Just wondering if anyone else out there in b-roll land has also run into cold weather issues with the Nila Varsa lights? Specifically when shooting in weather below 24°F, the light won’t fire and only one LED lights up but only to about 10%. I was out covering the Northeast blizzard several weeks ago getting set up for a national morning broadcast and the light wouldn’t fire on either battery or AC power. I had to revert to using lower-powered litepanel fixtures instead of the more powerful Varsa. When I returned home, I brought the light inside and tried to get it to strike after bringing it inside. It fired after it warmed up about ten minutes later. While I was happy to see it fire, it concerns me that it won’t be dependable in the cold weather we’re likely to have for the next month or so.

I called and talked to a Nila representative last week and he says that their engineering department is aware of the issues and they have isolated it as a software glitch that they are attempting to work on solution. They’re not yet sure how they’ll be able to get the fix out to all owners, they’re working on that as well.

Bottom line for now is to always have a backup ready because the dependability of the light is under scrutiny.