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Colbor CF5 Portable Fog Smoke Machine Review
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Apr 30, 2025
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 Check out the DA Merch here: https://bit.ly/TWIMerch | Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/dustinabbott | On the Web: http://dustinabbott.net/ | Sign up for my Newsletter: http://bit.ly/1RHvUNp | Instagram: http://bit.ly/DLAinsta | Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1nuUUeH | Flickr: http://bit.ly/1UcnC0B | 500px: http://bit.ly/1Sy2Ngu Follow Craig @ https://www.instagram.com/craigstoffersen/ Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo: http://bhpho.to/1TA0Xge Adorama: https://howl.link/nt4zdz1goa7ql Camera Canada: http://bit.ly/DLACameraCan Sony Canada: https://www.thesonyshop.ca/?ref=abbott Amazon: https://amzn.to/3HrY64d Amazon Canada: https://amzn.to/3qG1p18 Ebay: http://bit.ly/DustineBay Into the AM Clothing: https://bit.ly/intotheAMda and use code DUSTIN10 for 10% off Fioboc Clothing: https://tinyurl.com/FiobocDA20 and us code DUSTIN20 for 20% off Make a donation via Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/dustinTWI ============================= Table of Contents: ============================= 0:00 - Intro
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i am Dustin Abbott handheld portable
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smoke machines have become very common
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in the past few years and so I decided
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that I would say yes to an invite to
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look at one of these and so I did going
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back now about four or five months ago
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my kind of goal was to see if I
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could spice up my product shots uh you
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know obviously I'm doing product shots
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multiple times a week for my various
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reviews and so I thought adding a little
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bit of smoke effect could be an
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interesting addition to that i've
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actually had a lot of fun with the
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Colber CF5 which I'm reviewing here
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today and you've probably seen some of
0:53
the smoke from the CF5 in a number of my
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product shots in either video or stills
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form at this point so the question is
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obviously when I'm going to review
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something however whether I've had fun
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or not does something like the CF5 make
1:08
sense for you today I'm going to give it
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a quick review to see if it delivers on
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the promise of being able to be a
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handheld way to add smoke effects to
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either your portrait work your product
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photography food photography and a
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variety of other things we're going to
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dive into it and take a look today
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however first of all I do want to say
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that this unit was sent to me by Culber
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now going back to the beginning of 2025
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for evaluation i do owe them an apology
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because this review kept getting pushed
1:37
back and pushed back because I've been
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so busy and so I'm very late in
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delivering on my promise to give it a
1:43
review however they did supply this unit
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for me gave it to me but they have had
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no input on my review and they will not
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see my findings until they are released
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to the public so first of all let's talk
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about what you get for your money here
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everything inside the box includes this
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nice case that everything fits into and
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so that includes the case a remote
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control unit uh 60 ml of liquid smoke uh
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the smoke chamber itself an attachment
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cover a magnetic fan and RGB light
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attachment that I've got on right now
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and then five different other
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attachments that are separate from the
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fan and RGB light and so you can use
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those to create different shape the the
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smoke effect in different kinds of ways
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there's a USBC charging cord the fog
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machine itself now the fog machine
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itself is a 40watt unit because I don't
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have a lot of experience with these
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smoke machine units i don't actually
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know how that plays out but what I do
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know is that the battery holds up for at
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least for my kind of use for a very long
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time and I've only had to I think I've
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only charged it at the beginning of the
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process and so that's been months ago
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and I've used it in you know little
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squibs and squirts here periodically on
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a regular basis and the battery life is
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still holding up it's looking right now
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that I'm at about 40% of battery life
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now one of the things that they are
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touting here that they're saying that
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they are first in the market to do for
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one of these handheld units is that this
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is an adjustable unit and so um it is
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adjustable up to 60° and so you can
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rotate it in different ways to get
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slightly different angles to your actual
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smoke effect process obviously the
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nicest thing about that is that if
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you're wanting to direct smoke more
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specifically onto something that you can
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do that obviously the best application
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for that is that it allows you to more
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you know to direct the smoke if you're
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wanting it to come into a a set or a
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scene you can actually direct it in that
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direction now the addition of the
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built-in RGB light which allows you to
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you know rotate through a variety of
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different color temperatures and you
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know the the full RGB range of different
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looks that you can achieve um you can go
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through that you can also switch it over
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into the fan mode as you can see here
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and so that is going to help to
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distribute that smoke out and there are
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different levels of the fan itself that
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you can also control and so you can see
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here that the fan is continued to blow
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out and so it distributes the smoke into
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a broader area and so that level there
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are three different levels on the fan
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itself and so again they they tout that
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this is another market first to have the
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fan and RGB light attachment there now
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the intensity of the smoke itself it can
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be regulated in 25 different levels and
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so that's going to allow you to have you
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know more precise control over what kind
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of smoke effect you create and obviously
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you can tweak that through the various
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attachments for you know how um how kind
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of fine or precise or if you want it to
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kind of sit in a dry ice type effect
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there's different attachments that allow
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you to achieve those different things
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they even have what they call a master
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mode which allows you to kind of set up
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some custom settings so you can have
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some continuous smoke duration and so
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that could be involve things like
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interval timing timing uh the total
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number of smoke bursts you want and so
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if you're wanting to set something up in
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advance maybe if you're working then
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from behind the camera you can set that
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up through this unit the remote control
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itself will allow you to control the
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unit from up to 10 m a little over 30
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feet away the price right now as of
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yesterday when I checked at Amazon I saw
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that it's a 129 US list price with a
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potential 10% off and 189 Canadian and
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again with a potential 10% off so let's
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talk about some things I like and some
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things that I don't like uh one of those
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I've already alluded to as far as things
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that I like and that is that the battery
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lasts for a long time now I'm not doing
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something where I'm trying to create
