As the price of LED lighting comes tumbling down, heads like the Colbor CL220R bring full RBG colour control well within reach of the enthusiast, says Damien Demolder
Not that long ago, if you wanted to use coloured continuous lighting, you needed either to spend a lot of money, or to buy a set of gels for your standard daylight head. However, in recent times the price of RGB LED heads, tubes and panels with red, green and blue colour diodes has dropped in dramatic fashion. By this, I mean that the technology has become so cheap that new manufacturers are coming on the scene with very low-cost units.
We’ve seen a lot of one-colour and bi-colour lights from brands like Nanlite and SmallRig, but not so many with full RGB non-tube heads. So this CL220R from Colbor is a little unusual.
Features
The Colbor CL220R is a revised version of the firm’s CL220 220W bi-colour head, but with the introduction of RGB LEDs to add some colour to the mix. While the daylight and tungsten LEDs might conform to the headline 220W specification, the RGB LEDs are only 100W. So we should expect slightly less than half the power output when we are relying just on the colours.
The light provides colour temperatures between 2700K and 6500K, easily covering daylight and domestic tungsten, and then all the red, green and blue mixes on top. As is becoming common these days, in the colour temperature modes we can also adjust the green and magenta tint. So minor shifts can be made more easily to match the ambient lighting.
Making the most of the mass of existing modifiers, the CL220R has a Bowens bayonet mount so we can fit very old as well as very new dishes, softboxes and snoots. Unusually though, the light has a slot on each side of its body into which we can slide a NATO rail that can be used to attach further accessories. The rail comes in the kit and makes it possible to attach a battery so we can use the light on location.
A mains adapter comes with the head, but the VM3 V-Mount adapter is optional, and allows a V-Mount battery to be fitted. The adapter comes with a D-Tap to XLR cable, so the battery can be plugged in to the light’s power supply port. It’s a neat idea, and makes the light stand out, as it’s unusual for a unit at this price point to offer a battery solution.
Helping with its portability and s
