bitLighter – lighten your creative process 2023-09-27T10:25:49+00:00

Flashlight for photographers

bitLighter is a portable focusable source of continuous light.

It’s a lightweight and solid torch without wires or sticking out batteries. So it’s easy to carry it and operate it with just one hand. Despite the size, it has high brightness and high color rendering index suitable for professional photo/video work.

Output power and beam angle can be precisely adjusted. The light spot has a smooth round shape.

What for?

1. Impressive effects

Thanks to portability, you or your assistant can easily move and direct the light to create impressive effects quickly and confidently. You can immediately see the result and tune it as it is continuous light.

Authors: @ivash_photography, @alexiordache_photography, @kudin_photo, @svetlanafoto.lv  (hover a photo with the cursor to see an Instagram profile)

2. Neat accents

Thanks to focusable beam and precise brightness adjustments, you can light up exactly the area that you need to make delicate accents or to bring some details out of the shadow.

Authors: @ivash_photography, @juliuspaull, @grabazei_photography  (hover a photo with the cursor to see an Instagram profile)

3. Primary light

With some experience bitLighter can act as a primary source of light, just need to keep in mind that it is a point light, which, like the sun, creates shadows with hard edges.

Authors: @nevmerzhytska_artphoto, @alexyanbaev  (hover a photo with the cursor to see an Instagram profile)

4. Space for creativity and experiments

Find your own way of using! bitLighter allows you to experiment with light and shadows and opens up a large space for creativity. It weighs only 0.5 kg (1.1 lb), like a small bottle of water. Therefore, you can take it on every shooting to never miss the inspiration moment.

Authors: @printscreen.kiev, @nevmerzhytska_artphoto, @perets_photo  (hover a photo with the cursor to see an Instagram profile)

5. Video

Features

Color rendering index is a very important parameter for lighting. Thanks to high value of this parameter, the color of the skin, eyes, clothes of the lit model will look natural and real. The index above 90 is considered suitable for professional work in the photo-video industry. According to tests, this value at our LEDs is around 93-95.

An interchangeable head allows you to quickly replace light temperature in the flashlight. As opposed to using color filters, changing the head won’t reduce brightness and color quality. It is possible to set a shade of light more precisely.

This is one of the main differences between our device and the mass of others. We have implemented the most convenient solution that can only exist. If bitLighter is NOT connected to the mains, it is powered by a battery. If connected – it will work from the mains supply without losing brightness, meanwhile, it will charge the battery with the remaining power. If the battery is removed, bitLighter will simply work from the outlet.

Charging the battery in similar devices is often a headache. Like having to take a battery out and handle all the wires and connectors with fear of damaging the contacts. bitLighter free of these problems. Just plug the power supply into the socket on the body and the charging will begin.

The charge indicator will save you from unpleasant situations when the flashlight turns off unexpectedly in the middle of shooting. The indicator shows charge  level in green, orange, red and blinking red when the time is very little.

A serious problem with any high-power light source is overheating. It can cause a lot of trouble, such as board burns, or “degradation” of the LED. We use an electronic sensor, which will save the flashlight from breakage in case of overheating. Such situations are not often but sometimes happen. To avoid them, we recommend you to ensure that bitLighter has free access to air from all sides.

In order to increase the efficiency, we use a special coating of the lens, which significantly increases the transmission of light.

We use carefully selected contacts and special bushings so the battery in the case is securely fixed and the contact does not disappear during sudden movements or shaking. Thanks to this, the flashlight will serve for a long time without failures.

In practice, at a small brightness, it is more difficult for the user to select the desired value, so we use a “logarithmic” regulator, that changes the brightness more smoothly at small values and more roughly at large ones.

Specifications

Comparison of similar devices by the brightness of the LED in lumens is not particularly correct, because it does not take into consideration the rest of the optical system. But we left this value, because it is already “generally accepted” for comparisons of photoflashlights. It would be more clear to measure the brightness of the spot at 1 meter distance using a luxmeter. We also have such measurements. You can see them in the video where we compare the brightness of bitLighter and of Dedolights https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIwhmbXLsks

You can smoothly change the size of a light spot by moving the head of the flashlight. We added a special rubber seal, to make zoom more “dense”. It does not move with sudden movements or accidental touches.

We use the so-called “logarithmic” regulator, which more smoothly adjusts brightness at small values. This is more convenient in practice. The regulator also has a built-in switch.

Our battery has a monolithic case. From the inside it consists of three Panasonic 3400mAh elements and PCB for control.

Thanks to the efficient LED and the high efficiency of the whole design, we were able to reduce power consumption in comparison with similar devices. This helped us to reduce temperature to which bitLighter can warm up and allowed it to be charging and working simultaneously. At the same time, brightness remains at the same level.

This is significantly less than in similar devices (about 500 grams in total compared to 700-800 grams). Beside the fact that the weight of a photographer’s / videographer’s backpack becomes smaller, we noticed that such a light is often kept by an assistant, or a photographer himself on an outstretched hand. In this case, every gram is in account. Light weight was achieved mainly due to batteries. We made battery lighter, while it has enough power for 2 hours of working at full power.

This is already quite a lot, but in practice full-power is not used all the time. There are moments of preparing the frame, changing the location, etc. Therefore photo session could last much longer. But, in any case, an indicator will tell you how much charge is left.

We take care of the quality of LEDs with particular scrupulousness. The fact is that LED has no markings of color rendering index on it, so you have to believe the store that they sold you the right one. Now we buy LEDs from an authorized American supplier. The LED itself is produced by the US company CREE. For all color temperatures, we take LEDs with a CRI index of at least 90

Frequently asked questions FAQ

Most often people use warm versions 3000K and 3500K since it is the simplest way to make a beautiful photo using contrast with a daylight. 3000K shines as a tungsten lamp, but for some users it is too warm therefore they get 3500K as a little more universal. Temperatures 4000K (neutral) and 5000K (cold) are quite popular too. You can imagine what shots you want to get and choose light according to this.

You can also benefit from an additional interchangeable head with the certain temperature or a set of color filters with different shades. Though, you need to consider that the filters reduce the brightness by about half.

All the differences are based on the fact that bitLighter was originally designed for the photo/video needs.

For example:

  • You can precisely adjust brightness. Regular flashlights usually have only 3 brightness positions.
  • The light spot is even and smooth. A regular flashlight has a hotspot if focused. Often you can even see LED shape on this hotspot.
  • Light has high quality (color rendering index =94). Regular flashlights have this index around 70 and skin illuminated with this light will look unhealthy.
  • Ability to work for a long time without lowering brightness. Regular flashlight pushes down brightness after heating.
  • Flicker-free. Regular flashlights have flicker effects at low brightness. This is noticeable on camera.
  • Set of precise color temperatures. Regular flashlights usually have hardly predictable color temperature without options.

The main difference is focusing.

Thanks to the lens, you can light up the exact spot on the location. Panel – just floods everything with light. Focusing is useful for creating accents in the frame and for creating lighting effects. See the usage examples above.

We do not recommend this. The bitLighter uses a battery assembly with a built-in chip for proper charging. Beside that, standard batteries may not fit the size.

Igor and Viktor are founders.

Igor is keen on photography and painting. Worked for a long time as a software engineer and game designer. Spends free time on portrait photography.

Victor is an experienced hardware engineer. Worked in the field of high-end audio systems, in the field of industrial robots production, and also created his own brand of premium flashlights for cyclists.

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