Equipment Report - Bring on the Night!

You’d think that winter, with all the short days & long hours of darkness would be a hindrance to outdoors programme making, but not for us at Outdoors TV. In fact, we’re turning the winter to our advantage by testing some new kit to help us film in low light or night time conditions in the wilderness.

Everyone knows of the importance of taking a head torch into the mountains for safety, but what do you do if you’re filming? Weight is everything, especially as even the most compact of full broadcast cameras takes up a sizable chunk of rucksack space & weighs more than you’d rather carry, in addition to your rack.

High quality directional ‘top lights’ as they are called do offer great lighting but there is often a downside. Self sufficient lamps mostly need large batteries that are also quite weighty. Others run off of the camera’s battery supply but then there are adapters & cables to accommodate.

So, what’s the solution? We’ll, we’re testing a rechargeable mountain bike lamp from USE, for use as a compact long life wilderness lamp. It will be used when filming longer multi day adventures, wild camps or night activities & it also offers us a solution for lighting interviewees up on the crags or away from power supplies.

The unit we’re testing is the Exposure Enduro MaXx 2 lamp, which is roughly the size & weight of a small microphone. It’s a durable metal lamp that is rechargeable, so there are no batteries or cables to carry around. On the lowest light setting, which is perfect for filming, the stated burn time is 24 hours, so the camera’s batteries will fail long before this baby!

The Exposure range uses super bright LEDs which give a very cool light. USE tell us that apart from the normal application of this light, it has also been used by bat watchers, as the wavelength of the light doesn’t interfere with the bats’ sonar. So, this type of LED lamp appears to be wildlife friendly which is another bonus!

The lamp does have its limitations for filming, in that the beam is quite narrow, however for us, it is all about the balance of weight & size over functionality. The beam width issue can be improved for interviews & presenters, by placing the subject further away from the camera. On a positive note, the beam width does mean that there is very little spillage, giving a real sense of the dark, something that is obviously important when trying to portray night time activities.

For us, the lamp is proving to be an invaluable tool, helping us to film in conditions & locations that would otherwise be problematic or require heavier loads. While we are still waiting for a programme to give us the opportunity to use the lamp in anger, we will be reporting on our test shoots in our next Channel Update programme which will go into production in January.

Roger Burlinson
Director of Programming - Outdoors TV