Using LED Stage Lights for Video Lighting
 

Hey everyone,
I was looking into LED lighting for abvious reasons (power and efficiency) for use as general purpose video lights. I have see what companes like Litepanels, etc. has to offer, but frankly, they cost a lot of money. What would be the advantages and disadvantages of using LED stage lights for video lighting from companies like Color Kinetics, Elation, Chauvet and American DJ? Here are a few examples:

http://colorkinetics.com/ls/rgb/colorblast12tr/

http://colorkinetics.com/ls/intelliwhite/iwblast12tr/

http://www.elationlighting.com/produ...LED%20Lighting


There are a bunch out there, and it definitely seems like they are bright enough to handle most applications. Thoughts?

I had got a couple of these to try that out; http://www.musicstore.de/is-bin/INTE...mpTo=OfferList.
It gets about daylight by having al the blue, red and green leds on. Stopped using them because of that; It causes a nasty headache...

The cheaper PAR can type led fixtures I have are great for about 7 colours, but the shades between require low intensity from some of the colours, and they flicker - you can see it with the naked eye - but through the viewfinder it can look very odd. Also, the colour rendition isn't very smooth, producing some unexpected tints. White is also nowhere near the whites you get from other sources making colour balance tricky.

I have ordered some of these and should have delivery in a few days.
http://www.flolight.com/500LED.htm

I'd planned on getting some fluorescents from http://www.coollights.biz but they weren't in stock yet, so I went to Flolights intending to get their fluorescents and found these LED lights.

Those are nice bill, and not that expensive at all. To bad that Flolight does not export to Europe since the manufacture restrictions are more strict over here, from what they told me @ this years NAB.

Yeah, Bill, THAT is what I'm talking about. I absolutely LOVE the Litepanels stuff, but $2000+ per fixture? Way too much in my opinion. Until their prices come down, I want something that's going to be both economical and efficient. That fixture looks like a good start.

I did my first shoot with 3 of these last week and they perform as advertised. Have a location shoot tomorrow.

I can tell you that the Chauvet Colorsplash Jr. is NOT a good video light--at least for key locations. If you want something to splash color on a wall, it'll do a great job: pick whatever color and intensity you want--right there on the unit.

However, with all LEDs on, the light is not white but fairly discrete areas of red, green, and blue. Diffusion may help, but there are better choices available.

But what about whiteLED light units? When the LED's are white themselves?

Alas, I cannot say. But I suspect these instruments are more concerned with quantity of light rather than quality. But I don't know how much variation there can be among LEDs. Are all 'white' LEDS the same color temperature? I don't know.

Mine are 5600K.

All white is not created equally in LEDs. This is really something to watch and if possible try to do some tests before you actually buy the unit (although in the Internet / eCommerce age thats quite tough). "White" as its called can be anything from 4000K to 7000K and that's a big range. Ideally you could check it to be sure and know what the exact color temp is. The problem is that LEDs are not as mature yet as fluorescent bulbs are. The way the process works its kind of hit and miss. They literally manufacture a batch of LEDs and then sort them out by color temperature later. The really goods ones of course carry the higher price tag and the lesser quality ones demand less money. Its really hard to find a manufacturer that even lists CRI and exact color temperature for their LEDs.

The stage lighting models will usually use the lesser quality LEDs in the interest of keeping the cost down.

Richard,

Are there other differences with the lesser quality LEDs than color temperature matching?

For example, are the lesser quality LEDs:
1. Less durable
2. Shorter life
3. More harsh
4. Other difference?

I guess the the question is about the units that are listed at 5600 and 3200. Is the great difference in price do because of differences in the LEDs other than color temperature, or is the difference in price solely due to reasons (construction, mark-up, advertising budget, etc.) other than the LEDs used?

Thanks for any insight!

This LED display was mentioned and I was wondering if anyone has feedback on it?
http://www.flolight.com/500LED.htm

jon

I wrote a review of my first shoot with the 500LEDs on http://www.dvfreelancer.com .