What's In The Box? #1

Before we had off to Photokina in just over a week from now for a very extensive coverage, we wanted to do our first open box. We accumulated so many products for review so far an didn’t have a chance to ever do a proper open box video that we thought that it might be a good time – check out what we found in the three boxes we received this time around plus some of the products that are awaiting our reviews in the not too distant future.

Open box videos can be fun but we never found time for them (we hardly have time for all of the product reviews to be honest), but this time around we just couldn’t resist and you will soon find out why.

So this week we got not one or two but three different products – two of them were sent to us by manufacturers and one is just a something that we ordered for ourselves.

Let’s start with the smaller package (probably the least interesting/expensive). Inside we found a 1/4″ Thread Single Rod Clamp (RailBlock for 15mm Support Rail System) with two 15mm rods by SmallRig (you can find it on e-bay for around $7) and if this is something that you need (not just for use with rods but for connecting 1/4″ 20 parts in 90 degree angle – it is a great purchase.

The second box is a lot more interesting – inside we found a nice lens box which housed a KERLEE 35mm f/1.2 by the Chinese manufacturer DZOptics. This is a manual focus lens (fully manual) made out of metal with a very nice build quality, very long focus throw, a de-clicked aperture (and aperture ring of course). Our version had a Nikon F mount (there is also Canon/Sony and Pentax versions) and a very large rear element as well as a hood.

We will of course do a full review on the lens later on and we shall take it to Photokina with us – if you are interested – a new version cost about $720 on Amazon.

The final (huge) box is something that we have been waiting for – for a long time now. It has been stuck in customs for several weeks (and was even opened by the customs people). This giant and very heavy package was sent to us by Brother, Brother & Sons (BB&S) in Denmark.

As some of you might remember this is not the first product by this high quality professional lighting company that we have tested. Earlier this year we received the Pipeline Reporter kit from the company. This is a much much smaller and more portable light kit but both use the same advanced Remote Phosphor LED technology (which you can read about on our review of this light). Enough to say that this technology gives a very very soft light with very high color accuracy.

The light that we got in this box is called the Pipline System and the specific model that we got is the Pipeline 4 Bank 4ft (5600k). It is tremendously powerful with over 14,000 lumen! (depending on the specific version) and you can see this in our quick demo in the video. Pricing for this light should be around $1500.

Let us know if you liked this open box video and if you think that we should do more of those in the comments below/youtube and on our facebook page.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.