chinese 500 led light-color correct-how?

[Rob Katz]

chinese 500 led light-color correct-how?

so i recently bought a chinese sourced 500 led day light unit.

i got the adorama brand flashpoint (then on sale for $159)

Flashpoint 500 LED Dimmable AC Light VL500A

there are similar lights on amazon (fancier is another brand) and ebay.

the light seems nice enough for the price.

i'm not sure i would use the dimmers.

in my testing i have set it to full blast.

at 10 feet on my interview subject (without diffusion), i was 4/5.6 at 1/48 and asa 500 (my fs100 is rated at asa 500.)

i ended up with the 500 led as a key light at approx 4.5 feet shooting thru diffusion which was about 2 feet from the subject and that gave me a useable 3.2.

but i am unsure of the color.

i've read of magenta spikes but without the proper tools and the knowledge to use those tools, i cannot "see" the spike.

in fact, the image looks fine to my eyes.

i manually white balanced, and the interview subject's skin tone looked lovely.

so, those who have also used these chinese 500 led fixtures:

do you gel to lessen the magenta spike?

do you have a standard color correct in post?

do you simply perform an accurate manual white balance and move on?

any and all thoughts are appreciated.

be well.

rob
smalltalk productions/nyc