Enter the age of man made sunset. The Vivitar #Sunset Lamp provides you the prefect sunset at the push of a button. I was excited when I had the chance to try this viral trend device out for myself. The overall design of it is very simple and easy to put together.
The whole thing is basically Plastic, with the exception of the lens, and the light housing. The base is a heavy weighted plastic that feels like a high grade PVC plastic. The stand is a plastic treaded PVC pipe with a metal extension rod inside with a metal screw at the top. There is a aluminum pan head that the light screws into and the whole thing is adjustable with the tightening of a
plastic locking screw. It also comes with 5 different plastic gel inserts that give you the option to change the type of lighting that shines on your subject. To change them out is a bit of a pain, and can cause some serious damage to the heavy glass lens. You have to unscrew the aluminum housing to expose the led lighting cavity where you have to somewhat barbarically push or pull the gel in and out of. The glass lens is not attached in any way to the aluminum screw and is rather cumbersome to deal with. The led assembly is kind of slapdash in that it is just glued to the center of the housing, with a few drops of air hardening foam drops that protect some of the wiring and that is about it.
In this regard, it seems that Vivitar was cutting a lot of corners, and that it would have made the product much more professional and lent to the longevity to have a way to insert the gels without having to unscrew the lens and risk damaging it and stripping the treading. The best way that I found to do this is to have the lens pointed down, and to unscrew it over a pillow or other soft surface, and then to change out the gel, and screw it all back together.
However, for what it is, this is a great product for teens and people looking for a Budget Friendly Lighting option to create a nice background lighting or to make a sunset style photo.
Here is one of the pictures I did just to try it out. As you can see it does make it look like the setting sun is directly on you. With the other gel color options you can do just red, blue, yellow/orange, and a multi colored shimmer which is what I am using here.
All in all I would give this product a 6 out of 10 stars. The reason being:
Pros:
1. budget friendly
2. does what it says
3. can run off a power bank for portability
Cons:
1. is rather heavy
2. is difficult to change out the gel inserts
3. the lens is not secure
4. the led lighting isn't protected
5. most of the parts are plastic/PVC
