Maven Mini Ring Light Development

MAVEN’s New Mini Ring Light!

Shortly after Wave 2 completed, I (Michael) found myself asking: “What filter problem has not been solved?”

The answer that came to mind was a compact, portable magnetic ring-light that would allow creators to get lighting around the lens. This would be particularly helpful for close-up/macro content as those shooters are often stopping down past f8 or f11 for DOF (Depth of Field) reasons and resulted in needing more light, hence longer shutter speeds. I had no idea of journey this idea would take me on over 18 months in the making.

(Note: Because the Ring Light is the hero product for Wave 3, I’ll take more space to explain it’s development, but feel free to use the chapter markers on the top left of this page to jump around to other Wave 3 filters.)

Being that this was our first attempt at electronics and our existing filter partners never made such a product, we had to find a new electronics manufacturer. We needed a new team who could make quality products at reasonable price, were strong communicators and could send us samples of their previous work.

This vetting process takes a couple months of communication back and forth, but after doing our homework, we chose a one, explained what we wanted performance wise, and this is what they sent back:

I had something much smaller in mind and looking back now, I chalk my initial size ideas to being a little naive about electronics development.

My new manufacturing partner explained:

“If you want it to be bright enough, and you want it to be re-chargable, it must be large, here is why:”

 

Form vs Function –

MAVEN products should be as beautiful as possible. But something I learned studying molecular biology in grad school which has was later confirmed in designing MAVEN filters, is that Function Determines Form.

Another way to look at it; “If we make something that is beautiful, but it’s aesthetics makes it too hard to use, is it good design?” The answer is no. The function & performance must come before the aesthetics & the “look” (if we are not in the fashion world).

Confluence & Compromise – When two knowledge sets merge

I was able to convince my new partners that we didn’t need 4 hours of run time, and it didn’t need to be extremely bright, due to the inverse square law of light . The LEDs were very thin, therefore what if we made the ring as small as possible and add a  side control panel that housed the battery?

“We can try…” was the answer. This is what they sent back:

I felt like this was a big step in the right direction for size, but was absolutely not a fan of the button controls. How confusing this would be-no one has time to get out their glasses to read the fine print & no one likes tiny, hard-to-press buttons!

Back to the drawing board!

What kinds of buttons would make it crazy simple to use?

A white triangle with the tip up to increase the power.
A darker triangle with the tip down to decrease the power.
Green means Go! So the power button should be green.
The Hemisphere button should be round, and blue to differentiate it from the others.

“But different colored buttons mean different plastics, which will increase the price.” My manufacturer answered. “What about all blue or all red?”  

“Let’s do the colored buttons anyway. It needs to be very easy to understand and use.” I insisted.

We want the MAVEN user experience to be fast, easy and fun to keep you in the shooting moment. The final button controls on the ring-light follow MAVEN’s philosophy of affordance based design, offering the user a suggestion on how the product is used, without needing to read the fine print:

Flat lighting Problem Solved!

One challenge with Ring Lights is they sometimes produce a flat look. Why not have hemisphere control? This way, users could adjust how much light is acting as a key or fill. What about color temperature? What if they all worked together? We went for it and can adjust hemispheres individually, for both brightness and Kelvin!

The MAVEN ring light was designed to work hand in hand with our new Wave 3 Diopters (more on these below). Let’s look at a quick example of what the pair can do on a non-macro lens:

As with our filters, I wanted to make a really special case. Something that would offer crush resistance to protect the light itself, still look awesome. We went though several iterations:

It took about a 6 weeks of iterations & 3D printing, but eventually we got figured it out:

This assures us that the final case will fit once we order the extrusion molds. The final case will look far more professional and be transparent, providing a crush resistant case and filter storage compartment.

We are so excited to see how you will use your MAVEN Ring-light!