IF23 was very popular with everyone last year, and I really appreciate your love. This year, we listened to your suggestions, upgraded IF23, and made IF24, which is still in the design stage.
The IF24 side light has two diffuser, the left one advantage is soft light, but the transmittance is not enough, and it is easy to wear. The one on the right is frosted glass, which has a high light transmission rate and will be brighter, but you will see the lamp beads inside.
Which diffuser would you prefer? We will listen to your suggestions and produce the one you like.
@Barry0892 can you split the difference? there must be more than just two levels of translucence available to you. (“middle” translucence example below.)
or…how about both? can you include more than one cover, and allow customers to easily change it?
Maybe you could have both by making the opaque diffuser removable.
If not I will have to go with the opaque diffuser which would be more practical when using it for up close work.
To me, bare SMD emitters in full view like that screams “cheap,” like a lot of the solar yard lights, and the like. What’s worse is getting the full blast of the light from poor emitters.
If the final production version has glass with greater opacity, it might be ok.
I hope the auto-lock won’t be an issue, as with the IF23, since this one has a lock mode on the mode selection dial.
But more so, the restrictive USB charge part should be changed to a larger one, like on the LT1, if one of the three existing types in the parts bin must be (re)utilized. Or, a new one developed that respects the overmold dimension guidelines of the USB spec.
The smallest, slim cover port used on the IF23 will not accommodate a lot of USB cables, which is a failing for a utility-minded light like this.
If you are using it to illuminate objects, with decent illuminance (lux) values, then having visible emitters and light diffusion is fine (as per led panel lights). If you are using it to act as an area light with very floody 180 degree illumination then more diffusion is required. To be honest, as a light painting and portrait photographer the IF23 and IF24 are not appealing as there are better purpose designed lights.
For me, personally, the right, because I can always add diffusion - DC fix, even printer paper if you’re careful. Its easy to add diffusion. I can’t remove diffusion without removing the glass. It’s hard to subtract diffusion. So for that reason I choose the right.
But sofirn should choose the left. It will sell better. You do not want the LEDs to be that clearly visible. Most buyers will not have diffusion film, it will hurt the eyes if used as a worklight or a lamp or any way other than as a traditional flashlight in an outstretched hand pointing away from your face.
Although ideally I would go with something in between the two, if it has to be one of those go with the one on the left. It doesn’t need to be that much diffusion, it can just be a little frosted, but it needs to be enough that at the least you can’t clearly see the emitters with the light turned off. I think that’s very important for the light to be successful.
There’s two tones of frosting, natural frosting and white frosting, and by looking at the picture, the frosting that was applied to this lens is more on the natural side. Using a white frosted glass would be ideal as it would diffuse the light and hide the LEDs better, while being more scratch resistant than the plastic lens. Applying the frosting on the back of the lens would be even better, as this kind of surface can be very abrasive, especially the white frosting.
