Buck McNeely Deploys Litepanels for Outdoorsman Adventure Series

Buck McNeely has chosen Litepanels (a Vitec Group brand) as his premiere lighting for The Outdoorsman adventure series.

“When you move around as much as we do, you need lighting that is up to the often rugged conditions and variety of atmospheric elements you get on location,” says McNeely. “Litepanels fit the bill. They are rugged in design, have a great light intensity and brilliance and a soft light that can function as key or fill lights outdoors or indoors.

The Outdoorsman with Buck McNeely has been bringing a wide-range of world-class TV adventures to audiences since 1985. His programs air on a variety of networks including Sky Angel 2 on Dish Network, Fox Sports Net, Untamed Sports Net and Tuff TV. Over 500 broadcast TV stations in the United States and several networks around the world also air his programs.

“Since I’ve started using Litepanels LED products, I’ll never go back to my hot lamp kit again.” he says. “I’ve used the Mini and MicroPros as camera top lights in cloudy conditions for fill. I can dial the intensity up or down to make it look more natural as outdoors light. The dimming feature prevents hot or shiny spots on human skin. And at night, it spreads a nice wide area of illumination at close range that works well for lighting faces or surfaces.”

McNeely recently journeyed to the Costa Rican jungle for an episode of the series. “Litepanels worked great as fill light under the jungle canopy for a zip line adventure segment.”

McNeely utilizes Litepanels 1×1’s for lighting sit down interviews either indoors or at night. “The soft light provided makes it easy to overlap the light footprint without shadow seams between two or three lights, when using as frontal illumination,” he explains. When used in a three-point set-up a close, tight, well-lit set is achieved.

“I also like the option of powering the 1×1 lights with standard wall juice, or with a quick change of back plates and Anton Bauer Gold Mount batteries we can run the lights in the middle of nowhere. Now that’s a handy option for all EFP producers. You can even clip a number of 1x1s together to create a single large panel of illumination.

“I appreciate the fact that these lights never get hot either,” he adds. “No burned out or exploding bulbs anymore. Use these lights all day and then turn them off and pack them up. For a veteran producer, this is a step up in lighting technology.”