I've always wanted my photography education on here to be free, so although there is no paywall to any of my -Technique Tuesdays-, any and all support is greatly appreciated. ❤️
PLUS: Donate any amount and I’ll send you a link to the hi-res print version of my studio lighting book.
||
PLUS: Donate any amount and I’ll send you a link to the hi-res print version of my studio lighting book. ||
This isn’t Godox’s first LED panel, far from it, plus Godox is extremely versed in all manner of LED lights at this point. I’ve also been very fortunate to test several of these LEDs from Godox in all shapes and sizes over the years, so I was pretty confident this new unit would produce some beautiful-looking light. But what I wasn’t expecting, was to be disappointed by a few other aspects of this light.
Disclaimer: Godox sent me this product for review. They are not paying me for this review and all my opinions are my own. - Make the most of this one, as after this review, I may not get asked again!
Note that the LiteWafer UP150R comes in a padded zip case, and everything you need to start shooting is inside.
As I mentioned, this LiteWafer UP150R isn’t Godox’s first LED panel, but it’s probably their most professional in terms of light quality. Godox has its FL series of panels, which, although good, doesn’t have the same high colour quality as these new units. The FL series niche is as flexible lightweight panels, and as such, the LED grouping on those is very spread out, and they aren't as bright as a result (yes, they make a 200 as well as the 100, but that’s simply 2x 100w side by side).
On the left you have the older Godox panel. This was the flexible FL100 and on the right you have the solid UP150 LiteWafer.
So when Godox announced their LED panel touting a brighter, more colour-accurate light, I was keen to see what it could do. The new LiteWafer UP150R is, of course, half a stop brighter than the FP100Rs (or so it appears on paper. In reality, this new panel is actually much brighter, but more on that later.) It is also a solid panel and not flexible like the FLs, and far sturdier by comparison.
Size & Weight
It should go without saying, but as with any LED panel, this one is incredibly thin and fairly lightweight.
Height = 13.94" (35.4CM)
Length = 26.77” (67.9CM)
Width/Thickness = 0.95” (2.4CM)
Weight = 7.05 lb (3.2kg)
Brightness
It’s worth reiterating again here, but if you’re a flash photographer coming to LEDs for the first time, you’d be forgiven for being a little confused when it comes to power outputs. With flash, it was pretty easy. A 500W is brighter than a 250W strobe, and everybody clearly understood and accepted that. LEDs are a little trickier and have a bit more nuance, especially when companies tend to lean into the confusion, too.
The confusion comes from the fact that flashes are measured in watt-seconds, not continuous watts or draw like LED lights. I’ll cover this in more detail another time, but the other core factor that throws people off is how that power is distributed. Nearly every flash ever made produces light via a single, relatively small flash tube. LED panels like the ones we're looking at here today do the opposite. They generate brightness on the target by using a large number of tiny points of light spread over a larger area. So, although some LED panels claim to be quite bright, in reality, they are just larger and produce more volume of light. Remember, the FL200 is just two FL100 panels side by side; it's not a panel that is twice as bright.
Why am I explaining all of this? Just be thankful that I’m not covering why single points of light, like flash power, drop off differently than panels do because the inverse square law doesn't apply to them. The reason I’m highlighting this here is to hopefully encourage you to start looking at lux outputs at specific distances from specific lights. I’ll caveat that by saying this is only really important with panels, with LED COB lights, they produce light from a single point, like a flash, so they are far easier to compare.
If lux values are new to you, then it’s simply the actual amount of light in lumens that reaches a surface and is not based on the power draw of the light nor the watt-seconds of the light.
Edit: I’m reading this back, and I appreciate that this all sounds very complicated; sadly, there is no other way to explain it. TL;DR If you're comparing single-point lights (LED COB lights), you can confidently rely on the fact that a 500W light will always be brighter than a 300W light. If it’s panels like the ones I’m looking at here, you just need to remember that size plays a huge role in the light's overall brightness.
The point?
All this to say that this value of light measurement is very useful with panels, as the LEDs on the panels themselves can modify the light as it leaves the source, and the LiteWafer UP150R does exactly that. So, although you read this panel's power as 150, with the lenses covering all the separate LEDs on this panel, it can produce much brighter light.
If we take a closer look at the LEDs laid across the panel, we can see they are all covered by those dome-like mini lenses. It's elements like this in LED panels that can drastically affect the power output, over simply looking at the number on the box.
If we look at the lux on the older FL100 LED panel, we'll see it’s significantly lower.
