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Photographer Dustin Abbott shares a review of the Colbor CF5 Portable Fog machine. Is it a worthy tool to help you up your photography game? Purchase the Colbor CF5 at Amazon https://amzn.to/44l7wgV | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/4cXAtla | B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/4jxpocU
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Table of Contents:
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0:00 - Intro
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0:00
[Music]
0:06
[Music]
0:10
i am Dustin Abbott handheld portable
0:13
smoke machines have become very common
0:16
in the past few years and so I decided
0:19
that I would say yes to an invite to
0:23
look at one of these and so I did going
0:26
back now about four or five months ago
0:29
my kind of goal was to see if I
0:33
could spice up my product shots uh you
0:37
know obviously I'm doing product shots
0:38
multiple times a week for my various
0:40
reviews and so I thought adding a little
0:42
bit of smoke effect could be an
0:44
interesting addition to that i've
0:46
actually had a lot of fun with the
0:48
Colber CF5 which I'm reviewing here
0:51
today and you've probably seen some of
0:53
the smoke from the CF5 in a number of my
0:56
product shots in either video or stills
0:59
form at this point so the question is
1:02
obviously when I'm going to review
1:04
something however whether I've had fun
1:05
or not does something like the CF5 make
1:08
sense for you today I'm going to give it
1:10
a quick review to see if it delivers on
1:12
the promise of being able to be a
1:15
handheld way to add smoke effects to
1:18
either your portrait work your product
1:20
photography food photography and a
1:22
variety of other things we're going to
1:24
dive into it and take a look today
1:25
however first of all I do want to say
1:27
that this unit was sent to me by Culber
1:30
now going back to the beginning of 2025
1:32
for evaluation i do owe them an apology
1:35
because this review kept getting pushed
1:37
back and pushed back because I've been
1:39
so busy and so I'm very late in
1:41
delivering on my promise to give it a
1:43
review however they did supply this unit
1:47
for me gave it to me but they have had
1:48
no input on my review and they will not
1:51
see my findings until they are released
1:54
to the public so first of all let's talk
1:56
about what you get for your money here
1:59
everything inside the box includes this
2:02
nice case that everything fits into and
2:05
so that includes the case a remote
2:07
control unit uh 60 ml of liquid smoke uh
2:12
the smoke chamber itself an attachment
2:15
cover a magnetic fan and RGB light
2:18
attachment that I've got on right now
2:20
and then five different other
2:21
attachments that are separate from the
2:24
fan and RGB light and so you can use
2:26
those to create different shape the the
2:29
smoke effect in different kinds of ways
2:31
there's a USBC charging cord the fog
2:34
machine itself now the fog machine
2:37
itself is a 40watt unit because I don't
2:39
have a lot of experience with these
2:40
smoke machine units i don't actually
2:43
know how that plays out but what I do
2:45
know is that the battery holds up for at
2:47
least for my kind of use for a very long
2:50
time and I've only had to I think I've
2:52
only charged it at the beginning of the
2:55
process and so that's been months ago
2:57
and I've used it in you know little
2:58
squibs and squirts here periodically on
3:01
a regular basis and the battery life is
3:03
still holding up it's looking right now
3:05
that I'm at about 40% of battery life
3:09
now one of the things that they are
3:10
touting here that they're saying that
3:12
they are first in the market to do for
3:13
one of these handheld units is that this
3:15
is an adjustable unit and so um it is
3:19
adjustable up to 60° and so you can
3:22
rotate it in different ways to get
3:24
slightly different angles to your actual
3:27
smoke effect process obviously the
3:29
nicest thing about that is that if
3:31
you're wanting to direct smoke more
3:33
specifically onto something that you can
3:37
do that obviously the best application
3:39
for that is that it allows you to more
3:42
you know to direct the smoke if you're
3:44
wanting it to come into a a set or a
3:47
scene you can actually direct it in that
3:49
direction now the addition of the
3:51
built-in RGB light which allows you to
