Lupo Dayled 2000 Dual Color PRO Review

The Lupo Dayled 2000 Dual Color PRO is one of three new revamped fixtures in the Italian lighting manufacturer’s lineup. The Dayled 2000 Dual Color PRO is a new version of the very popular Lupo Dayled 2000 Dual-Color LED Fresnel that was released many years ago.

Along with the Dayled 2000 Dual Color PRO, Lupo has also releasing Dayled 1000 Pro, Dayled 2000 Pro, and the Dayled 1000 Dual Color Pro. A Dayled 650 Pro and a Dayled 650 Dual Color Pro will also be coming at a later date.

Below you can see the power draw difference between the different fixtures.

• Dayled 650 is equipped with 60W single LED array
• Dayled 1000 is equipped with 110W single LED array
• Dayled 2000 is equipped with 220W single LED array

Size & weight

The Dayled 2000 Dual Color PRO tips the scales at 6kg (13.2 lb). It has physical dimensions of 270 x 310 x 330 mm / 10.6 x 12 x 13 inches. It is reasonably compact as far as the overall size goes, especially for a 200W Fresnel. However, you do need to be aware that the height and depth of the fixture will mean it isn’t going to fit in most Pelican style cases. Finding a case or a bag for a light like this is often a challenge.

When building a Fresnel for a COB LED fixture you need to try and match the size of that COB element to the size of the Fresnel. If the Fresnel is too small in relation to the COB, the light getting to the Fresnel won’t be optimized.

Layout & Controls

The light features very basic controls and it is fairly easy to use and operate. On the side of the light, you will find a small LCD display and three buttons. These buttons allow you to increase/decrease the intensity and Kelvin color temperature as well as access a basic menu.

My only complaint is that the controls are hard to reach when you have the fixture on a light stand in a horizontal position because they are obscured by the yoke frame. I would have preferred to have seen these controls on the back of the fixture.

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Now, there is also a very basic effects menu you can access where you can choose from:

• TELEVISION
• STROBE
• PAPARAZZI
• LIGHTNING

The light also has full DMX capabilities as it includes both a DMX Input and a DMX Through.

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Above you can see a full list of what you can do with the light.

Above you can see where everything is located on the light.

Increased CCT Range

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The original Dayled 2000 Dual Color was Kelvin color adjustable from 3200K to 5600K. With the new Pro version that has been increased from 2800K to 6500K.

Fresnel lens

The Dayled 2000 Dual Color PRO uses a 7.9″ / 20cm glass Fresnel. It is nice to see a proper glass Fresnel being used because quite a lot of affordable LED Fresnel fixtures use acrylic instead.

10° to 60° Variable Beam Angle

The Dayled 2000 Dual Color PRO allows you to adjust the beam angle from 10° to 60°. This is a good amount of adjustment and has increased from the original Dayled 2000 Dual Color’s 15° to 50°.

To adjust the beam angle you simply just rotate the rear adjustment knob on the back of the fixture. There are no indications on the light or the adjustment knob to show you what beam angle is.

Above you can see the beam angle adjustability at a distance of 3m (9.84′).

Build Quality

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The Dayled 2000 Dual Color PRO. just like all of the Lupo fixtures, is well made and it feels robots and sturdy. It is up to the normal standards that Lupo has throughout its range. There was nothing in regards to build quality that concerned me.

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Everything feels solid and the light has a slightly industrial feel to it. This is a fixture that has certainly been made for the rigors of field use. There are no flashy controls or housings with Lupo lights. They have been designed to just get on with the job without drawing attention to themselves.

The exterior housing is a carbon fiber-reinforced technopolymer shell which makes it very robust. It also helps keep the fixture relatively cool.

The barn door holder is very solidly made and the included barndoors fit onto the fixture securely.

Power Draw

The Dayled 2000 Dual Color Pro draws 220W so it can be run from mains power or off a camera battery if you need to power it remotely in the field.

