Overview

We’ve just got our hands on one of these – The Vibesta Peragos Tubes and today, we’re going to be taking a closer look at it, trying it out in a few different setups and putting some of the key features to the test so you can decide whether or not this needs to become part of your lighting setup.

Our Thoughts

In our first test, we wanted to see how this light could work with a little product shoot, so we decided to grab a pair of headphones as our product and start with a relatively simple setup with the light close to the headphones to capture some shots on the probe lens. We then adjusted the light slightly and tried a few different angles and then decided that it would be a good idea to use this opportunity to try out one of the effects on the light. We went for the ‘club’ effect which produced lots of different colours and here’s how the video turned out.

We were really impressed with the light quality in this particular setup. Not only did the club effect work really well but we think it looked great on skin tones as well, and you get a lovely texture and definition with the light.

Interview Setup

So, onto our second setup and we wanted to try the light out in an interview setup. As you can see, we didn’t create a whole interview setup with 3 or 4 lights but instead, just wanted to see how the light tube might look as a key light. Again we’re pretty impressed with final results. It probably won’t be replacing the Aperture 300d mk2 anytime soon but we definitely think it would work very well partnered with another light or two. For good measure, we also used the light as a hair light or back light to create a slightly more dramatic look which again, looks quite nice.

On initial impressions, its a relatively light weight light tube made of seemingly hard-wearing plastics but in my opinion, doesn’t quite match the build quality of other light tubes such as the Quasar Rainbow 2 but having said that, as long as you’re not being careless and throwing the light around, in our testing it was sturdy enough. However, one important point to mention is that during our testing – which we will come to later on in the video – we weren’t too confident when mounting the tube to a light stand via the control unit, especially on a slight angle as the weight of the light did cause it to bend at the control unit connection point.

Tech Specs

Now, light tubes are nothing new and there are a number of other models out there so let’s get stuck into some of the more technical points and key features of this particular model to see how it holds up. So, the Peragos Tube is a pixel animatable cinema grade light offering independent control of up to 32 pixels within one tube to create interesting lighting effects. This light tube has a Colour rendering index of 98 and is powered by a Rayzr light engine with the ability to create custom algorithms for Cine Quality Light. Of course, you have a wide range of colour temperatures available from 2,800K to 13,000K whilst maintaining a Television Lighting Consistency Index of 93±1 and a Colour rendering index of 96±2 throughout the full adjustment range. One feature that we quite like and will no doubt come in handy in certain circumstances is the ability to make use of more extreme colour temperatures in the extended Kelvin Mode which allows users to select colour temperatures between 1500K to 30,000K, which gives you more options when needed, whilst maintaining a brightness of at least 80% even at the outermost colour temperature ends which is quite handy.

Another useful addition is the internal Gel library which consist of more than 300 widely used filters available to you at your fingertips. This means you don’t need any gels to carry around with you, as all of these filters are built-in. In addition, this light tube also has 16 adjustable lighting effects including Party, candle, club, Fire and Television so you can replicate a number of otherwise difficult lighting scenarios very easily which is very useful.

Now, one of the great benefits of this particular light tube is the ‘Source Match’ feature, which allows youto make your lighting more consistent and save time in post fixing non matching lights. Essentially, ‘Source Match’ does exactly what it says, it enables you to match any light source, so we decided to try that out whilst setting up during our interview lighting setup. So in this example, we had nothing but the room lights left on and got our White balance card out and to auto-white balance from. We then turned the light tube on and put the White Balance value and the Tint value we got from our camera into the light tube and then used the automatic white balance feature on the camera again to see how accuratethe light from the light tube was, and it was pretty much spot on.

Finally, we wanted to test out some of the special effects built-in to the light tube, so we decided to make use of the television effect and the cop car effect. Again, we’re pretty happy with these results and it’s always useful to have the ability to recreate different lighting scenarios.

So, hopefully those short tests give you somewhat of an idea as to how versatile this light is as well as some of the great features that come with the light. We were particularly impressed with the different effects as well as the colour matching which was extremely accurate. Something else worth mentioning is that regardless of our frame rate or shutter angle, we didn’t notice any flicker from the light tube whatsoever which is a huge bonus. There’s nothing worse than wasting time making in camera adjustments to account for flickering you can’t control or sitting down to edit your videos and having to use a number of plug-ins to remove flicker so it’s great that you don’t have to worry with that being the case with this light.

Of course, we’ve been filming inside today but it is vital that the equipment we have with us can handle being the elements, especially as we are often filming outside. Thankfully, the Peragos Light Tube is IP66 Weatherproof rated meaning you can be confident using it in a variety of weather conditions and won’t have to worry if you get caught in the rain.

Negatives

So, as far as our testing today, we’re relatively pleased with the Peragos Light Tube, however, there are a few negative points that we do need to mention.

During our testing and moving the light around between setups and light stands, we definitely found the light to be much more flimsy than we had originally anticipated, especially when mounting to a lightstand. We noticed right away that when screwing the fixing located on the bottom of the control unit to the nightstand that the tube began to bend at the control unit connection point which we hadn’t anticipated, so we would definitely recommend using a clamp or a grip to connect to the nightstand at a more central point on the high tube to prevent it from bending and breaking.

In terms of power and battery life, we do feel a little misled by the website that appears to indicate that the battery life of this particular light tube is 20 hours which is most definitely not the case. In our testing, on a full charge, we managed around about 20 minutes, maybe this was what they meant! so if you need a light you can take out and about on location where power supply is limited, you will definitely want plenty of batteries.

As you can expect, the light does get quite warm after it’s been powered on for a short while so you do need to be mindful of where you are holding the light as the rear covering gets very, very hot.

On a number of occasions whilst filming today, the light also appeared to randomly loose power. There were no breaks in the connections from the wall unit to the light so we’re still a little unsure what might have been causing the light to switch off randomly. This could have been an overheating issue although the light was never on for much more than 5 minutes at any one time, but we did notice the fact that when the light did cut off, the battery was connected at the same time as we were powering it via the socket which may have been the cause, although, their website does currently state that ‘When the AC adapter is connected to the controller and the Smart Li-Ion battery pack is attached it automatically charges during operation, so that you are always ready to use it on battery without any wires’ which obviously suggests that there shouldn’t be aay issues when using power from the socket with a battery attached. We are hoping this is just a one off during our testing as this could be a real dealbreaker for you if you’re doing lots of paid shoots and can’t waste any time turning the light back on every time it cuts off.

So, as we all know, there are a variety of other options already on the market such as the Quasar light tubes, Godox or Astera products which are very useful lights in their own rights. If budget was no option, we’d probably look towards the Quasar tubes as there does seem to be a noticeable difference in terms of build quality between the Quasar and the Peragos tube. On the other hand, the variety of effects, extremely accurate colours and other useful features definitely make the Peragos light tube worth considering. We’re definitely impressed with the quality of this light tube in terms of output but we’re a little disappointed by the issues we ran into when filming such as the light cutting out,

So, we hope you’ve enjoyed this short overview of the Peragos light tube. It would be great to hear what you think of it and whether this is a product you will be making use of in the future. Thank you all very much for watching, and we’ll see you next time.