Interfit Super Cool-lite 655 kit

Photo answers review

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Continuous lighting is not the most obvious choice for studio work, but that’s possibly due to the perception that flash is better. The range of continuous lighting products has evolved a great deal in recent years, and this Interfit Super Cool-lite kit represents the measure of advancement. For those not familiar with continuous lighting, it is effectively a way of providing studio lighting from a constant light source like a glorified table lamp. The lamps are a lot more powerful than your domestic light bulbs, but they are similar to the energy efficient products you may well be using at home. This particular kit uses no less than six 55W low energy curly-shaped bulbs in each lighting head, to deliver a range of lighting output up to the equivalent power of 1320 watts per head.


Using continuous light
A continuous lighting head has many benefits. There are no cables to connect the camera to the lights, and you don’t need to work out the exposure with a flashmeter, as the camera’s own meter is perfectly adequate. You can shoot with the convenience that you would find when shooting outdoors and you can see the lighting effects as you set the lights up. Because of this, you could simply set your camera to program or shutter/aperture-priority and start taking pictures. The downside of continuous light is that the power is often not comparable to flash. This can mean that you need to increase the camera’s sensitivity to a higher ISO setting, which can of course add noise/grain.


Super Cool
The Super Cool-lite lights utilise low-energy bulbs, which is great news for the photographer who wishes to save money on electricity. Each of the six bulbs has its own power switch. This is either on or off, so there is no power adjustment for each. The way that you control the output is by switching on more or less bulbs – it’s that simple. The kit comes with two large 47cm reflectors for each light and there is a diffuser that can be attached over these that resembles a hair net from a food factory. You also get two softboxes for the lights that attach direct to the lighting head.


Ease of use
Due to the nature of these lights, they are very easy to use. Constant lighting has no complications and you simply switch on as many bulbs as you need to illuminate the subject. It is easy to see the lighting effects that you are getting, so it’s not difficult to get the shot set up before you even pick up your camera. It is good to have a variety of options to diffuse the lights too. The reflectors are ideal for still life and more dramatic lighting. Fitting the diffuser to the light helps to soften the shadows, but it’s a challenge to fit on your own and takes some practice. The softboxes are a very impressive design, as care has been taken to make them easy to put together. A neat Velcro system ensures that you are not wrestling the spokes into the edge of the softbox, which is a common issue from some other examples we have seen. One downside of the Cool-lite design is that you have to remove the bulbs to change from reflector to softbox, which is frustrating. Another issue is the lack of a handle on the back of the lights, because this makes it quite difficult to position the heads.


Performance
These are very bright lights that are easy to use. They do, however, lack the power of a flash, and we found that it was difficult to get small apertures without having to push up the sensitivity. If you have a modern camera that doesn’t have the lower noise levels at, say, ISO 800 that other older models show, then this will not be so much of an issue. On the positive side, you aren’t restricted to flash sync speeds, so if you want to shoot at a wide aperture with a fast shutter speed, these lights are great. In use, the white balance can need some adjustment from the recommended 5200K to get the correct colour temperature. It is well worth shooting RAW with this type of lighting so you can correct colour temperature if needed.


Final verdict
Constant lighting is growing in popularity, as it is easy to set up and allows you to use the camera’s metering. It’s a great way to learn studio lighting, especially if the whole flash thing gets you a bit confused. These lights are very powerful for a continuous offering, but they do lack the output of flash. For still life and any non-moving subjects, these lights have significant appeal, but if you are shooting portraits, they are not the best option unless you can handle higher ISO settings. At £600 it’s a significant investment too, so you need to be serious about using it to buy it.