Our all-new Basic Light Source Mini is a high CRI light source boasting perfect light uniformity and industry-leading brightness. 

The Basic Light Source Mini is more compact, 4+ stops brighter than our 4×5 Light Source Basic, comes in at 97 CRI which is great for both black and white and general purpose color film scanning, less expensive and integrates with nearly all Negative Supply accessories. This light is perfect for users who scan 35mm and 120 film and need a very bright, color accurate light source that’s built to last.

Recently there has been a lot of discussion about how CRI and TCLI should be used to compare light sources for film scanning purposes. We’ll break it down for you!

CRI is a metric used to tell us how a light source renders color based on human perception. What this does not tell us is how this light will render on film or in our case, a digital camera. The TCLI value will give us a more complete view of color accuracy and more directly relates to film scanning.

CRI is often the metric given when comparing light sources in our industry, though TCLI is perhaps more critical.

The TLCI value is averaged from the 24 colors from the MacBeth Color Checker Chart with the maximum value of 100 being the best. Light sources that score a 90 or higher are often seen as high quality light sources that will cut down on post production time.