3:54
you know rotate through a variety of
3:56
different color temperatures and you
3:59
know the the full RGB range of different
4:01
looks that you can achieve um you can go
4:04
through that you can also switch it over
4:06
into the fan mode as you can see here
4:09
and so that is going to help to
4:11
distribute that smoke out and there are
4:14
different levels of the fan itself that
4:16
you can also control and so you can see
4:19
here that the fan is continued to blow
4:20
out and so it distributes the smoke into
4:23
a broader area and so that level there
4:25
are three different levels on the fan
4:27
itself and so again they they tout that
4:29
this is another market first to have the
4:31
fan and RGB light attachment there now
4:35
the intensity of the smoke itself it can
4:37
be regulated in 25 different levels and
4:40
so that's going to allow you to have you
4:43
know more precise control over what kind
4:46
of smoke effect you create and obviously
4:48
you can tweak that through the various
4:50
attachments for you know how um how kind
4:53
of fine or precise or if you want it to
4:55
kind of sit in a dry ice type effect
4:57
there's different attachments that allow
4:59
you to achieve those different things
5:01
they even have what they call a master
5:03
mode which allows you to kind of set up
5:04
some custom settings so you can have
5:07
some continuous smoke duration and so
5:09
that could be involve things like
5:10
interval timing timing uh the total
5:13
number of smoke bursts you want and so
5:15
if you're wanting to set something up in
5:17
advance maybe if you're working then
5:18
from behind the camera you can set that
5:20
up through this unit the remote control
5:22
itself will allow you to control the
5:24
unit from up to 10 m a little over 30
5:27
feet away the price right now as of
5:30
yesterday when I checked at Amazon I saw
5:33
that it's a 129 US list price with a
5:37
potential 10% off and 189 Canadian and
5:41
again with a potential 10% off so let's
5:45
talk about some things I like and some
5:46
things that I don't like uh one of those
5:48
I've already alluded to as far as things
5:50
that I like and that is that the battery
5:51
lasts for a long time now I'm not doing
5:54
something where I'm trying to create
5:55
smoke for hours and hours on end but
5:57
rather in just the actual way that I'm
5:59
using it which is what matters to me i
6:02
found that the battery holds up for a
6:03
long time i frankly haven't really had
6:05
to think about it so I get the
6:06
portability of a you know battery
6:09
powered unit but without having to worry
6:10
about charging the battery all that
6:12
often perfect it's the way I want it
6:15
i find the addition of the remote
6:16
control is very useful because a lot of
6:18
times I'm going to be working from
6:20
behind the camera and so I want to get
6:22
things set up i can remotely control
6:24
that and so I don't get too much smoke
6:26
um but then also I can monitor from
6:29
behind the camera the moment for the you
6:31
know to get that kind of perfect moment
6:33
where there's not maybe the smoke is
6:35
drifting across my product in the right
6:36
way so being able to control the smoke
6:38
remotely is for me it's really huge so I
6:41
really have appreciated that uh as I've
6:44
experimented with some of the different
6:45
attachments that come with it I have
6:47
found that to be interesting and
6:49
different ways that you can shape the
6:51
smoke and create different kinds of
6:53
effects and so I appreciate the fact
6:55
that there are there's a nice range of
6:57
accessories here that give you some
6:58
options over that and then obviously the
7:00
RGB lighting and the fan that also is is
7:03
really really useful as well i do
7:06
appreciate the fact that adding color
7:08
into the smoke really helps to give that
7:11
smoke personality and so I think that
7:13
the this you know magnetically
7:15
attachable uh unit here is a or
7:17
accessory is a really cool addition to
7:19
it i also appreciate the fact that
7:21
everything does fit nicely into the case
7:24
itself and and so uh it becomes
7:26
obviously a very portable way of either
7:30
storing or bringing everything along and
7:32
so that's great i've also been
7:34
pleasantly surprised at least for the
7:35
way that I'm using things for uh you
7:38
know how little of the actual fog fluid
7:41
that I am using and so you know at this
7:43
point I've still got whatever I what's
