Today we will be taking a look at the Inkee Gold Crow GC30, a flashlight-style compact COB LED unit. This will also be the first “Hands-on Review” style video that we publish on LensVid where we have a longer discussion about a product in a longer talk format (somewhat similar to what we do on LensVid Talk but focusing on a single product).
About Inkee
In-kee is a relatively small company that specializes in video accessories including lights, gimbals, and other camera-related products.
The Gold Crow GC30 is part of a 3-light series which also includes the longer and more powerful The Gold Crow GC60 (60W) unit and a somewhat different design called The Gold Crow GC12 – a 12W inflatable “tube light”.
The Inkee Gold Crow GC30 with the included reflector
Build and design
The Gold Crow is a very small light – 16cm/6.5″ with a diameter of about 7.5 cm/3″ and a weight of 690g (without the reflector). It has a powerful internal battery of 4800mAh and a 30W COB LED.
The build is all metal and water-resistant (rainproof basically) and includes a silent internal fan. It has 4 1/4″ 20 screw holes with Ari locating pin holes on each side for mounting the light as well as attaching more than one unit – it would be nice if Inkee would make a bracket that allows mounting several lights to create an array, just keep in mind that you will need some sort of diffusion for this array.
On the front, you have LED surrounded by a smart metal mount. This mount fits the included small reflector. We thought that it is a mini-Bowens but it isn’t (it’s a little larger for some reason). However, the good news is that when you open it you get a full-size Bowens mount with a lock that fits most Bowens accessories (it’s a tiny bit tight so some modifiers might not work with it or require small modifications to the mount).
A lot of info on the back of the screen
On the back, there is a small screen with lots of useful information such as expected use time at the current output, battery status, different modes, color temperature, and more as well as a single plastic ring (more on that below).
The smart full-size Bowens retractable mount
Controls
The Gold Crow has a single control method in the form of the aforementioned ring. We can give the company credit for coming up with this concept but in all honesty, we find this to be the most annoying aspect of the light and we wish it would be changed in a future version.
The ring works as follows:
- To turn the light on you first need to take it out of airplane mode by turning it clockwise (again and again and again).
- After you see the info screen turning it clockwise some more will increase the output, slow turns will increase by 1% increments and faster by 10% until 100% (counterclockwise turns will decrease the output accordingly).
- The light has a boost mode of up to 150% (45W) by turning the ring clockwise several times more (this will work when the battery is at over 20% and will of course create more heat and draw more battery).
- To access the special modes – (effects and color temperature) you need to turn the ring clockwise and hold it for 2 seconds (color temp) or counterclockwise for 2 sec (effects). Then you need to quickly change the modes by turning the ring (again clockwise/counterclockwise which will change between the settings). The unit will go to the main screen automatically after a short time.
The light can change between 2700-6500K color temperatures and has 12 different effect modes (including all sorts of blinking options such as SOS, police car TV, and more).
On (control) ring to rule them all
Test results
Before we go into the light and color tests we also looked at the battery life of the unit. In our test at 100% output, we got just over 3 hours of use. However, this is not true 3 hours at 100%. What Inkee did (and we are not sure what we feel about this one) is reduce the output automatically to 50% when the battery is below 20% and again when it reaches 10% etc.). So the actual use time of the light at 100% is probably closer to around 2 hours (or maybe a bit more) which is still very respectable.
With the light set to 150% boost mode expect a much quicker (the light shows about an hour and 20 min although we didn’t run a full test again).
Charging is very interesting. The light can go up to 55W with a supported charger (and cable) and you can even charge + power the light at the same time if you have a 100W charger.
We also tested the Inkee Gold Crow GC30 using our Sekonic C800 and got the following results:
Results for the Inkee Gold Crow GC30 at 3200K @1m 100% (no reflector):
- Color temperature: 3115K.
- Output: 1440 Lux.
- CRI: 95.4 (R9 – 97.6; R12 – 86).
