Neewer CSF10 Fresnel Lens review – the light modifier you never knew you needed

It’s probably true that most readers will have seen a Fresnel lens at some stage of their life, but few will actually own one – or know why they might need one. I admit that I’d forgotten how much I needed one, until this Neewer CSF10 Fresnel Lens lighting modifier reminded me.

At a glance:

• $199 / £199
• Zooming Fresnel lens for spotlight effects
• Bowens mount
• Large vents to keep it cool
• Compatible with 600W LED lights
• 288x143mm, 2.65kg
• neewer.com

You’ll have seen a Fresnel lens on the sides of lighthouses, as these lenses, with their concentric grooved rings, turn the general spread of the lighthouse lamp into the straight beams that streak out over the sea to warn shipping. Placing a Fresnel lens in front of a photographic light does the same thing: it collimates the light, bringing it into a beam to produce an effect similar to that of a spotlight, but softer.

This Fresnel lens is designed to be attached to Bowens-mount flash or continuous lights, to offer users the chance to narrow the beam of light while also boosting the illumination. This adapter also allows us to alter the distance between the light and Fresnel lens to give us a range of beam angles – from moderately wide to very narrow. And we get a set of barn doors that comes in the kit to give us another dimension of control for the spread and quality of light.

Features

The Neewer CSF10 is a large plastic barrel that fits onto your Bowens-mount light at one end, and features a large 25cm grooved Fresnel lens at the other. Once fitted to your light, the central barrel of the body rotates to push the lens away from the source, and in so doing alters the angle of the beam. Neewer tells us we can have a beam 35° wide when the lens is close to the light, which narrows to a 10° spot when the lens is at its furthest position. The lens housing itself doesn’t rotate, so the barn doors can remain in place as we adjust.

The lens collects all the light from your flash or lamp and concentrates it into a smaller and brighter beam. Neewer says we get an 11.2x increase, and in my tests a light that delivered f/3.5 with no modifier was boosted to between f/6.3 and f/8 with the CSF10 at its widest and narrowest positions.

The Neewer CSF10 costs a bit more than some other Fresnel lens attachments at this budget end of the market. But that’s because most other attachments suggest we use lights no brighter than 300W. In contrast, this one allows lights of up to 600W to be used.

I had a 600W Neewer AS600B in this CSF10 pretty much all day for a shoot and found that the CSF10 wasn’t really hot at the end of it. It was warm, but safe to touch, as the heat-resistant plastic and fibreglass used in the construction seem to let the heat dissipate pretty efficiently. There are also large vents in the rear to let cooler air in.

Neewer warns you could burn yourself, and it pays to be cautious, but that wasn’t my experience at all.

With the barn doors attached, this is a pretty heavy unit, and one that requires a light that can handle the weight without straining the yoke that holds the fixture at the required angle. On the Neewer AS600B this was no problem at all, but I noted the grippy rubber straining a bit when this was mounted on the Neewer CB300B – it held, but not comfortably. The CSF10 could really do with its own mounting point and bracket to shift the balance a bit – just as a heavy camera lens would have its own tripod foot.

The CSF10 comes in a very nice hat-box style padded protective case, but the barn doors have to be carried separately.

Our Verdict

This really is a useful accessory to spice-up your lighting without going to a whole lot of expense. The effect is a lot softer than that of a true focused spotlight so it lends itself to portraiture as well as the more obvious product work, lighting a set, being positioned outside a window to emulate sunshine, or for creating spots and streaks to liven up a background.

The brightness magnification is also very useful, as it means even low-powered lights can be effective outside and bright lights can be made even brighter. The Neewer CSF10 is a very handy accessory and opens a whole new world of effects for flash and continuous lighting enthusiasts.

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Neewer CSF10 full specifications