Since I have in the past tried putting the Profoto B10 lights in my Westcott Apollo light modifiers I thought I might as well see how well they work with the Rotolight NEO 3.
With a much smaller form factor there is no issue with it in the Apollo Medium.
Neither is there a problem in portrait mode with the Apollo Strip.
However it can’t be said when the Apollo Strip is in landscape mode as it is a bit tight.
What I don’t know is how hot they will get with the front diffusion in place. I’m hoping they will be okay as the light does get warm running at 100%.
While I was playing with the light I thought I might as well see what readings my Sekonic C-700R would give me with the light in CCT mode.
| 100% | 50% | |
| 3000K | 3055K | 3064K |
| 5500K | 5683K | 5780K |
| 6500K | 6770K | 6817K |
| 10000K | 10319K | 10106K |
The next thing for me to test is the flash function.
4 June 2022 Just checking out the shadow and the reflection/catch light the NEO 3 creates has given me a thought about if I need to get the Diffuser Dome or the barn doors.
As you can see, using the light bare gives you a reflection in which you can see the individual elements of the light. This also gives you multiple shadows which is a feature of lights that have more than one array.
Taping a Lee 129 Heavy Frost filter in front of the light solves the problem.
So do I get the dome to permanently fix the issue or do I get the barn doors to be able to clip the Lee 129 Heavy Frost filter. The dome is £49.98 and the barn doors are £132.98.
Obviously, there isn’t this problem if I just use the Westcott Apollo modifiers. But this would be fairly restricting in where I could place the light. Being able to place this light into positions which I don’t need a lot of rigging is what attracted me to it.
22 January 2023 So I decided to get both the diffuser dome and the barn doors.
There was a delay in shipping the barn doors which is why I am writing this in 2023 rather than in late 2022 when I purchased them.
The first thing I wanted to find out is if the two of them worked together and the answer is no. Using the barn doors means that there is no way to fit the diffuser dome on to it.
The barn doors are attached by screw on locking knobs to the top of the NEO 3 and goes over the same area of the light which the diffuser dome needs to use to attach itself.
Another negative of the barn doors is that it doesn’t rotate so you can only cut the light in a fixed position. You can’t create any angles with the light.
Worse still is that the more you cut the light the more you can see the individual array of “bulbs” that make up the unit. Which means that you will have to clip diffusion to the barn doors to make it useable.
Add in the fact that there are so many places for the light to leak out of the barn doors, I would only recommend getting the diffuser dome and forget about the barn doors. You won’t need the doors to clip gels onto as the NEO 3 has built in colour effects.
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