If you're a photo or video professional in need of a well-designed, high-quality LED lighting fixture, the Ikan WS-F200 LED Fresnel may be exactly what you're looking for. With solid construction, exceptional light output and a cool, silent-running design, the list of features [may] get you excited about so much packed into this one fixture.
Contents & Performance
The WS-F200 unpacks nicely and comes with a heavy-duty cast aluminum yoke that is easily assembled and mounts to each side of the light with durable wing bolts. The yoke allows you to mount the light to a 5/8-inch pin on a clamp or a c-stand. It is a conventional light fixture equipped with an energy-efficient, 200-watt LED lamp with an excellent color rendering index, a CRI of 95 to be exact.
The WS-F200 boasts field-tested reliability, solid construction and everything you would expect from a fixture of this caliber.
The lamp only draws 200 watts and outputs at 5,600K daylight color temperature. The light output is said to be equivalent to 650W tungsten output, but in my tests, sitting right next to an ARRI 650W Fresnel tungsten lamp, it appeared to generate about 100W more lightly output. Yet, in general … a pretty even match.
The fixture is on par with the ARRI as far as quality of light and controllability of the light output. The Ikan also offers a six-inch Fresnel lens with a focus range of 14 to 50 degrees and an easy-to-access plastic focus knob on the rear of the fixture. Focusing is smooth, with a ton of focus range for many different lighting scenarios. The high quality lens produces a nice, consistent light with even falloff. Built-in dimming is adjustable from 1%-100% locally on the unit, with a knob and LCD digital readout—or the unit has built-in DMX control with two four-pin connectors for loop through connection with your DMX controller.
Dimming is flicker-free and with minimal color shift at most shutter speeds. It’s only when you crank up to over 1/1,000th shutter speed that you start to get any kind of noticeable flicker, and rarely would you use that shutter speed in a scenario with this light fixture. The unit also boasts a built-in quiet active cooling system, which is indeed “whisper” quiet. There is, however some light fan noise, so if the fixture is really close to a microphone, it will most likely pick up some very light noise, but the HVAC noise in the room I was testing in was louder than the fan on this light, so the fan noise is not a huge deal unless you’re in a whisper-quiet studio environment. The built-in fan system is necessary to ensure a 50,000-hour lamp life, so it’s definitely worth the little bit of extra noise.
The light is equipped with a built-in power supply in the bottom of the fixture and plugs into a standard three-prong IEC power cable. The construction seems very solid and rugged, with an aluminum case that weighs in at about 20 pounds. Because of its weight, this light would not be ideal in a portable application. The ideal use for this fixture would be a permanent studio installation or in a setup on a heavy-duty c-stand. Churches could use this light on installs to illuminate staging or sets or in video production where consistent color temperature, energy efficiency and need for low heat generation are crucial. The fixture generates virtually no heat and can easily be handled with bare hands while at full illumination. It also comes with four leaf aluminum barn doors that can be loaded in the standard filter holder in front of the lens. The filter clamp is a screw-down type as opposed to a spring-loaded in other similar fixtures, but works adequately at holding the barn doors or filters where they need to stay.
The Takeaway
The Ikan WS-F200 is a very versatile light and looks fantastic as a direct “bare bulb” light source or [when] directed into a modifier, such as a silk, for very nice even and soft light. You can even throw a soft box on the front for an even more efficient and soft light source for different applications.
The WS-F200 has an MSRP of $1,430 and boasts field-tested reliability, solid construction and everything you would expect from a fixture of this caliber. It can hold its own alongside name-brand lights like ARRI and Litepanels, and can find its home in many church applications. The weight and bulkiness are outweighed by the convenience and efficiency of LED, consistent color temperature, flicker-free dimming, and solid design and construction. A winner all around.