Being able to run the light from a camera battery is a big selling point of this fixture. What you clearly need to know is that the light will only run at about 70% output when you are using a battery. It doesn’t matter whether you are using a 150Wh battery or a 250Wh battery. The other downside is that you have to buy a battery plate separately to do this. I would have preferred to have seen Lupo include one as standard.

The light still has plenty of output even if you are running it from a camera battery, and the fact that you can power it from a flight safe camera battery is likely to make it appealing to travelling shooters.

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The optional V-Mount Clamp allows you to attach a V-Mount battery to a rail, tripod leg, table and other objects using a heavy-duty metal clamp. The battery’s contacts and connectors remain accessible. The clamp jaws can open up to 35 mm wide. It has dimensions of approximately 55 x 60 x 44 mm (2.2 x 2.8 x 1.7 in) and it weighs 105 g (0.23 lb). This is a nice little accessory, but it does mean you have to use a V-lock battery that has a D-tap, as it is just a battery clap and not a battery plate.

It is also nice to see that the light now uses a Powercon cable and there is both a Powercon In and an Out. On the old model, the AC cable was physically wired into the fixture.

Fan Noise

The light does have an in-built fan. You can’t adjust this fan in any way. It is audible, but I found that it wasn’t loud enough to hinder use in a quiet environment.

Range of motion

The light has full 360° rotation when you use it on a light stand.

If you do put the included barndoors on, then the range when angling the light down will be reduced.

Does it cut well?

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With the included barndoors you can cut the light fairly well, but you are not going to get super sharp lines. Above you can see some quick examples with the light set at 60°.

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If you try cutting the light at 15° with the barndoors you will find that you can’t get a square or straight cut anymore and instead the cut will take on more of a circular appearance.

With the barndoors, you certainly can get very clean-edged shadows when the light is flooded.

Is there any color fringing?

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There is a small amount of color fringing, especially if you are using the fixture at 10°, but it isn’t that noticeable when the light is flooded out.

Output & Color Temperature Accuracy

A big factor for a lot of people when buying a light is how much output it can produce. I tested the lights output in both its full flood and spot positions at a variety of Kelvin color temperatures using a Sekonic C-800 at a distance of 1m (3.28ft) in a controlled environment

All measurements were taken from the front of the Fresnel element. All measurements were taken with the Sekonic C-800 at the exact same height and offset to where the middle of the light source was.

What you clearly need to know is that you can’t judge a light, nor should you make an assumption based on one set of tests. You need to look at all the data and not just cherry-pick something to get a full conclusion.

Below you can see the results:

5600K

5600K Full Spot

Above you can see the Lupo Dayled 2000 Dual Color Pro when used at 5600K in its full spot position recorded an output of 95700 lx / 8890 (fc). This is a lot of output from a fixture that only draws 220W. This figure was a little bit higher than the 90000 lx that Lupo claims at the same distance.

Now, you should be aware that this figure of 95700 lx that I measured is only at the center of this beam. If you move slightly off center the output figure drops considerably. More on this later in the review.

It recorded a Kelvin color temperature of 5190K, which was more than 400K off being a correct daylight source.

5600K FULL SPOT BATTERY POWER

Above you can see the Lupo Dayled 2000 Dual Color Pro when used at 5600K in its full spot position and powered by a V-lock battery recorded an output of 52900 lx / 4910 (fc). This was 44.7% less output than it produced when running off mains power. Lupo states that the output when running the fixture via a camera battery is limited to 70%. I found that it was actually slightly less than that.

It recorded a Kelvin color temperature of 5641K, which was exceprtionally accurate. This was actually a bit of a suprise and very puzzling. The light was far more Kelvin color accurate whne run off a camera battery than mains power.

5600K Full Flood

When used in its full flood position at 5600K it recorded an output of 15200 lx (1410 fc). That was 84.11% less output compared to when the light is used in its full spot position. This recorded figure was less than the 20000 lx that Lupo claims.

Used in the full flood position it recorded a Kelvin color temperature of 5696K, which was a lot better than when it was used in its full spot position.

3200K

3200K Full Spot

When used in its full spot position at 3200K it had an output of 65500 lx (6080 fc). That was 31.55% less output compared to when the light is used at 5600K.

