LAS VEGAS: The world’s most popular compact camera, the GoPro, doesn’t have a flash.
“As soon as the sun goes down, no one can use it,” says Hugo Davidson, co-founder and chief executive of Australian lighting designer Knog (silent K – think egg nog).
Surprisingly, no one has yet thought to manufacture a high-quality, compact and water-proof attachable light to go with it. Browse through eBay or Google and you’ll find all manner of elaborate contraptions that defeat the purpose of “compact”.
Originally a designer of high-quality bicycle lights, Knog has recently gone high-tech with a range designed especially for your compact camera or iPhone, so you can take photos and videos like a professional – and still fit all your gear in your pocket.
The “[qudos]”, compatible with GoPro or Garmin action cameras, as well as DSLRs, weighs 150 grams, is waterproof to 40 metres, and has three powerful Cree LEDS that deliver up to 400 lumens. It lasts up to four hours before the battery goes flat, and the light speed and brightness are adjustable.
While the iPhone does of course come with a light, it’s not going to give you anywhere near the results that a more powerful light can, particularly when it comes to video.
Knog designed the “[expose]” for iPhones 4 and up. It slots neatly into the power jack on the bottom of your iPhone. Download the app and, via Bluetooth, you can control the brightness, flash mode and temperature of the light, right from your phone. You can even control multiple lights from the same phone.
The [expose] has nine LED lights (these are smaller than on the [qudos]) and delivers up to 130 lumens. That means that on a pitch-dark night it will light up to four metres in front of you for high-quality videos or photos.
It also gives daytime snaps a more professional edge by making sure your subject is brightly lit. The snap we took here of the Knog team at CES is a case in point – it was as simple as turning the light on, plugging it into an iPhone (6), and pointing and shooting.
An Android model of the [expose] is in the pipeline, and will be available “in the next month or so”, Davidson says.
If adding a light to the bottom of your phone sounds too fiddly, an in-case version is on its way, due by the end of March. It has the light embedded in a phone case, batteries and all. There’s no release date on an Android version.
It’s been an interesting journey for Knog. Originally launched as a design company 22 years ago, it began building bicycle lights 10 years later, and has had plenty of success in the cycling industry.
But it was the leap to designing high-quality lights for cameras that has seen them travel for the first time in 2015 to the International Consumer Electronics show, held in Las Vegas, Nevada.
It is a decision that has paid off, says Davidson.
Knog is already selling its compact lights – mainly the bicycle lights – in 58 countries, but having a presence at CES has drummed up interest from big US retailers, distributors and press as never before – including from a number of representatives at Apple, and from GoPro and Best Buy, he says.
The company signed on three or four new distributors since attending the show, including a new one in Australia.
“We had to travel halfway across the globe to do that,” Davidson jokes.
“It really is a hub. There’s been a huge amount of interest, it’s just been amazing.”
Existing distributors from around the world have also popped by to meet the team face-to-face for the first time.
Knog has two representatives in the home of the famous Tour de France, and one each in the US and Germany. The rest of the team is based in Richmond in inner-city Melbourne.
You can get Knog’s wares at various retailers including JB Hi-Fi.
