Kelvin Play

The Kelvin Play is being touted as the world’s first RGBACL panel light. Kelvin is stating that this is a professional entry-level fixture that utilizes the same light engine that powers their Epos 300 and Epos 600 fixtures.

We will have a full interview with Kelvin from the show floor so please check back in a few hours.

Just like the larger Epos 300 and Epos 600 fixtures, the Play features a very industrial design. It is beautifully made and constructed and you can see that Kelvin has paid a lot of attention to detail. The whole premise of the Play is that you get a light with the same build quality and color accuracy as the company’s larger fixtures.

The entire light casing, including the dials, is made out of high-grade aluminum.

The light also features an IP54 weather rating. An IP65 rating means that your product is protected from water projected from a nozzle from any direction.

The whole ethos behind Kelvin’s range is to make lights that all match and integrate seamlessly together. In a lot of ways, the Play was designed as an entry-level professional fixture to get you into Kelvin’s range.

The Play features a very intuitive and easy-to-use operating system and the dials are extremely tactile and well-made. The fixture is CCT adjustable from 2,000 – 20,000K and it has full +/- G/M adjustment. There are effects, gels, HSI, RGB modes, etc.

Apart from the onboard controls, the light can also be controlled via the Kelvin Narrator Bluetooth app, DMX, or Lumen Radio Skynode.

The light features Kelvin’s sophisticated 6-channel RGBACL light engine Cantastoria, which produces a full spectrum of colors within the 2,000 – 20,000K range. The Cantastoria Engine utilizes Red, Green, Blue, Amber, Cyan and Lime. As I mentioned earlier, this is the same light engine that is found in Kelvin’s flagship products.

The Epos Play doesn’t use any white LEDs, instead, it mixes all of those different color LEDs to produce white light. Hive Lighting has also been using 7 LED-chip blending. Instead of the traditional 3 colors, Hive uses red, amber, lime, cyan, green, blue, and sapphire. The advantage RGBACL has over RGBWW is that it is capable of giving you a larger CCT range and it can produce more saturated colors with more output. RGBWW lights tend to struggle to create saturated colors like yellow and they don’t always have as much output when generating saturated colors. They can also have a large drop-off in output at different CCT settings.

The Play tips the scales at 350g / 0.77 lbs and it has physical dimensions of 15.6 x 7.6 x 2.1cm / 6.14 x 2.99 x 0.82″.

The Play has multiple 1/4-20″ mounting points so you can easily mount it to light stands, small arms, etc. You can also attach multiple Play units together if you need to create a bigger source.

The back of the Play features strong magnets so you can attach the light directly to metal surfaces. This is something we have seen other manufacturers do in the past, but it is always nice to have multiple mounting options available.

The light draws 18W of power and it features an in-built battery. You can also power or charge the Play via its USB-C input. According to Kelvin, the Play can be run for up to 3 hours at full brightness.

There is also a large array of modifiers available for the Play.

By using magnets you can actually stack various modifiers by adding additional frames. I like this design and the versatility it allows.

Kelvin is a new lighting brand developed by LED technology company Rift Labs from Scandinavia. Rift Labs has been manufacturing award-winning cinema lighting fixtures and lighting software for the global video and photography market in video and photo since 2010 and they have sold more than 50,000 products.

The headquarter of Kelvin is located in Oslo, Norway with offices in Berlin and they will soon open an office in New York.

The Kelvin Play has a list price of $249 USD, however, until May 16, 2023 users will be able to pre-order the light for only $174 USD from authorized Kelvin dealers in USA and Canada and the Kelvin Store, with similar offers available in Europe and the UK.

The light is expected to start shipping in early September. The Kelvin Play has also been nominated for Product of the Year 2023 at NAB.

The $174 USD price makes this light very competitively priced given its build quality and feature set. It is more affordable than an Aputure MC Pro RGB LED Light Panel which is priced at $199 USD. The Aputure, at least in my opinion, is very underpowered given its price and size.

To be honest I think its real competition comes in the form of the Luxli Fiddle On-Camera RGB LED Light Panel which retails for $239 USD.

Matthew Allard is a multi-award-winning, ACS accredited freelance Director of Photography with over 30 years' of experience working in more than 50 countries around the world.He is the Editor of Newsshooter.com and has been writing on the site since 2010.Matthew has won 48 ACS Awards, including five prestigious Golden Tripods. In 2016 he won the Award for Best Cinematography at the 21st Asian Television Awards.Matthew is available to hire as a DP in Japan or for work anywhere else in the world.