It recorded a Kelvin color temperature of 3006K. This result could be better, but it was still less than 200K off being correct.

3200K Full Flood

When used at 3200K in its full flood position it had an output of 12000 lx (1110 fc).

It recorded a Kelvin color temperature of 3071K.

How does it perform at various Kelvin color temperatures?

Summary of results

These results show me that the light’s output varies depending on the Kelvin color temperature being used. The light had the most output when it was used at 5600K. The output varies by 46.8% from the highest to the lowest figures I recorded.

These results show me that the light drops output dramatically when you start moving the Kelvin temperature dial down from 4500K.

The results also show me that the light could be better when it comes to Kelvin color temperature reproduction.

Does the light’s Kelvin color consistency change once it is dimmed down?

With a lot of LED lights, the Kelvin color temperature can change significantly once you start dimming the fixture down. So how does the Dayled 1000 Dual Color PRO fair? Below you can see the performance of the light when used at 5600K.

As you can see the light’s Kelvin color temperature does not alter when the light is dimmed down. This is something you need to be aware of.

How linear is the output?

I wanted to see how linear the light’s output was when used at 5600K. Below you can see the results.

The results show me that the light’s output is reasonably linear once you start dimming the fixture down. At 50% output, it had 42.4% less output than when it was used at 100% output. At 25% the fixture had 73.5% less output than when it was used at 100%. This shows me that the light’s output is not completely linear, although it is still reasonably good.

You can also choose to set the dimming curves to Linear, Exponential, or Logarithmic if you choose.

How is the fall off?

I took a series of measurements at distances away from the center of the beam when using the fixture at 10° and 60° to see how linear the fall off was and if there were any hotspots.

The Dayled 1000 Dual Coor Pro certainly does have a hot spot in the middle, especially at 10°.

DISTANCE FROM CENTER	LUX
Dead Center	11300 lx
25cm from center	5740 lx
50cm from center	1420 lx
1m from center	194 lx

Above you can see lux readings taken at the corresponding distances from the center of the beam at a distance of 3m when the light was used at 10°. You can see that the hotspot in the middle is 49.2% brighter than if you take a reading 25cm to the left or right.

The intensity of the light then starts to drop away quite dramatically from 25cm to 50cm, to 1m away from the center of the beam. 50cm from the center of the beam the light’s intensity has been reduced by 87.4%.

DISTANCE FROM CENTER	LUX
Dead Center	2270 lx
25cm from center	2210 lx
50cm from center	2110 lx
75cm from center	1810 lx
1m from center	1240 lx
2m from center	121 lx

Above you can see lux readings taken at the corresponding distances from the center of the beam at a distance of 3m when the light was used at 60°.

At a distance of 3m when used at 60° the Lupo has a fairly even spread of light from the center. Even at 1m from the center of the beam, the light has only reduced by 45.37%.

Having the ability to go from 10° to 60° is a nice feature and it makes the Lupo quite versatile.

CC Index & ⊿uv

The CC Index displays the CC correction value and whether any magenta or green need to be added or subtracted. 1 CC corresponds to 035 Kodak CC values or 1/8 Rosco filter values. Any reading less than +1.00 or -1.00 and you’re probably not going to need to make any kind of adjustment. The ⊿uv is the value to show how much this light is away from being an ideal light source (black body radiation = incandescent lamp). As with the CC Index you want this number to theoretically be zero. Kelvin is not a linear value, so we need to convert from Kelvin to MK-1 to compare the values of color temperature. To calculate from Kelvin to Mired is MK-1= 1*1000000/Kelvin. While this may sound confusing, it is the only way of measuring if the Kelvin shift is significant enough to warrant having to use a filter for correction. Below are the results for the light when it was used in its full spot position.

