Toolkit: USB Lens Light (Perfect for RED one)

Toolkit 2 Comments

A lens light is an essential tool to have in your kit for when you’re shooting in dark places.

Night-time exteriors, dark interiors, or light-sensitive scenes are all crucial scenarios in which having a lens light comes in handy.

And having one enables you to keep the focus/iris rings on the lens lit up so you can see them during a take and while you’re pulling focus.

Some camera assistant’s use a pen style lens light, like this one from Filmtools, but they’re more expensive and you’re at the whim of batteries.

Luckily,  if you’re shooting on RED or any camera with a USB port (though I don’t know of many), you can purchase a much cheaper USB powered lens light. Designed for laptops, most of these lights are flexible LED’s powered through the USB standard.

This one, pictured below, costs only $2.99, so you can pick up three or four in case you lose them or they go bad. Simply plug it into the USB port, wrap it over one of the rods on top and voila, perfect lens light!

If the light is leaking too much for the scene at hand, you can even take a bit of gaff tape and wrap it around the light to create a mini-snoot.

Does anybody else know of any handy lens light tricks? Or lights that are good for non-USB cameras?

About the author:

About the author: Evan Luzi is the editor and founder of The Black and Blue as well as a freelance camera assistant.

You can learn more about him or follow him on Twitter and Google+.

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  • Jamin

    yeah, we use those AAA book lights, adhere velcro to the back of the battery bay, and tada!   I’ve seen some with 2 LEDS and that proved to be much brighter than my single LED system.  problem is…   I use very little equipment that requires those AAA batteries.

  • http://www.diyfilmschool.net/ DIYFilmSchool.net

    Ive never personally handled a RED, so I was wondering why you were championing these. (Now I know)

    For cameras without a USB port, you might as well stick to an LED flashlight. I haven’t seen a better alternative.