and 5600K. I imagine yours would have also had a green hue and not really been usable.

[@helloslite]

G'day again Steven! Both Andrew and your units are from the same production run. We didn't want to release anything that wasn't 100% ready and that we weren't 100% proud of. Committing to creating the thinnest most portable light we could, definitely caused some delays in the manufacturing process, but those maybe month or two delays were greeeaaaattllly amplified by covid. THEN by the chip shortage. THEN by the war in Ukraine. It was incredibly frustrating having small tooling alterations that normally take 5-6 days take 2 months, and having so many Kickstarter backers eagerly awaiting their deliveries put a grey hair or two on the ol' noggin! It was definitely a challenging time to launch a product, but happy we came out the end of it and have followed up our crowdfunding efforts with an incredible first 11 months on the market. The choice of materiality with both Slite's case and protective panel allows for fluctuations in heat while still providing high durability. We are proud to say that since the comment we left on your review, there has still only been ONE single person who has dropped and broken the outer shell of one of their Slites. Very happy knowing that Slite is passing the durability test in the real world! It is always going to be a push and pull with materiality choices but we made sure that Slite would be able to handle the life of an everyday shooter and that our material solutions would have no effect on the quality of the light and basically no impact on the output/beam angle of the 204 LEDs. We made sure to future proof from a software/firmware/app standpoint so that we can solve any issues that may pop up and also continue to improve/update the calibration of our LEDs to really push their accuracy to the limit. Let me know if the fix I provided for the Flexi-Mount in our previous comment doesn't solve the problem and we will shoot out some replacements right away. Of the thousands shipped, we have only had a single faulty Flexi-Mount that required replacing, but the inner perfectionist in me was definitely very annoyed that some Flexi-Mounts required the user to do something that should have been done before packaging. That was a very strong note for the quality control folks as we were gearing up for round 2 of production. The community side of Slite has been such a blast, and is incredibly important to us. I personally respond to every single bit of feedback, every comment and love hearing so many ideas for future Slites. We have created some very novel solutions that we are always prototyping and cannot wait to share what we have planned for 2024! Feel free to chuck me an email at [e-mail] regarding your Flexi-Mounts or with any other feedback! Thanks! Alex

[@Cinegavo]

I've seen this on Instagram, seems promising

[@presentscene]

Hey mate, do you think you can do a video recommendation for light diffuser, especially scrims. Also, the use of light or Color meter.

[@leoquesto9183]

Hi Andrew, are you going to repost the Molus review? It’s great and I was going to reference it for a purchase list. Thank you!

[@gaffergear]

An error needs amending, I forgot to test the boost mode on the 200, and I may as well do some tests with the lights at 10%

[@leoquesto9183]

@@gaffergear Man, you’re the man! Thanks. I’m eager for your take on that feature. Thanks so much!

[@ashleyyoung789]

Did I dream that you just reviewed the Zhiyun Molus X100? or did you delete it? 😅

[@gaffergear]

Fix up a few errors

[@ashleyyoung789]

Thanks for the great work :) @@gaffergear

[@BryonBlack1]

How would you compare this unit to the Aputure/Amaran P60c?

[@gaffergear]

I never did a review on them because at the time Aputure didn't want me reviewing Amaran. However I did beta test them. They are a ripper little unit. The Amaran is better calibrated and better built. But it's a smaller light so it will give harder shadows

[@unclejezza]

First :)