7:46
currently in the actual uh canister
7:48
itself but in the original 60 m I'm
7:52
still I still got about 75% of it left
7:54
in there and so that means it's
7:57
obviously holding up for a long period
7:59
and I did a little bit of research on
8:00
Amazon and it's not all that expensive
8:03
to buy a much larger quantity so for
8:06
someone like me in the way that I'm
8:07
using it that's not proving to be a
8:09
significant additional cost which I
8:11
obviously appreciate so how about some
8:13
things that I don't like when it goes to
8:16
actually mounting the smoke container it
8:20
is a matter of actually threading it in
8:23
but what I found is that initially when
8:25
you're going to thread it in it actually
8:28
doesn't feel very definite and so you're
8:30
not quite sure that you're actually
8:32
doing or accomplishing anything even now
8:34
I'm rotating it and it's it's not coming
8:36
free yet but it finally it has come free
8:40
but for a while there it doesn't
8:42
actually feel like you're threading and
8:43
so you and because it it just feels kind
8:45
of loose you don't actually know you're
8:47
accomplishing anything until you've
8:49
rotated for a while a while and you
8:51
finally get to a place where okay I
8:54
think it's mostly the way in there now
8:56
but it's not a very definite process and
8:58
so I particularly on the the first time
9:00
that I used it actually found that
9:01
confusing to know whether or not I had
9:03
set up or not the second thing that I
9:05
will complain about is that while it's
9:08
great that you can rotate it what I have
9:10
found is that as you can see here it
9:13
doesn't always want to balance very well
9:15
now to be fair they do have uh a
9:18
quarterinch thread on the bottom so you
9:20
put it could put it on like a little uh
9:22
you know tripod type stand but uh at the
9:25
same time if you don't have that that's
9:27
obviously going to be a problem and the
9:29
fact that it doesn't quite balance and
9:31
so that does kind of defeat the purpose
9:33
a little bit of being able to to rotate
9:36
it and one other thing I will point out
9:38
is that there's a little release here
9:40
for that you should push when rotating
9:43
that uh it doesn't always naturally fall
9:45
to hand and so sometimes I don't
9:47
actually see it and I just kind of force
9:49
it which so far has has not destroyed
9:52
anything but it's probably not a great
9:54
idea for the long run so I would like
9:56
that balance point to be a little bit
9:58
better and I think that that would
10:00
require designing it to where there's a
10:01
little bit more weight in the base and a
10:03
little bit less the top i suspect that
10:06
if you had a different attachment on
10:08
that has less weight on it than what not
10:10
that this is heavy but you can see it's
10:12
balancing fine with that on there but if
10:15
I add the attachment with the fan and
10:17
the RGB light um sometimes it will hold
10:20
sometimes it won't so anyway just
10:22
something to watch out for there my
10:24
conclusion is this i think the smoke
10:26
machines are useful for a lot of
10:28
different types of photography or
10:30
videography um from food and product
10:32
shots the way that I'm using it to
10:34
portrait effects i'm probably less
10:36
likely to use that although some people
10:38
really love that obviously smoke
10:40
machines are getting smaller and more
10:42
portable and I think increasingly less
10:44
expensive to operate and so I certainly
10:47
do appreciate that i feel like uh you're
10:50
actually getting up quite a lot here for
10:53
your money and obviously for some people
10:55
the whole idea of the smoke it's going
10:56
to be a complete gimmick it's not
10:58
something you're interested in but if
11:01
you're wanting to do something
11:02
interesting with strobing or you know
11:04
some creative work these are really
11:06
really cool and I think that the amount
11:08
of flexibility is here i'll admit I have
11:11
a limited amount of experience with
11:12
smoke machines but for me and what I'm
11:15
trying to do I found that this basically
11:17
does everything that I want it to do so
11:20
kudos on that so if you're looking for a
11:22
portable smoke machine so far so good
11:25
with the Culber CF5 if you want more
11:28
information about it you can find links
11:29
in the description down below as always
11:32
thanks for watching have a great day and
11:34
let the light in
11:37
[Music]