My Tech Obsession: Sunpak Readylite 20 Cordless Video Light Review

Seeing as we've recently had a new arrival in the family I've been shooting most of my home video indoors lately. I very quickly noticed that despite having all the lights turned on my videos just never looked "right" . Always a little too dark, or too orange, or too grainy. Ugh....it was very disappointing and my wife was giving me the "you wasted money on that new video camera, the old one was good enough" look. All the married guys know what I'm talking about.

So, after a little searching online for advise I realised that:

A) I needed more light
B) I needed to adjust my white balance

Now adding more light came with a few major hurdles for me, it had to be portable, cordless and small enough to mount on the cold shoe of my JVC Everio GZ-MG505. First I checked out the local big box retailers but all they offered where rather pathetic 3 watt cordless lights that looked and felt very cheap. This was not going to cut it.

After a reading a few posts on the camcorderinfo.com discussion forums I decided that the best option for me was the Sunpak RL-20. Unfortunately, try as I may I could not find any local retailers that stocked it and so my online search began. I ended up getting the best price on Ebay of all places and had my light delivered within a week. Not too bad.

So how did it perform?

I figured it would be easiest to post a few screen caps of some video I shot of a few random DVD's and objects. All video was shot with my living rooms lights on (2 x 60w) and the camera w/ RL-20 mounted on a tripod approx. 4ft away.

This first screen capture is with the camera in Full Auto with the Sunpak RL-20 OFF

The next screen cap the camrea is still in Full Auto but with the Sunpak RL-20 ON

As you can see above, although the second picture is noticeably brighter but the colour is still off and there is a noticeable orange tinge to everything. So obviously we need to adjust the white balance. I never realised how important this was until I started shooting mostly indoors and couldn't figure out why everyone looked orange.

In this screen cap the camera is in Manual mode, with the Manual White Balance ON, Sunpak RL-20 OFF.

The final screen cap uses the same settings as above but with the Sunpak RL-20 ON

Overall the picture is greatly improved from the first picture to the final picture in this set. The combination of the increased lighting from the Sunpak and the white balance adjustement yields video that is far more vivid and with much better colour accuracy.

Here's a few pics of the Everio with the Sunpak mounted on the cold shoe:

Sunpak RL-20 Summary: