I recently teamed up with the brand Lowel to show off their new LED Tota XL light, a reimagined version of their original tungsten tota light from days of old. I began my filmmaking education in college using lights like the tungsten tota for years so it was really cool to get to partner with a company I love and to see how technology is advancing. The original tota is considered an open-faced light, meaning it shines light in a very wide arc. Instead of a focused beam, it floods everywhere. It has a small reflector on the back side to keep light only facing forward, but besides that it’s a very simple design. Build like a tank, with a frame for attaching diffusion and color gels, as well as a slot for mounting an umbrella, it’s simple and inexpensive, yet very effective and easy to use. The new LED Tota XL is a similar light in many ways, but it’s larger, brighter, and more refined for modern filmmaking. Being LED, it draws considerably less power while also not getting hot at all. Something that made the original tota a pain to use is that it turned your film set into an oven. Not anymore! In addition, the new LED Tota is dimmable and has barn doors for increased control. While testing the two lights side by side, I found that the LED made the room about a stop brighter. Being an LED, it’s also able to run on V-mount batteries meaning it’s a portable, mobile solution that can go with you anywhere regardless of the power situation. The other nice thing about the LED Tota is that it is daylight balance instead of the tungsten light of old. Daylight is my preferred color temperature to work with, as it’s more versatile. If you want a tungsten light to amplify natural ambient sunlight in a room, for instance, you have to slap on a full CTB gel in front of it which cuts the intensity by over a stop. Meaning the tungsten Tota is practically about two stops dimmer than the LED one, yet it draws more power and gets very hot. All in all, the new LED Tota XL is a massive upgrade on the original design, bringing it into the modern age. I love that Lowel revisited an old, classic design, and I know personally that I’ll be getting a lot of use out of it.