Light+Tray for point and shoot Panasonic TZ10

[froggie01]

Hi all,

After browsing the threads I didn't find one that answers my question. I own a TZ10 with its panasonic housing and I'm looking for a tray+light set up. I find them really expensive for what they are (especially the trays). I live in the UK and was given a quote between £750 and £900 depending on the tray with a Sola 1200. After reading reviews of the iTorch Pro4 it looks like an interesting light.

1. Has anybody used both who would like to comment? For those who are interested, there's a good review
here:Mini Review: iDas iTorch Video Pro4 Video Light

2. I would like to shoot both video and photos, are photos bright enough with a flood light instead of a strobe?

3. What tray set up would you recommend?

Although I live in the UK I'm heading out to thailand soon so if you have any store to recommend there, I'm all ears.

Thanks!

 

[rickthompson]

I personally would recommend Ultralight for tray/arm. Their systems are highly modular and can accommodate many different configurations if you get a new strobe or housing in the future. LED continuous video lights have become more popular for stills recently, but they are much more expensive than a dedicated strobe. It honestly might be cheaper to buy a lower end strobe AND a lower end video light. Then when you shoot stills you could use the video light for a bit of fill. Check out Backscatter...they have great customer service.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

For P&S cameras, you could probably use loc-line trays, which are really cheap. They use to only be part of a rock bottom priced strobe sets, but they have become mainstream for entry level sets.

As for lights, you will need a pretty bright light to bring out the natural color for both video and stills. I would get a strobe instead of a video light and try UW mode to shoot video. When I do shoot video, it is usually of a a medium sized or larger creature of interest. Plus the strength of the video lights are continuously getting stronger and cheaper, so soon, the bright ones that are out of the reach now could be relatively affordable in the near future. Same thing cannot be said of strobes.