Being a creative who shoots both stills and video and one who loves using a variety of lighting instruments, I was excited to hear that Litepanels would drop off the Gemini 2×1 LED panel () for me to try out.
The Gemini is a two-foot-by-one-foot diffused LED panel that creates a nice smooth wash of daylight or tungsten balanced soft light as well as a huge range of colors and intensities in its HSI color mode. The Gemini also offers a gel mode with a selection of classic gels programed in. In the standard correlated color temperature (CCT) mode, the Gemini offers more than a simple bi-color operation as it allows plus and minus green adjustments to more easily match existing fixtures.
I wasn’t at all surprised that the Gemini produced soft and natural looking skin tone — Litepanels is known for providing great skin tone and a 2×1 fixture offers plenty of surface area to create soft light. That being said, the gel mode was what I was most interested in trying, so I decided to jump right in.
In this first portrait of Justin, I set up the Gemini as the key light (set to tungsten white balance) and cycled through the preset gels. I watched how the light fell on Justin and chose a pale amber to work with. I then added a 300w fresnel (tungsten) light as a separation light. With my camera set to ISO 200: f5.6: 1/200 shutter, I made a few portraits.
Next, I wanted to play with the HSI Color Mode which allows full control over hue, saturation and intensity. I set the unit to a level of blue I liked and made a photo. As expected, the image was blue, but lacked a bit of character.
I have found that adding a complementary color to a scene lit with a strong color can really elevate it, to this end, I set up two 300w tungsten fresnels as a kicker/hairlights and set my white balance to 6150k. This both made the blue a bit more neutral and made the tungsten fresnels a bit warmer. I set my camera to ISO 200: f5.6: 1/100 shutter and created a series of moody portraits of Emily.
I’ll just take a second here to talk about the actual Litepanels Gemini 2×1 unit. As I said, it is 2-feet-by-1-foot and has a soft diffuser panel making it ideal to smooth out skin. The dimming of this unit goes from 0-100% with no color shift and produces flicker-free light at all intensity levels at any frame rate. This can be controlled via a simple menu system on the back of the unit, the integrated DMX (5-pin XLR or RJ45) allows for remote dimming and color control and the optional bluetooth and wireless DMX modules allow the brightness, color and cooling mode to be remote controlled. The Gemini also includes a Master Slave mode that allows for multiple lights to be connected together and controlled from one light as the master control.
The Gemini is, of course, energy efficient, drawing only 325w and can be powered by AC as well as DC power (via 3-pin XLR). The unit is made from a robust metal housing and comes with a standard yoke with Jr pin and includes a quiet fan (important for use on film sets). These units can be fitted with barndoors/honeycombs and can be ganged together with optional hardware and yoke.
On the day Litepanels delivered the unit, I had already planned a fun portrait photo session with my friend Marisa and the Gemini was perfect for this. I placed Marisa in front of a black background with the Gemini acting as the Key and used a 150w tungsten light as my separation light for a series of shots using various pinks and amber to see how they felt on her skin tone. I set my camera to ISO 400: f4.0: 1/125 shutter.
All in all, I was very happy and impressed with the Litepanels Gemini 2×1. It is built strong for film production and the simplicity and versatility of its color and power control will make this a great tool for field work as well as studio installations. The unit is large compared to things like the Litepanels Astra 1×1 so might not be ideal for a one-person crew shooting interviews, but for medium to large crews and studio work, the Gemini will prove to be a great tool.