FL100 - LUX at 1m = 3,300
UP150R - LUX at 1m = 20,400
To be clear, this data is taken from the Godow website, as I don’t have access to the older FL100 to test it myself, but even if there’s a little ‘rounding’ involved here, it should illustrate my point that when it comes to panel outputs, we simply can't look at the number on the tin.
Real Talk
Nerd-numbers are great, but they mean a little less to those of us who actually use the lights day to day in the studio. So what does all that lux, light drop-off, LED lenses, and inverse-square laws actually translate to when we pick up the camera?
At 1m, with the UP150R at 100% power, set to 5600K, I got ISO 100 - Shutter Speed 1/125th - f8
That’s very respectable, and that will typically be more than bright enough for what most of us do, especially as many of us like to shoot wide-open apertures in the studio, and if you were shooting at f1.4, for example, you’d have to adjust your shutter speed all the way up to 1/4000th of a second.
Features
Now that we’ve gotten the brightness and power questions out of the way, as I know that’s what I get asked the most, what are some of the other features of this new LED panel?
LED lights have all had similar-ish features for a long time now, and that’s not a bad thing, but I doubt you’ll find any surprises here on the LiteWafer UP150R either. You have your CRT mode, the HSI mode and RGBW mode, the gels mode and of course, no LED would be complete without those lighting effects (FX) like police lights and campfires.
As I said, it's all pretty standard for RGB LEDs these days, and it has been for a while now. That said, there is one menu that may be new to some of you, and that’s the ‘Curve’ menu up there. This relates to the ‘dimming curves’ on the light and is really only relevant to videographers and not of much use to us photographers, as it controls how smoothly the light will dim at the bottom end or how bright it gets at the top end. Mostly, this is used for a clean, very smooth fade to black, since the typical linear curve most of us use can be jarring. Again, nice to have the option, but not particularly useful for us photographers. Note: You'll notice the type of dimming curve you're using at the top of the menu on nearly every screen. This is a nice touch, so you don't forget to change the curve back and wonder why your light is giving you odd values.
Actually Using the Light
So far, I’ve jumped ahead to inform you of the core areas most of us are interested in. How bright is it? And what can it do? With that covered, let’s rewind a second and talk about the process of actually using this light and how it performs on set.
Unboxing and Setting Up
I’ll cover what’s included with the unit and what options you have when using the light. The light itself is controlled via an external control box. That box is plugged into the wall and the panel itself, and now you have a control box you can hang from the stand to adjust the light, even if it's mounted up high and out of reach. Both the power cable and the cable connecting the panel to the control box are generously long, and each comes with velcro ties to keep them tidy when not in use.
You also have a couple of options for how you use your panel.
You simply set the bare panel on the stand. No diffusion. No control. - Not my recommendation, but you could.
Attach either of the two levels of diffusion to the panel, but don’t control the light.
Attach the included softbox to the panel, then choose whether to add diffusion to it. This would give you some control of the light and offer you a more specular final look.
Attach the softbox, then attach your choice of diffusion to it.
Lastly, attach the softbox, attach the diffusion, and then finally add the softbox grid that comes included.
One last feature with how you set this all up is how you stow the panel when not in use. With the softbox and diffusion attached, you can fold in the sides and then fold down the top and bottom panels. The whole unit can then be Velcro’d shut via tabs on the sides. I don’t think it’s designed to be folded away with the grid attached, but I do it with mine, and it’s fine. It even goes back in its box with the softbox and grid attached when its velcro’d down.
Concerns
As I’m talking about the setup and unit itself, now is probably a good time to go over a couple of my concerns with this unit. When it comes to attaching this panel to a lightstand, you first need to attach a pin to the back of the unit via an included bracket. It’s not overly complicated, of course, but with 4 lugs that need to be attached to the panel itself, it will only go on one way. So, although a little fiddly, this is fine, although some indicators or lines to line up the plate and panel would have helped.
The real concern comes when you try to attach that pin to the bracket that Godox has supplied to ultimately attach the light to a stand. The bracket does not seem purpose-built for that task, and as such, when you insert the long pin into the bracket, the whole light now hangs down at a concerning angle. Again, this is due to the hole for the pin being far larger than the pin itself, resulting in significant movement of the pin within the sheath.
It’s this very loose fit of the pin in the bracket that had me concerned, and I spent some time just checking that I’d somehow not missed something, as it really didn’t seem an appropriate attachment for the task at hand at all.
