Wedding Photographers, Anyone Using Flashlights?

vadim2200 · May 16, 2017

Does anyone use flashlights as a spotlight for a couple in a wedding or engagement scenes (at night). During my wedding 6 years ago, my photographer was using battery powered halogen light. If was more of a focus or spot light. Is anyone using anything like this or is everyone just using speedlights? Now everything is LED so I am looking for spot or video light that would focus beam instead of spreading it. Anyone has any ideas something that doesn't break a pocket and has plenty of juice and no AA batteries?
Thanks

Vtec44 · May 16, 2017

I know a few wedding photographers who do use constant LED lights. I personally prefer speed lights over constant lights. You can probably put a snoot over your LED to narrow the beam.

TCampbell · May 16, 2017

A LOT of years ago (back in the 1980's) we used a Norman flash (normanlights.com) that had a built-in modeling light. This was in the film days shooting medium format (Hasselblad 500 c/m) and it really helped us with manual focus.

Of course, these days you can get flashes that have built-in focus-assist beams and the camera can lock focus in completely darkness in a fraction of the time.

chuasam · May 30, 2017

I sometimes use Qudos lights
Qudos Action Video Light for GoPro & Action Cameras - KNOG

480sparky · May 30, 2017

vadim2200 said:
Does anyone use flashlights as a spotlight for a couple in a wedding or engagement scenes (at night). During my wedding 6 years ago, my photographer was using battery powered halogen light. If was more of a focus or spot light. Is anyone using anything like this or is everyone just using speedlights? Now everything is LED so I am looking for spot or video light that would focus beam instead of spreading it. Anyone has any ideas something that doesn't break a pocket and has plenty of juice and no AA batteries?
Thanks

I have several Fenix FD-40s. They run on 26650 and 18650 batteries, have a ¼x20 tripod thread, have 5 light levels and can adjust from spot to zoom. Sadly, they're discontinued and replaced with the watered-down FD-41.