I've noticed just lately that when it comes to standing interviews (not run and gun chasing someone) that news crews are opting to use a battery powered LED fresnel on a stand instead of the LED panel mounted on a camera.

Has anyone else noticed anything similar?

Andrew

Yes absolutely. The fresnel design is the "lens" part that collimates/collects most of the light/lumens emanating from the led die source and by it's unique design will allow controlled dispersion of the light by varying the distance from the led die to the fresnel optic. Widely used in lighthouse narrow beam long distance projection. They are used today mainly for a controlled single shadow spot with a high intensity light goal, for use in daylight fill or with a scrim/diffuser for similar application. Hollywood films were mostly shot with Mole Richardson units using fresnels . The concentric design of the lens ridges ( either clear plastic or glass) with precisely cut angles on them will allow a high degree of concentration and efficiency of the light.
Stage lighting uses fresnels overhead almost exclusively to obtain precise light directionality and beam angle projection. Many other uses too numerous to mention. On sets they can be very effective as a hair light, spot fill or can be diffused easily for a wide angle beam spread. It is not uncommon to see 3- 1000 watt HMI's on an outdoor shoot or some pretty powerful large die led units with a fresnel. Fresnel only is effective with a single point light source behind it. That is the usual configuration but I also see large single led that contains over 50 smaller led dies so close together that it can assume to be a single die and would work well with a fresnel. There are leds out there that have reached the level of competing with the output of HMI's with the added bonus of surpassing their efficiency as well.