One of the very real concerns with this new panel, was the bracket that attaches it to the stand. It simply didn’t seem safe.
In fact, my concern about this bracket and attachment pin was such that I simply opted not to risk the light on the stand above the model when I shot with it. An LED panel like this is not simply to be used as a softbox in front of the model, and I would regularly use a panel such as this above a model as a hair-light or even top-light, and the bracket and attachment system that Godox has supplied with this light simply doesn't seem robust enough to do that. Certainly not with any confidence anyway.
As a result, I simply used the panel with a C-stand grip instead of the supplied bracket for the entire shoot.
Sadly, I found the supplied bracket so loose that I wasn’t comfortable using it above my model, so I opted for a far more supportive alternative instead.
I will just add that I find this somewhat surprising from Godox. They’ve been in this game for a little while now, and they have scores of exceptional lights under their belts at this point, so to make a seemingly obvious and fairly concerning error like this when it comes to the attachment is surprising. And I don’t think this is just me being unfair or overly harsh. The attachment point is a big deal because the unit is not lightweight and needs proper support. Yes, I understand why that pin needs to be so long, as it gives the light room to tilt down without getting in its own way, but there are far better ways to do this, and several other companies have already solved this issue. So again, it’s surprising to see Godox fumble this one, and I actually have every expectation that this will be updated and adjusted very quickly.
Shooting with the LiteWafer
As you’d expect from a Godox light like this, the light itself performed well, and I used it in a variety of setups during the shoots as both a key from the side and above, plus I also used it as a hair light and a fill, so this light is very versatile in what it does. Below, I’ll share some results from a recent shoot where I used the panel from the side in a vertical orientation and from above the model in a horizontal orientation.
Model: Kelly Klein
Camera Settings
Camera - Nikon D850 / Fuji GFX50 II
Lens - 50mm/63mm
Shutter Speed - 1/125th
Aperture - f2.8
ISO - 400
Kelvin - ~4500K
Focal Length - 50/63mm
Kit Used
Godox LiteWafer UP150R
Godox ML100R (100W LED Light)
Godox ML-SP (Projection Attachment)
Godox BG02 (battery grip)
Large Softbox
Colours & Kelvin
As I’m sure is very apparent by now, this light offers millions of colours via the onboard colour modes, and its colour consistency puts it among the best LEDs on the market. For the curious among you, the UP150R has a TLCI of ~98 and a CRI of ~97. As I said, very high, and even more colour-accurate than Godox’s previous panel lights.
True Kelvin Scales
I do have to add that there seems to be a shift in the industry regarding how Kelvin values are recorded in these RGB lights. If you’re not aware, RGB lights have multiple chips, each of which turns on to display a different colour, and when viewed as a whole, these chips combine to create any colour we need.
As you can see in the image above, the surface of the LED panel is covered with a variety of chips that, when combined, produce the colour we need. You have your RGB chip, and then you have your cool- and warm-Kelvin chips. When in Kelvin (CRT) mode, the RGB chips aren’t typically on. In reality, many brands occasionally add a little green to give more realistic skin tones, and maybe some blue at the top end as well.
In recent years, when a brand releases a new line of LED lights, they will often offer an RGB version and a Daylight (Kelvin) version light. If you’ve been paying attention, you may have also noticed that the daylight version has a Kelvin range that is strangely far smaller than the full RGB version of the light.
Here’s an example
Daylight Head: Kelvin 2800K-6500K
RGB Head: Kelvin 1800K-10000K
So how is that possible? How can the dedicated Kelvin head have a smaller Kelvin range than the RGB head? The answer is that they can ‘simulate’ low and high Kelvin values using the RGB chips in conjunction with the Kelvin chips. So when the RGB head's Kelvin dips below 2800K, the RGB (namely R & G mixed to create orange) turns on and starts to take over.
Is this a big deal?
No, not really, as most photographers won’t notice the Kelvin being off slightly, even though I've certainly noticed some green in low ‘Kelvins’ from certain RGB heads. Couple this with the fact that we can white-balance fairly well in post and colour-grade the final image, and the difference when the extreme Kelvins are off is negligible. That said, I would still prefer brands to be honest about where their actual true Kelvin chips start and end, and I’d encourage you to keep an eye on those figures, as Godox is far from the only brand that does this.
Closing Comments
Overall, this is a great light, and LEDs being where they are today in terms of quality, you’d certainly expect that from Godox. Millions of colours to choose from and a very wide Kelvin range to play with, even if the extremes of that range aren’t truly Kelvin colours. You have a few useful colour modes on the light, as well as the usual FX modes for specific video looks, too.
