Rotolight Pro - Surprising and disappointing Results

Let me first say I love these lights in constant mode… that being said, I just don’t get the marketing hype behind the flash aspect. I did not get the extra stop of light that was advertised- in fact I believe it’s a little less light in flash mode. They claim to work with Profoto remotes, but that’s at best a crap shoot. Absolutely not reliable enough even for a casual shoot. With the Godox remote they do work, but not as reliable as I would like for pro gear at this (or any) price.
But I honestly do love them in constant mode. Now if I can only get the app to actually work!
I’m using 2 Rotolight Neo 3, 1 Rotolight Neo 3 Pro and 1 Rotolight Aeos 2 for this shoot.

[@bubuli]

i have the Neo 3 and that 1/50s setting on the light is pretty important: i believe that is the light’s t1 flash duration (my speculation, not confirmed by Rotolight) which means to achieve this output your camera’s shutter speed needs to be 1/50s or SLOWER. your temp also needs to be at 4600K (this one is in the manual). i have a video that attempts to explain this as i did experiments all day today to find answers. now i kind of understand why there’s a flash duration setting on the lights (which no other OEM does): Rotolight knew it’s impossible to get full power at SS faster than 1/50s…so they need to let user adjust flash duration…however by adjusting it (to make it faster) you ALSO lose power…that is why they “recommend” to keep it at 1/50s.

[@kaskoPhoto]

I’ll try it but cannot shoot with a camera setting of 1/50 - with 60mp the camera shake at my age would be terrible.

[@barrie2504]

Congratulations on telling some truths about these lights. I also had some trouble initially getting my AEOS 2 to trigger from my Profoto flash trigger but after a day, it started to work fine. Like you, I actually love the lights for their versatility in color gels. I am old school and remember the days of bright and very hot, hot lights. I am not keen to return to the days when models squinted through the brightness. The flash power is low (about setting 4 on my Profoto B10 plus - that is about 8ws.) I can do it if I have to but I will continue to cut gels for the foreseeable future. There is a very good reason why the ‘hard sellers’ claim the lights are soft as you point out, they are not bright enough to put in a soft-box or shoot through a scrim unless the iso is pushed significantly. The color tech is brilliant, no question but the half-truths are disturbing and unnecessary.

[@kaskoPhoto]

They are amazing moderately powered LEDs with great gel/color options. But just not a good fit for me in my still photography.

[@ArminHirmer]

interesting for sure, thanks for all your hard work

[@kaskoPhoto]

Very welcome

[@ongtoni]

Well said, it is frustrating when it works intermittently. I own the NeO3 myself. Have you try on the Nikon Z series cameras….. apparently a lot of triggers Does not work. Many thanks.

[@kaskoPhoto]

I tried them and I sold them. Again, great technology and not a bad light at all, just not for me.

[@rgreeneish]

Also on the Titan when you would switch between max and max plus on the flash, it would actually color shift to 4300 K and warm up the image. I haven’t experienced that on the Aoes’s twos. But because I know that can’t happen I almost always shoot a custom white balance.

[@kaskoPhoto]

I have an issue with color shifts - unless I can match that color shift with all lights used. But I would prefer the easy matching lights

[@rgreeneish]

Interesting results on the flash power. I’m going to test mind this week and see if I come up with the same results.

[@kaskoPhoto]

When I tested again with just the single neo I got a small bump in power.

[@rgreeneish]

Did you say you’re not getting high speed sync at 1/80 of a second? Even 1/180 is too slow. I don’t know what the sync speed of your Leica camera is, but it should be faster than that. I would assume it would be faster than 1/250

[@kaskoPhoto]

The Leica syncs at 180s. I use the Profoto Leica remote and sync up to 8,000 with the Profoto A1s without issue.

[@DAVE211147]

When you swapped from Rotolight to Rotolight Flash did you turn the controller on then off after changing to flash?

[@kaskoPhoto]

I tried disabling the flash then doing a shut down and turning back on. Then just playing and playing until it connected. Rotolight said it’s something quirky with the Profoto remote- but it is flawless with the Profoto flashes. So in that sense it’s not quirky. Maybe they can figure it out with firmware. 🙏🏻

[@DAVE211147]

@@kaskoPhoto Good luck with that, the guy I knew has gone now he was very good at backup

[@eoslove2022]

Elinchrom remote works for us on Canon R5

[@kaskoPhoto]

Yes, the Elinchrome has always worked. They made that remote specifically for use with Rotolight. I was testing the Profoto remote for use with my camera.

[@michaelmcgriff3319]

the miss firing youre experiencing isnt because of thyhe rotolight its because of your camera . I had the same problem with my canon R6,but when i switched over to another camera those issues were gone so this review is pointless.

[@kaskoPhoto]

Thanks and I’m sure you are right for your canon. I’m using Leica and I tried Nikon as well. Maybe it’s just my lights that are bad. 👍

[@choiian3899]

If I could choose one more time, I would buy profoto. Completely disappointed with this product, waste my money.

[@kaskoPhoto]

Really sorry you got sucked into the hype. Many many did as well. Like I said, if you are a video creator maybe, but that’s just a maybe. But for stills? All hype.

[@traumaj]

@@kaskoPhotothis is very helpful information as they have a sale on currently and I have been really tempted for weddings and location portraits with some mobile studio work for food etc. I think I’ll hang on to my ad200’s for now.