Kelvin Vs MK-1

	Kelvin	Difference in K	MK-1	Difference in MK-1
SET VALUE	2800K	0	357.14	0
ACTUAL READING	2783K	17	359.32	2.18 MK-1
SET VALUE	3200K	0	312.50	0
ACTUAL READING	3006K	194	332.66	20.16 MK-1
SET VALUE	4500K	0	222.22	0
ACTUAL READING	4254K	246	235.07	12.85 MK-1
SET VALUE	5600K	0	178.57	0
ACTUAL READING	5190K	310	192.67	14.10 MK-1
SET VALUE	6500K	0	153.84	0
ACTUAL READING	6650K	150	150.37	-3.47 MK-1

These figures might look confusing, but what it tells me is that the light is reasonably accurate at 2800K and 6500K,. At 3200K, 4500K and 5600K the Kelvin color accuracy is way off. Any MK-1 score that is under -9/9 means you wouldn’t have to use any color correction gels. Again, we don’t want to judge a light based on one set of scores.

CC INDEX & ⊿uv

	CC INDEX	⊿uv
2800K	0.5G	-0.0036
3200K	0.7G	-0.0060
4500K	0.8G	-0.0084
5600K	0.7G	-0.0069
6500K	0.5G	-0.0024

These results show me that the light skews towards green, but as we will find out later on in the review this isn’t actually anything to be concerned about.

Color Rendering

5600K Full Spot

So now that we have seen how much output the Dayled 1000 Dual Color Pro produces, how does it perform when it comes to replicating accurate colors? Above you can see that the light recorded an average CRI (R1-R8) of 95.6 and an extended CRI (R1-R15) of 93.76. For replicating accurate skin tones it recorded 88.5 R9 (red), 93.8 for R13 (closest to caucasian skin tones), and 91.9 for R15 (closest to Asian skin tones). These are reasonably good results.

The light when used at 5600K recorded a TLCI score of 98.

3200K Full Spot

Above you can see that when the light was set at 3200K it recorded an average CRI (R1-R8) of 95.0 and an extended CRI (R1-R15) of 94.11. For replicating accurate skin tones it recorded 97.6 R9 (red), 93.5 for R13 (closest to caucasian skin tones), and 95.4 for R15 (closest to Asian skin tones). These are pretty good results.

The light when used at 3200K recorded a TLCI score of 98.

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Above you can see the color rendering scores when the light was used at 2800K, 4500K, and 6500K.

TM-30

TM-30 is a relatively new color rendering standard that was developed to deal with the limitations of CRI. TM-30 looks at 99 individual colors. These 99 colors are categorized into seven groups: nature, skin color, textiles, paints, plastics, printed material, and color systems.

TM-30 scores go from 0 – 100. The higher the score, the more accurate a light is at producing colors. Any TM-30 Rf score in the ’90s is considered to be good. What is interesting and something that you need to be very aware of is that two separate light sources with the exact same CRI scores can render colors very differently. A light with a high CRI rating could have a low TM-30 score. Conversely, a light with a good TM-30 score could have a bad CRI score.

Now, there are two measurements associated with TM-30, Rf and Rg.

• Rf (Color Fidelity)
• Rg (Color Gamut)

With Rf value, ideally, you want a score in the 90’s.

With Rg value, a score below 100 indicates that the light source renders colors with less saturation than the reference source. So ideally you want this score to be above 100.

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Above you can see the scores for the Dayled 1000 Dual Color Pro at various Kelvin color temperatures. Below I have listed the figures as well.

	Rf	Rg
2800K	93	103
3200K	95	103
4500K	94	103
5600K	93	103
6500K	92	100

The TM-30 scores are all good and it shows me that the light is pretty consistent at replicating accurate colors.

SSI

SSI (Spectral Similarity Index) was developed by the Sci-Tech Council of the Academy. SSI gives me the ability to set any light as a standard, or use predefined standards (such as CIE D55), and then give other lights an SSI score based upon how well they will match standards such as CIE D55 measure spectral response and compare it directly against an ideal light source.

SSI is a much better way to judge an LED light than CRI or TLCI.

SSI is useful to see how well different lights will play together. As the Sekonic C-800 Spectromaster can measure SSI, I decided to test out the Dayled 2000 Dual Color Pro to see how it performed.