- TLCI: 97.
- TM-30 RF: 95; TM-30 Rg – 104.
- SSI: 82.
Results for the Inkee Gold Crow GC30 at 3200K @1m 150% (no reflector):
- Color temperature: 3127K.
- Output: 2060 Lux.
- CRI: 95.8 (R9 – 97.2; R12 – 87.4).
- TLCI: 97.
- TM-30 RF: 95; TM-30 Rg – 104.
- SSI: 82.
Results for the Inkee Gold Crow GC30 at 5600K @1m 100% (no reflector):
- Color temperature: 5533K.
- Output: 1600 Lux.
- CRI: 94.7 (R9 – 82.5; R12 – 80.9).
- TLCI: 98.
- TM-30 RF: 93; TM-30 Rg – 104.
- SSI: 71.
Results for the Inkee Gold Crow GC30 at 5600K @1m 150% (no reflector):
- Color temperature: 5523K.
- Output: 2240 Lux.
- CRI: 94.8 (R9 – 84.6; R12 – 81.7).
- TLCI: 98.
- TM-30 RF: 93; TM-30 Rg – 104.
- SSI: 72.
Results for the Inkee Gold Crow GC30 at 3200K @1m 100% (with included reflector):
- Color temperature: 3076K.
- Output: 6380 Lux.
- CRI: 95.6 (R9 – 97; R12 – 86.6).
- TLCI: 97.
- TM-30 RF: 95; TM-30 Rg – 104.
- SSI: 83.
Results for the Inkee Gold Crow GC30 at 3200K @1m 150% (with included reflector):
- Color temperature: 3093K.
- Output: 9030 Lux.
- CRI: 96 (R9 – 95.8; R12 – 87.9).
- TLCI: 96.
- TM-30 RF: 95; TM-30 Rg – 104.
- SSI: 83.
Results for the Inkee Gold Crow GC30 at 5600K @1m 100% (with included reflector):
- Color temperature: 5293K.
- Output: 7050 Lux.
- CRI: 97.1 (R9 – 96.2; R12 – 83.4).
- TLCI: 98.
- TM-30 RF: 94; TM-30 Rg – 102.
- SSI: 81.
Results for the Inkee Gold Crow GC30 at 5600K @1m 150% (with included reflector):
- Color temperature: 5291K.
- Output: 9970 Lux.
- CRI: 96.1 (R9 – 91.9; R12 – 82.4).
- TLCI: 98.
- TM-30 RF: 93; TM-30 Rg – 103.
- SSI: 73.
Results for the Inkee Gold Crow GC30 at 5600K @1m 150% (with a Bowens reflector):
- Color temperature: 5190K.
- Output:14700 Lux.
- CRI: 95.7 (R9 – 89.5; R12 – 82.6).
- TLCI: 98.
- TM-30 RF: 93; TM-30 Rg – 103.
- SSI: 73.
Use cases
So who is this light for? this is essentially 30W COB (with a 45WB boost mode) with a built-in strong battery that can last at full power for over an hour and a half. So any user that is looking for such a light in a very portable form factor needs to give the Gold Crow a second look.
More specifically this can be used as a main light, hair/fill light and more interestingly be used for product shoots and even possibly with a projector attachment as an ultra-compact projector for gobos, etc.
The ability to connect several units is interesting although there are two things to keep in mind. The first is that you need a way to hold them together (Inkee sells a sort of handle but we are not sure how it can be used for such a purpose, it would be nice if the company would come up with a dedicated solution.
The second point is diffusion, you will need a separate light modifier to diffuse (or direct) several closely tight lights together and create a single light source without multiple shadows.
The Inkee Gold Crow with a full-size Bowens reflector
Pricing
As for pricing, the Inkee Gold Crow GC30 currently sells for around $200 and the more powerful 60W version sells for around $100 more (although there seems to be some discounts).
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Iddo Genuth 
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