Challenge

WPRI-TV in Providence sent two crews to the Bay Area to cover Super Bowl LX in January 2026. Chief Photojournalist Corey Welch and the rest of the team were tasked with covering New England fans and the excitement leading up to the game for Nexstar’s northeast stations.

Welch says, “There's never enough time in local news - so having gear that's quick, easy and ready to roll is absolutely necessary, especially when it comes to lighting. Most times, you begin your day not knowing where you'll end up for interviews or liveshots, so our lighting kit needs to be adaptable for whatever conditions we find ourselves in.”

Solution

The WPRI-TV team found the Aputure STORM 80c running on battery power was a great fit for their workload.

“The STORM 80c proved itself to be the perfect tool for this assignment,” Welch says. “For most of our hits, I was running the 80c's at somewhere between 50-80% in order to conserve battery power. Combined with the fresnel lens attachment, this still provided me plenty of punch to compete with the mid-day California sunlit backgrounds.”

“I worked exclusively with the 80c right up until our post-game liveshots on the field after the game. The 80c's made setup on the field quick... we preloaded two lights with batteries so they were ready to go... and we mounted the third 80c on the camera using a super clamp and magic arm and hooked that light up to the d-tap on camera for power.”

Results

Super Bowl LX netted a traditionally massive 125 million viewers, and the local news coverage was similarly big for WPRI. Welch found the tiny STORM lights to be a great addition to his electronic news gathering kit. He says, “I don't want to knock any other brands, but once I got the 80c in my hands in California, I ended up leaving my other lights behind in the hotel for the rest of the week.”