The controls are good, and I like that they've switched from a dial button to a dial that can be pressed in from the side. This stops all of the mis-presses that used to happen on other units. The screen on the control box is also full-colour, which is very cool. Many of them, surprisingly, aren't, and it's nice to see them here.
Dangling a control box on a cord rather than clamping it to the stand is not only annoying but also invariably causes it to swing around, making the screen unviewable when shooting.
I have to add that I’m not a fan of the dangling control box on a bit of bungee cord. What are we doing with that? Since when did we think that wouldn't be incredibly annoying to have dangling and clattering about from a stand? The norm up until now has been a control box that is attached to the stand via a clamp. This can often be removed if needed. Instead, Godox has opted for a cheap bit of rope in this instance, and it's extremely annoying as it not only clatters about when you move the stand up and down, but it invariably hangs to one side, and now I can’t see the power of the light when I look over at it. Obviously, this is to save money, but it's an annoyance I’d rather not see become the norm from Godox.
Of course, annoyances and minor gripes aside, I can work around them. One thing that I sadly couldn't justify working around when using this light on a shoot, was my safety concerns with that attachment clamp.
Again, I’m surprised by Godox for this, and I can’t help but feel like this light was rushed out and not finished, as this isn't like them at all. The clamp does not seem purpose-built for this panel at all, and it appears to have been pulled off and repurposed from another unit.
The light and the pin are hanging at a very awkward angle, and the pin's collar is so loose that it feels unstable. To this end, it simply feels very unsafe. Sure, there’s minimal risk if you just plan on using this panel on a stand in front of a model. If it falls off, you only damage the light. But panels like this, especially now that they are becoming so low-profile and lightweight, are perfect solutions for hair lights and top lights, and, as I said earlier, I honestly did not feel in any way comfortable hanging that light above my model on the day. So much so, in fact, that I felt I had to swap out the included bracket for one of my own.
I’ve laboured this bracket point above, so I won't repeat myself, but I feel like this shouldn't be the case. This isn't a new problem, and many other brands have their own solutions to it, many of which are industry standard. Again, I’m surprised Godox let this through quality control, and I’d be very surprised if we didn't see a new update to this panel with that bracket concern fixed.
I hope Godox takes this feedback on board, and that I haven't sullied any relationships by posting this. With something as important as talent safety under these lights, we simply cannot take any chances, and I’m sure they will address this bracket issue extremely quickly. I certainly don’t like writing a review like this either, as it’s not my job, I don’t get paid, so it brings me no joy to write a piece on a product I simply cant recommend.
But do stay tuned, as this is not the only product Godox has sent me, and I was fortunate enough to test a few new items that genuinely blew me away. Their new blow-up tube produces a beautiful light, and, for a modifier that you can essentially carry in your pocket, that’s pretty incredible. Plus, I was sent a baby projector that uses gobos (I used it on the shoot above to create the slice of light behind the model), and trust me, this thing is insanely good for its size! So like I said, stay tuned as we have far better, more pleasurable reviews to come!
Products Used
For transparency, as I mentioned at the top, this is not a sponsored post, nor am I being paid. Godox sent me the items to test and leave my feedback, and as such, none of the links below is affiliated links, and I do not make any money on clicks. The links will take you to Essential Photo here in the UK. They’re good guys, and I’ve worked with them in the past. By all means, source the best store in your own region.
LiteWafer UP150R Ultra-Slim Full-Colour RGB LED Light Panel K1 Kit
ML100R Compact Portable RGB LED Video Light With ML-L15 Lens Reflector
ML-SP Series Godox-Mount Projection Attachment Kit For Godox ML-Series (ML-SP19/ML-SP36/ML-SP50)
BG02 95W5 Battery Grip By Godox
I've always wanted my photography education on here to be free, so although there is no paywall to any of my -Technique Tuesdays-, any and all support is greatly appreciated. ❤️
PLUS: Donate any amount and I’ll send you a link to the hi-res print version of my studio lighting book.
||
PLUS: Donate any amount and I’ll send you a link to the hi-res print version of my studio lighting book. ||
JHP Livestreams…
I livestream every other Tuesday night via YouTube and there I answer your questions, critique your shots, take community images into Photoshop to work on them and discuss all manner of lighting tips and techniques. I look forward to seeing you and your work there real soon. Jake Hicks Photography - YouTube