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smoke for hours and hours on end but
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rather in just the actual way that I'm
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using it which is what matters to me i
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found that the battery holds up for a
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long time i frankly haven't really had
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to think about it so I get the
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portability of a you know battery
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powered unit but without having to worry
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about charging the battery all that
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often perfect it's the way I want it
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i find the addition of the remote
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control is very useful because a lot of
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times I'm going to be working from
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behind the camera and so I want to get
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things set up i can remotely control
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that and so I don't get too much smoke
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um but then also I can monitor from
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behind the camera the moment for the you
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know to get that kind of perfect moment
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where there's not maybe the smoke is
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drifting across my product in the right
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way so being able to control the smoke
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remotely is for me it's really huge so I
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really have appreciated that uh as I've
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experimented with some of the different
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attachments that come with it I have
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found that to be interesting and
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different ways that you can shape the
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smoke and create different kinds of
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effects and so I appreciate the fact
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that there are there's a nice range of
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accessories here that give you some
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options over that and then obviously the
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RGB lighting and the fan that also is is
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really really useful as well i do
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appreciate the fact that adding color
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into the smoke really helps to give that
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smoke personality and so I think that
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the this you know magnetically
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attachable uh unit here is a or
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accessory is a really cool addition to
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it i also appreciate the fact that
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everything does fit nicely into the case
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itself and and so uh it becomes
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obviously a very portable way of either
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storing or bringing everything along and
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so that's great i've also been
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pleasantly surprised at least for the
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way that I'm using things for uh you
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know how little of the actual fog fluid
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that I am using and so you know at this
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point I've still got whatever I what's
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currently in the actual uh canister
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itself but in the original 60 m I'm
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still I still got about 75% of it left
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in there and so that means it's
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obviously holding up for a long period
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and I did a little bit of research on
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Amazon and it's not all that expensive
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to buy a much larger quantity so for
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someone like me in the way that I'm
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using it that's not proving to be a
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significant additional cost which I
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obviously appreciate so how about some
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things that I don't like when it goes to
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actually mounting the smoke container it
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is a matter of actually threading it in
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but what I found is that initially when
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you're going to thread it in it actually
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doesn't feel very definite and so you're
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not quite sure that you're actually
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doing or accomplishing anything even now
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I'm rotating it and it's it's not coming
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free yet but it finally it has come free
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but for a while there it doesn't
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actually feel like you're threading and
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so you and because it it just feels kind
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of loose you don't actually know you're
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accomplishing anything until you've
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rotated for a while a while and you
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finally get to a place where okay I
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think it's mostly the way in there now
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but it's not a very definite process and
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so I particularly on the the first time
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that I used it actually found that
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confusing to know whether or not I had
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set up or not the second thing that I
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will complain about is that while it's
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great that you can rotate it what I have
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found is that as you can see here it
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doesn't always want to balance very well
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now to be fair they do have uh a
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quarterinch thread on the bottom so you
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put it could put it on like a little uh
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you know tripod type stand but uh at the
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same time if you don't have that that's
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obviously going to be a problem and the
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fact that it doesn't quite balance and
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so that does kind of defeat the purpose
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a little bit of being able to to rotate
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it and one other thing I will point out
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is that there's a little release here
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for that you should push when rotating
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that uh it doesn't always naturally fall
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to hand and so sometimes I don't
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actually see it and I just kind of force
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it which so far has has not destroyed
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anything but it's probably not a great
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idea for the long run so I would like
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that balance point to be a little bit
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better and I think that that would
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require designing it to where there's a
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little bit more weight in the base and a
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little bit less the top i suspect that
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if you had a different attachment on
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that has less weight on it than what not
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that this is heavy but you can see it's
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balancing fine with that on there but if
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I add the attachment with the fan and
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the RGB light um sometimes it will hold
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sometimes it won't so anyway just
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something to watch out for there my
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conclusion is this i think the smoke
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machines are useful for a lot of
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different types of photography or
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videography um from food and product
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shots the way that I'm using it to
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portrait effects i'm probably less
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likely to use that although some people
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really love that obviously smoke
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machines are getting smaller and more
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portable and I think increasingly less
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expensive to operate and so I certainly
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do appreciate that i feel like uh you're
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actually getting up quite a lot here for
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your money and obviously for some people
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the whole idea of the smoke it's going
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to be a complete gimmick it's not
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something you're interested in but if
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you're wanting to do something
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interesting with strobing or you know
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some creative work these are really
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really cool and I think that the amount
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of flexibility is here i'll admit I have
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a limited amount of experience with
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smoke machines but for me and what I'm
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trying to do I found that this basically
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does everything that I want it to do so
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kudos on that so if you're looking for a
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portable smoke machine so far so good
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with the Culber CF5 if you want more
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information about it you can find links
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in the description down below as always
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thanks for watching have a great day and
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let the light in
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