Fotodiox PopSpot Ultra LED Spot Lights

Fotodiox has released an update to their PopSpot high intensity LED spot lights – now called the PopSpot Ultra. There are four lights in the series – Ultra 50 Daylight, Ultra 50 Bicolor, Ultra 100 Daylight, and Ultra 100 Bicolor.

Each of the lights have adjustable lenses, enabling users to focus the beam output from 30-60 degrees. They also include removable barn doors for more control of the light.

The lights are compatible with any Profoto modifiers, which means you can customize the shape and style of the light with reflectors, snoots, and softboxes that attach to the front of the PopSpots.

The PopSpot Ultra lights are intended to be portable, although durable enough for professional photo and video work. They weigh between 4-6 pounds (depending on the model), which isn’t super light weight, in our opinion, but their cylindrical shape do make them easy to pack.

To power the lights, they come with AC adapters that are 100-240 V and ready for worldwide use (along with a plug adapter you provide). The 100 models have built-in V-mount plates for Sony V-mount batteries, and the battery mounts also double as a place to attach the AC adapter, which keeps the whole unit neat and easy to manage. All the lights have a 50 W output.

Interestingly, the Ultra 50 models accept Sony NP-F batteries, which are much cheaper and more portable than V-mount batteries, but still offer a lot of power. The included NP-F750 batteries can run a PopSpot Ultra 50 Daylight for 1.5 hours at 100%.

Of course, you can also use a V-mount adapter for Sony NP-F batteries – like this one made by Fotodiox – but they are sometimes iffy with high powered lights, so whether one would work on the Ultra 100 model is questionable. Still, everyone ought to have one of these in their kit, for when you run out of V-mount batteries but have loads of little Sony’s around.

Like other LED fresnel lights on the market – notably the Aputure 300D – the Fotodiox PopSpot Ultra lights utilize high powered COB (chip on board) technology. COBs can output a lot of light from such a small source, and they also are less prone to the multi-shadow effect that plague LED panels with a large spread of diodes. They are also color accurate at over 95 CRI.

For the bi-color Ultra 50 and Ultra 100 models, Fotodiox has placed both a 5600k COB and a 3200K COB together inside one unit. That means the output at daylight and tunsten on the bi-color models are not far off from the full output on the daylight-only outputs. If that’s the case, we think the Bi-color models are well worth the small additional cost, for convenience alone.

The Fotodiox PopSpot fixtures have LED displays for easy adjustment of output and color, and they also have DMX in/out ports for remote adjustment. They come with yokes for mounting on light stands or lighting accessory mounts.

All told, the PopSpot Ultra lights look like durable, versatile, and affordable LEDs that provide a focusable spot output often needed on productions where you don’t have a lot of time to setup flags to control light spill.

Because they offer similar output to the daylight-only models, we think the Bi-color PopSpot Ultra lights would be the lights of choice. Whether to go for the 50 or 100 model is a question of portability versus output requirements. For our buck, we would go for the Ultra 100, giving you a light bright enough to use outdoors.

You can read more details about the new Fotodiox PopSpot Ultra lights below.

Fotodiox Pro PopSpot Ultra 50 Bi-color –Fotodiox / Amazon

Fotodiox Pro PopSpot Ultra 100 Daylight –Fotodiox / Amazon

Fotodiox Pro PopSpot Ultra 100 Bi-color –Fotodiox / Amazon