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Lite Panels

06.30.2010 | Gadgetry

Speaking of LED lights- Lightpanels just announced a very interesting new 1×1 panel that lets you adjust Color Temperature as well as Brightness.

This is a very nice feature, considering that the LED panels are cool to the touch (not like hot lamps) & require very little power. Its a little too expensive right now (About $2500), but this is a good sign of things to come as prices will definitely come down with time. I think their non-temp control 1×1 models run just over $1,500 and I saw one at Vincent Laforet’s workshop. It was extremely nice. Everyone I know that has used one has very positive things to say about them, the one major drawback: they have limited range.

If you haven’t already you might want to take a look at their website, they have a lot of great information about video lighting:
I found their “On the Set” Section to be quite surprising, there are a lot of big time productions that are using these more and more.

Litepanels

iPhone 4 LED Light App

06.30.2010 | Gadgetry

I would imagine there will be several apps that will take advantage of the very bright LED light on the iPhone 4. I think this is somewhat funny because I was just talking with my programmer today about something like this, but these guys are way ahead of me and it looks like they have already submitted it.

I think this is significant because the LED on the iPhone 4 light is very bright- enough to possibly even use for a very soft fill for photography in the right circumstances, absolutely better than nothing and much more than just illuminating the screen with white. If someone could figure out how to overcrank the output on something like an iPAD, you could possibly have a way to use it as a light Panel.

How To Set Up Facetime on iPhone 4 or 4s

06.27.2010 | Gadgetry

So I’ve been trying to call my Dad to try the Facetime feature on our iPhones & we couldn’t get it to work. I noticed when I called him, I had a “Facetime” button on my phone menu and thought you just push that to use it. We were both in WiFi range, but no luck. Turns out there is one little setting you need to turn on.

If you are on a new iPhone 4s running iOS5 or newer, its super easy Go to–>Settings, then hit the dedicated Facetime Button
If you are on an older iPhone 4 running iOS4- Its under “Settings” –> “Phone” –> Facetime –> “On”

There is a FaceTime Button you have to turn “on”
Once we both did that, we were able to connect right there during the phone call. I must say…it was pretty cool to be able to see my Dad on Maui and chat with him through my iPhone. It works in both Horizontal and Vertical modes too! Looking forward to the day that I will be able to do this over my phone service instead of just WiFi.
Bonus Tip: How to take Screen Shots with your iPhone : Ever wonder how to take a screen shot of whatever was on your iPhone? No Problemo: Simply tap your home button and on/off button at the same time. If you do it right, you will get a white “flash” and a screen shot is sent to “photos. 🙂