Tolifo PT-15B Product Review

One of the things I've been wanting to do is to get some better quality lights for making videos that I post to YouTube. I reached out to Tolifo, a company who makes budget LED video lights, and they gave me some discount coupons in order for me to be able to purchase some lights for review. One of them is the PT-15B. That said, here's my review.

The packaging is nice, and the product is fairly well-protected. The first thing I noticed when I opened the box is the metal housing of the light. It's thin, but has a little bit of heft to it owing to the fact that the housing acts as a heatsink for the LEDs.

The one thing that I was torn on was the fact that the diffuser is built into the housing, and is not removable. I wondered about it, until I first fired up the light. This thing is BRIGHT. It's rated at 15 watts, with an output of 1500 lumens.  When I make my YouTube product review videos, I use DIY fixtures I put together with a 16.5 watt 5500k bulb that is rated the same. I use a diffuser made of an opaque shower curtain, which does a really good job, surprisingly. This is much less diffuse, and is much more directional. More on that in a minute.

I used NP-F750 batteries that I bought specifically to use on lights like this, as they are all standardized on this Sony format. I can purchase just about any LED light out there, and will have batteries for them, as almost none of the lower-priced units come with either batteries, or AC adapters.

I found that this light is much less diffuse than my DIY solution, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I tested it by placing it at the same distance from a photography subject (a Lego truck), and it seems much brighter, but that's because of the proximity. If I were to pull the light back to where it was more spread out, the intensity would be comparable to the DIY light. I didn't test that specifically, as I was trying to do an apples-to-apples comparison - which ultimately failed. Here's why:

The DIY fixture is built using a plain old clamp shop light (silver reflector) with a 100 watt equivalent LED light bulb in it, with the opaque shower curtain diffusion material over the opening to the light, connected to a light dimmer switch. Here's the issue - the bulb itself is already diffused, so by adding the shower curtain, I'm getting double the diffusion, so the comparison to the Tolifo light isn't really fair.

The light is about $29 on Amazon (plus about $12 for the battery), and by comparison, my DIY lights cost roughly $16 ($9 for the clamp,$3 for the bulb, $1 worth of shower curtain, $1 extension cord, $1 dimmer, $1 electrical box)

$41 - Tolifo solution
$16 per light - DIY solution (I have three)

All that said, I'm going to have to do some real-world testing to really evaluate the light, but so far, it looks like it has found a home in my YouTube-making parts list.


The basic (paraphrased) information Amazon provides on the product is below:

• FUNCTION: The CRI95 provides you with a professional quality compact LED light panel with a high definition LCD display – perfect for your DSLR, camcorder or tripod and an excellent addition to any photography studio lighting kit
• FEATURES: Smart LCD display panel, warm to cold color temperature adjustable LED (3,200 – 5,600k) bulb for outstanding reproduction of color, dual power design, and hot shoe adapter camera light mount
• DESIGN: Light panel is made with a super lightweight aluminum alloy housing, with a portable pocket-sized frame, a dual power supply (DC input adapter or battery powered) and built-in diffusion panel to ensure efficient light transmission
• EASY TO USE: Controls include a power button, long press color temperature setting mode (for indoor or outdoor), and 2 buttons that manage the brightness (from 10-99%)
• COMPATIBILITY: Supports applicable battery NP-F550/ NP-F750/ NP-F970 series or DC input adapter 13-17V (Note: battery and ac adapter ARE NOT included)

The Tolifo PT-15B is available here:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M0VDOGX