Glambank is a portable softbox that makes it very easy to achieve perfect lighting in any situation. Whether you are an influencer, a lifestyle creator, or a mobile photographer, Glambank allows you to take the quality of your picture or videos to the next level.
What is a Softbox and what does it do?
Softbox is a light modifier device that creates even and diffused light. The main reason to get a Softbox is for control, you can control where the light spreads while making it softer as it diffuses from the source. The soft light coming from the Softbox allows you to minimizes harsh shadows on your subject and create a desired effect in photography or videography. With a softbox, you can get even spread throughout the frame to prevent light-spill from occurring. Softboxes typically have a reflective source in form of an umbrella light, which creates soft light by bouncing the light from the source bulb inside the metalized umbrella.
The traditional softboxes are quite large and usually require a tripod for proper operation. The softboxes are mainly used in a permanent confined settings such as a studio space. Given this limitation, Softboxes have been typically used by professionals as they do not offer a lot of portability for day to day use by an average consumer.
Glambank: An easy to use compact softbox
Glambank is an easy to use compact softbox that can be controlled via smartphone app. With 8,000mAh battery pack, it also doubles as a portable charger to power your mobile devices anywhere. The battery pack lasts up to 6 hours and features 2 ports (1 USB-C and USB-A) with bidirectional fast charging to fully charge two iPhones at the same time.
The Glambank has a brightness rating of 750 lumens (1300 lumens with Glambank Pro) and a color temperature of 4500k (between 2700-5500K with Glambank Pro). During our testing, we found this to be quite sufficient for indoor use as the LED lights get really bright without using a lot of power. With a CRI above 95 and a large and edge-lit diffusion light panel, the Glambank produces light that is soft, offers excellent color reproduction, and minimizes glaring hotspots (no irritating pinpricks), which results in vivid and polished images.
One key thing that sets the Glambank apart from other softboxes is the ability to control the device via your smartphone. You can turn the light on or off, control the brightness or color tempature and use multiple shooting modes to use the device more effectively. There is a synced light mode when used with the Glam app, or if you like, you can set it to continuous mode to use it like a video light on your DSLR. You can even just use it as a flash light to simply light up a dark space. If you have multiple Glambank devices, you can pair and control all of them via the app.
How to use it
There are three buttons on your Glambank. The three buttons are: “-”, “+”, and a battery level button. To turn the device on, hold the “+” button for two seconds. An indicator light next to the USB-A port will flash solid blue for two seconds. When the indicator light starts to blink, the device is ready for pairing with the Glam app.
While the device is on, you can manually adjust the brightness of the Glambank via the “+” and “-” hardware buttons. There are 5 different brightness stages. If you use the Glam app, you can adjust the brightness anywhere between 0-100%.
To turn the device off, hold the “+” button for five seconds. The indicator light will flash solid for two seconds, indicating that the device has turned off.
The battery icon button indicates the amount of remaining charge the device has:
- 4 lights: 100% battery
- 3 lights: < 75% battery
- 2 lights: < 50% battery
- 1 light: < 25% battery
There is a pinhole button next to the USB-A port that allows you to reset the device if there are any issues. Once successfully activated, the indicator light will flash five times in quick succession, indicating that the device has been reset.
Technical Specifications
| Lights | Glambank: 4500k LEDs, 63 pcs, CRI >95; 750 lm Glambank Pro: 2700-5500k LEDs, 126 LEDs, CRI >95; 1300 lm |
| Dimensions | Glambank: 171mm x 76 mm x 17.32 mm (295g) Glambank Pro: 171mm x 76 mm x 19.62 mm (335g) |
| Charging | USB-C Supports USB PD Qualcomm Quick Charge 3 |
| Battery Pack Capacity | 8000 mAh |
| Buttons | Plus and Minus for light control Battery status indicator button HW reset pin button |
| Operating Temperature | Charger: 0oC-45oC Light Panel: -20oC-50oC |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 4.1 BLE |
| Materials | Polycarbonate Casing |
Comparison of pictures: Regular vs Glambank
In order to compare the performance of Glambank, we took pictures of different objects with the rear camera on the iPhone 12. The comparison includes pictures taken without any artificial lighting, with the phone’s built-in flash, and with Glambank’s light.
In the first example, you can see that the fruit basket without any flash provides colors that are washed out in comparison to the more realistic colors seen with Glambank. On the other hand, the phone’s built-in flash makes the situation even worse as the flash light reflects very strongly from the objects (color of the pear is over exposed) and washes out the colors even more.
The built-in flash light created even more problems in the next test as it completely washed out all colors of the image. In this example, the images taken without flash and Glambank are more closer in quality.
In our final example, you can see the same issue continuing with the built-in flash as the images get over exposed with misrepresentation of colors. Without flash, the colors are not as vivid and accurate as the images taken with soft light from Glambank.
Glambank is trying to offer more than just a softbox, they are building an ecosystem. In addition to being a camera app that can automatically control the Glambank, the Glam app also provides a suite of tutorials to upskill your flash photography skills. The app will also offer challenges to keep users engaged and social functions to share and draw inspiration from other fellow creators in the community (this feature is still being built out). The app is designed to unlock the full power of the Glambank and without it, the experience will be severely muted.
Pricing and Availability
Glambank is currently available as part of a crowd funding campaign on Kickstarter. Glambank will be ready to ship to certain countries in the world starting in Sep 2022. You can get a Glambank with a pledge of $99 (41% off the Retail Price) or a Glambank Pro (with higher brightness and more colour temperature options) with a pledge of $118. The pricing might seem a little higher in comparison to other softboxes on the market. However, given the fact that you are getting a portable device with a built-in power bank and smartphone app compatibility, the price quickly becomes very reasonable if all of these features are important to you. During our testing, we found the compact design and power bank to be extremely useful during day to day use. If you are in the market for a portable softbox, you have to consider Glambank as it offers a perfect mix of useful features in one package.
Source: Kickstarter
I am officially a tech addict and enjoy providing my views on matters related to this industry. I am always interested in trying out new tech gadgets and I have owned multiple smartphones including the legendary HTC One, SGS2, Nexus 4, iPhone 4, 5S, 6S, XR, Note 9. You can ask me any tech related questions in the comment section or on twitter @hookedNav