5600K Full Spot

The scores show that the light does a reasonably good job of accurately replicating a CIE D55 source. A score in the low to mid-70s is very typical for a 5600K LED light.

The main reason we want to record SSI scores is so we can see how well they match with other lights. I was curious to see how well the Dayled 2000 Dual Color Pro matched the Dayled 1000 Dual Color Pro and a Litepanels Gemini 1×1 HARD. Below you can see the results.

As you can see, the Dayled 2000 Dual Color Pro and Dayled 1000 Dual Color Pro are a reasonable match. A score in the high 80’s or low 90’s isn’t that bad and with a bit of tweaking, you could probably get the Litepanels Gemini 1×1 HARD to match reasonably well.

3200K Full Spot

In the above graph, the red bars indicate a perfect Planck 3200K source. The gold bars indicate a perfect 3200K Tungsten source. This lets us compare how close to a perfect 3200K lighting source the Lupo Dayled 2000 Dual Color Pro is. Any SSI score in the ’80s is very good for a 3200K LED light. As you can see, LED lights have a hard time replicating colors below about 450nm.

Again, let’s compare the Lupo against the Dayled 1000 Dual Color Pro and the Litepanels Gemini 1×1 HARD as we did at 5600K. Above you can see that the match is slightly better at 3200K than it was at 5600K.

Being able to measure SSI in advance and compare different lights you may be using together is a great way of finding out what lights will work together and what adjustments need to be made.

Spectral Distribution

5600K

Above you can see the spectral distribution of the Lupo when used at 5600K. The spectral distribution is reasonably full, but then again this is not an RGBWW fixture. There is a slight bump in red and orange which explains the lower than 5600K reading I got.

3200K

Above you can see the spectral distribution of the Lupo when used at 3200K. The spectral distribution is nice and linear, and there aren’t any spikes where there shouldn’t be.

Real-World Usability

The Lupo isn’t going to be a replacement for a bigger, larger, high output HMI or LED fresnel. However, it will create a decent amount of output, in a compact-sized fixture that can be powered remotely in the field.

It has enough output that it can be used to match brighter backgrounds if you need to shoot talent outdoors.

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Above you can see some quick examples of punching the light through a window and light curtain from outside to replicate sunlight coming in. I have taken pictures with the light on and with it off at the exact same camera settings.

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Above you can see what the light looks like being punched through a light curtain from outside in its full flood position.

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Above you can see what it looks like if it is punched directly into the ceiling and used as an indirect source.

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Above you can see what the light looks like if it is brought into the room and used with no diffusion.

Price

The Lupo Dayled 2000 Dual Color Pro retails for $1899.00 USD. It should be available and shipping soon.

Competition

Below you can see some of the other competing lights. There actually are not many direct competing options and the Lupo is significantly cheaper than what else is available.

	WEIGHT	POWER DRAW	PRICE
Lumos Hawk 200MK Bi-Color 2800-6500K LED Fresnel	18.74 lb / 8.5 kg	200W	$2,755 USD
ARRI L7-C LE2 LED Fresnel	22.3 lb / 10.1 kg	220W	$4,360 USD

Conclusion

The Lupo Dayled 2000 Dual Color Pro is a well-built, versatile, powerful Fresnel that still manages to be reasonably compact and lightweight. It is nice that it can be run remotely off a single battery. Yes, you can’t run it at 100% from a camera battery, but the flip side of this limitation is it does allow you to power the light using a flight-safe battery.

The light offers a lot of output considering its power draw and it has decent color accuracy once you factor in all of the data from my testing.

If you are a solo operator, work in small crews, or travel a lot, the Lupo makes a lot of sense if you need to take a high output Fresnel fixture that can be remotely powered in the field.

The original Lupo Dayled 1000 Dual Color and 2000 Dual Color were popular fixtures, especially in broadcast circles for a reason, and the new Pro version builds on that original platform without straying too far off the path.

If you are looking for a solid, robust, high-powered Fresnel that can be powered remotely then the Lupo Dayled 2000 Dual Color Pro is certainly worth looking at.

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