☑️ Get the GVM Video Light on Amazon
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Intro
hey it’s adrian from democracy tech and today i’m reviewing the jvm or great video maker on 80 watt video light so this is a led light and it’s good for um videos if you need continuous lighting you don’t also use it for like photography too if you’re not really a fan of using flash so um i did look at like the godox light which is um the sl60 i think and that was um more expensive than this this comes in at around 150 canadian which is about 120 us so it’s a nice compact light so let’s just get into to see if it’s worth that price and what the light output is like okay so in the
Package Contents
package you get um the power cable so this is the connector end and i measured this out and it’s about 15 feet i would say that would be the max so it’s pretty sizable cable length um you also get this bowens mount to just like bounce the light around and you can see it’s the standard connector here then you also get these um color gels so there’s four colors so it comes with uh this dark blue like a magenta here red and then finally green and to fasten it to the mount you it comes with these clips here so you just clip it on um to the outer rim here so it’s pretty pretty simple system to use and then you get the manual um and also of course the unit itself so i’ll just go into like detail about some of the features of the unit now so looking at the unit itself um it’s
Unit Features
about i would say like you know eight and a half to nine inches um once you put a bowen’s amount to the end then it’s from the handle to the end of the bowens mount that’s about 12 inches and in terms of the build quality now so i would say from this ring here um all the way to the back it’s like an all plastic build now when you look at the um heatsink here and then this housing for the heatsink and it also holds like bones attachments these two are metal and it comes in at about um one kilogram or two and a half pounds so looking just at the um features of it so you can see it’s a pretty pretty nice and sizable heat sink so that should dissipate heat very well you also have this locking mechanism here and that helps you keep whatever bones attachment you have locked in and then you just you know retract it to loosen whatever you have so looking at the back of the unit you can see you have a port here to power it and you also have a knob here and once you turn that on it’s at ten percent and once you rotate it all the way then it’s at a hundred percent and it just clicks to let you know that it’s it’s off and you can also see that there’s like ventilation holes all around the back um the sides of it and at the bottom so you know it shouldn’t overheat and i haven’t experienced that while i was using it anyway now looking at the back there’s a carrying handle this is locked firm into place there’s no adjustment on that and looking at the side here so there’s a knob here with a screw so you can just loosen that screw thread in like an umbrella a diffusion umbrella and then just tighten them back pretty standard and if you look at the inside here so there’s a screw in there what you would do is just release this knob here set this on top of a baby pin or whatever light stand you’re going to use and then just tighten back pretty simple again finally you have this big um knob here and this is what you would use to adjust the rotation of the attachment stem here so um for most use i guess you could just leave it tighten and then just drop that in but for me like i’ve actually put this on my c-stand on the end of the boom arm and it works well so what i’m going to just rotate that and then make sure make sure i have that tightened and then i could have it kind of like um directing light that way from the c-stand so that’s another option if you have a c-stand you’re not using you don’t want to get like a separate live stream you can just adjust that okay so in terms of attaching um bones uh a bones mounted or any type of attachments like that you would pull this lever back um line up the attachments to the holes here rotate it and then let go and you can see now it’s in place so next what i’m going to do is i’m just going to connect everything and then i’ll just do a demonstration of the light output okay so i’m back
Brightness Test
and it’s powered here and everything’s ready to go so what i’m going to do is i’m going to point it directly at the camera with the bowens mount on so this is at 10 so as soon as you turn it on that’s the default 10 now i’m going to go up to about 50 and finally a hundred percent and you can see the camera’s just seeing pretty much all all white like this thing is seriously bright so let me turn it back down now what i’m going to do is i’m just going to aim it at the ceiling so you can get a better idea of what the light output is so the goal is to bounce a lot off the ceiling then come back here so you can see right now like this is a pretty dimly lit room um so here it is at 10 not really a noticeable difference here we are at 50 and you can already see the lightness bounce out of the ceiling and come back down so it’s already illuminating this room pretty well and now at 100 and there you go like if you didn’t know this was kind of off to the side here you would think this was just like a properly lit room that’s how powerful this thing is so like i mentioned there is a built-in
Fan Noise Test
fan here now i have an on-camera um shotgun mic so i’m gonna turn it on and this is about a fair amount of distance that someone will be talking so most of the time this light is going to be behind the camera off to the side of the camera so you know if you’re using a shotgun mic it’s not going to pick it up since it’s like a directional mic anyway like a uni-directional mic but let’s just turn it on with this in front of the mic um so here it is at 10 so the fan is going i don’t know if you guys can hear that but i’m going to crank it to 100 now now the fan is going pretty much at full speed so let’s see if you can hear that now i’m going to move the um unit very close to the mic so i haven’t listened to it um yet but you know just let me know what you think in the comments but like i said it’s a really low hum but most of the time you’re going to be using this off to the side of the camera anywhere behind the camera so the mic wouldn’t really be able to pick it up it’s very quiet
My Thoughts
the light is rated for um 100 000 hours for like 11 years so like it’s really a great light um all around okay so i think this is a great light if you’re looking for a video like like you’re not going to go wrong with this the only thing i would say is um it is powered um by this plug here so there’s no option for a battery pack so something to keep in mind also if you’re moving locations all the time for your um shots and you’re kind of rough with your gear keep in mind that this it’s pretty much an all plastic build from here back so if you just like check it in with the rest of your stuff you know and you damage this plastic housing or you drop it that might be the end of it i mean at the price it costs may not be a big deal for you you might just go out and grab another one but it’s one consideration to keep in mind if you’re like really rough with your gear then you may want a unit that’s like all metal build but you know that trade-off trade-off story is you’re getting a pretty lightweight unit at just um 2.2 pounds or 1 kg so i highly recommend it let me know what you guys think about it if you’re using another light that you think is better let me know i’m always on the lookout um for new products to review and i’ll see in the next video bye
☑️ Get the GVM Video Light on Amazon
Please note that some of the links in my video descriptions are affiliate links where I earn from qualifying purchases. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.