Thoughts on new Negative Supply light source?

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Hello,

I am thinking about replacing my current Negative Supply 4x5 Basic 99CRI light source with their new Light source mini. The essential differences being that the new light is reportedly up to 4-stops brighter, as well as having a 97 CRI rating vs the 99 CRI. I was wondering if people thought this would be a better option, a worse option, or an equivalent option? From day one of owning the Basic 99CRI light, I wished it was brighter. I find that with my setup, at base ISO (64) and the sweet spot aperture for my lens (f4.5-5.6), I’m often getting shutter speeds as slow as ~1/15s which always worried me about how it may affect the sharpness of my scans. Although I cannot be sure if it actually has made a negative impact, I am using a fairly stable copy stand.

I suppose the essential question is whether the added brightness is likely to make more of an improvement over the downsides of 97CRI vs 99CRI? Personally, I’m leaning towards there being likely a real life benefit of faster shutter speeds vs hardly any perceivable real life benefit of a 99CRI light vs a 97CRI light and therefore am leaning on making the purchase… but wanted to see what others thought.

Of course there’s the 4x5 pro light that comes in the 99CRI variant which is the best of both worlds… but at a 700$ price point, it borders on obnoxious IMO.

Thanks for any input.

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I have both, for the same reasons you’re contemplating. I stacked a couple discounts and made it hard to pass up.

The 97 CRI Mini is MUCH brighter. It’s hard to look at directly even. I get much faster shutter speeds to where I don’t even worry about camera shake (within reason, and while still using a remote release).

I haven’t done a direct comparison with color film, but realistically I probably wouldn’t notice anything different anyways. With NLP doing so much work to the color anyways I don’t think it’s a huge deal.

The one qualm I have with the Mini is that it isn’t very high build quality. More of the parts are 3D printed, so it’s less likely to survive a fall than the Basic. For the price, though, I’m not too bothered by it.

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For continuous backlight, brighter is better. I think there’s real benefit in higher shutter speeds.

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Thanks for all of the responses. I think everyone is right and brighter is probably better!