Review: Aladdin Bi-Flex 2 LED Light Panel

Illuminating

I found the LED panel to be quite easy to use, and to bring along with me. I left behind the case it comes with as I thought it was quite big for the single thin panel. I stuffed the panel itself into my camera case as it has so little additional bulk. The stand X-Bend holder is pretty easy to stow away too. The controller and power supply, as well as the 16' of cable are considerably bulkier, but I just put them into a separate little accessory bag and off I went (Figure 7, below).

Figure 7. Bi-Flex II accessories. Click the image to see it at full size.

The cables push into their respective couplers easy enough, and they feature a small twist ring to release. There's really nothing too difficult to figure out and I had the light up and running in under a minute. I used it to illuminate a large area during setup, and found the output to be surprisingly powerful. I could certainly see someone using this to bring up the overall light level of an entire room, and then using more direct lights where needed.

The surface mount LEDs each have a broad pattern of illumination, almost 180°. As such, one type of lighting control I think ought to be included is a lighting grid to help avoid the inevitable spill all around the room beyond what you are trying to illuminate. As opposed to the numerous ways to make it softer than it already is.

In the video, when I added enough light in my lab to have to shoot my video at f4, 1/320 of a second, the Bi-Flex 2 was still more powerful when only set to 20% power (Figure 8, below). There's simply a lot of light in this panel and I think people could even use it to provide fill light when used outside. It's cold and wintry here right now, so that's one test I decided not to undertake.

Figure 8. There’s a lot of light in this panel. Click the image to see it at full size.

Moreover, if you need something to augment existing light, whether it be tungsten light in doors, or window light, having the agility of a high CRI, color-agile light means you have every color temperature available to you. You are not limited by the color correction gel or filter that goes over top of a fixed temperature light. You can also get creative by deliberately skewing the color cooler or warmer to provide some color contrast as well.

Conclusion

If you were looking for a flexible little panel that would be useful both in office setups, or if you needed something to constantly travel around, I think these flexible little LED panels are so much easier, faster, lighter, cooler, than the tungsten softboxes they replace. I'd even choose this over a thick, hard 1x1 panel because it's less weight at the top of a light stand, and delivers the same, or more, light in my experience.

If you're still using tungsten lights, and have been looking around for a portable LED panel solution, I think this is definitely one to check out. I'm going to regret having to return this when the loan ends.