I think I might have gotten a pair of the first regular shipping units last week.

They arrived a couple of days before I had a 4 day on-site corporate gig that included stuff like the traditional "cocktail party interviews of key associates" stuff.

Some sample stills pulled from the video are attached.

I ordered two of the spot units in 3200k. This is because a LOT of my big retail clients are re-lamping their stores to save on energy costs and they seem to be going to high efficiency modern overhead fluorescent lighting which seem to read out at about 3100k.

I told Daniel, my DP to take one of the new the LED 600s out and use it in place of an on-camera light to see what it could do.

Understand that he had about 3 minutes experience before going out - which consisted mostly of me showing him where the main switch and dimmer control was. He ran the unit off a Sony V-mount battery which easily lasted the whole shoot.

So the crew was Linda interviewing, Daniel shooting, and Chris who was primarily responsible for audio - but who ended up schlepping the light as well. We used a lightweight standard Arri kit stand since the unit isn't heavy. They reported that having a non-tethered lightweight light was a JOY.

Like most of these gigs, the sun was going down so both the intensity and color temperature was constantly shifting.

The first still grab is early with the 600 providing modest front fill and successfully fighting the late afternoon skylight behind her. The woman is VERY fair.

The next two frame grabs are later and later as the sun goes down. Chris kept cranking the intensity down (you can easily see the background level drop) and as promised the color temp hardly shifted as we dimmed the unit. (both guys were far less fair skinned than the first lady - so don't mistake the skin tones for the lighting. You're looking at pretty accurate pictures)

I'm a happy owner. Perfectly Portable. Well Built. Reasonably priced. Super convenient.

Yeah, and Richard's included soft cases are very cool - but I STILL think I'm maybe going to investigate a Pelican case that can can fit multiple heads, stands and accessories in something that's back of production truck friendly.

FWIW

Link to the frame grabs: http://www.gallery.me.com/davisbill#100037

HI, Bill!!!

Your MobileMe link doesn't work. Actually ends up taking me to a gallery on my own me.com account!

Ned

Now that's sumthin' - your service provider doesn't support internet explorer. And here I thought I was all cool n' stuff.

I just received mine from Richard too. I just cut the US plug out .. and replace it with a UK style 3 pin plug. Singapore is a former colony of UK - so you know :-). 2 minutes job. No sweat. The colour codes - green wire - earth, white - neutral, black - live.

One thing I would like to see is how well the 3200K version plays with other real 3200K tungsten lighting. I haven't had a chance to try that yet. The 3200K LEDs actually have a bit higher CRI so my theory is they should actually mix well with real tungsten.

Thanks TingSern. I've got lots of old computer power cables so I used one of those. Useful to know what the colour code is though. Maybe Richard W might want to include this with the light to save idiots like me from electrocuting themselves.

Its really impossible for us at this point to stock all the power cords or adapters for all the different types in the world. Thats why its far better to get that locally in your own country. A US to UK should be commonly available, no reason to do any wiring at all.

The computer power cord seems like the best solution to me. The trouble with adaptors is that they tend to get left in the plug socket.

Sorry guys. Post convention shoot brain deadness.

I revisited the above URL and trimmed the stuff that cut and paste added. Should work now.

(fingers crossed)

And Hi Ned!

Link works now. Very nice work Bill. Glad we could help out on that and similar future shoots.

Really looks great, Bill.

I love these lights.

Ned

Here's my comparison of the Cool Lights 5600k flood Vs Pelican PC9460B

Test settings.
I don't remember what light meter I used, but I took three readings at each interval to make sure my readings are acurate. The light meter was programed for:
ISO 100
24FPS

.......Cool Lights....................Pelican Two Lamps.....................Pelican One Lamp
1ft......f8.0....................................f8.0........................................f8.0
4'........f 2.8...................................f 2.8.......................................f 1.4
6'........f 2.0...................................f 2.0.......................................f 1.0
8'....... f 1.4...................................f 1.4.......................................f 0.7
10'.......f 1.0..................................f 1.0.......................................f 0.7
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.-.-.-.-.-.-..-.-.-.-.-.-.dividing line.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-..-.-.-.-.-..-.-.-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12'.......f 1.0..................................f 0.7.......................................f 0.5
14'.......f 0.7..................................f 0.7.......................................f 0.5
16'.......f 0.7..................................f 0.7.......................................f 0.5
18'.......f 0.7..................................f 0.5.......................................f could not read
20'.......f 0.5..................................f 0.5.......................................f could not read
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-.-.-.-.-.-.-..-.-.-.-.-.-.dividing line-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-..--.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-..-.-.-.-.-.-..-.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
22'.......f 0.5..................................f 0.5.......................................f could not read
24'.......f 0.5..................................f 0.5.......................................f could not read

As you can see the Pelican and Cool Lights LED are virtually identical on paper.

Next I compared the color temperature with the links. I used an Olympus E-300 and locked the color temperature at 5300k

ColorTemp.jpg picture by bmxky - Photobucket
This is probably the most useful test. This shows the diffrence in color between the Pelican and the Cool Lights fixture. I was told the Pelican has a color temp of 6000k but I haven't found anything to back this up on Pelicans site or BH photos site.
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TestSetUp.jpg picture by bmxky - Photobucket
This is probably the second most interesting picture. Just a cool picture showing how the two lights look in comparison on fixtures.
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CoolLights.jpg picture by bmxky - Photobucket
This is a picture of WKYU's studio with The LED Cool Light iluminating it shot with locked off settings of: 14mm, 1/10sec, f3.5, ISO 400, WB 5300K...an interesting note: the tape measure you see on the floor is all the way extended and goes out to about 25 feet.
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Pelican2X.jpg picture by bmxky - Photobucket
Same locked off settings but this is the Pelican light with both fixture on full power.
Just to clarify. You may notice less shadows behind the TV in this shot. The Pelican fixture was just to the right of the tape measure and the Cool Lights fixture was just to the left of the tape measure.
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Pelican1X.jpg picture by bmxky - Photobucket
Last Photo. You can see how much weaker the Pelican looks with only one fixture turned on.
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This test was not really scientific as you have probably figured out. I should have put both lights against a black background to really show the color difference when shooting straight into the light. Also I ran the Pelican off of the battery pack(which I don't know how fully charged it was) and the Cool Lights LED was run off of wall power. Knowing this information I think it is fairly safe to assume that both of these lights put off about the same amount of light, but accomplish this in different ways. The Pelican light uses 24 one watt LEDs per lamp and the Cool Lights uses 600 lower power LEDs(I assume the Cool Lights set up uses 600 LEDs since that is the name of the light).
Both lights use the same amount of power, and provide very similar if not equal output.
If cost and weight were not an issue I really couldn't recomend one over the other...however since both of these are an issue to most people, myself included, I would say the Cool Lights LED is the winner. That is, unless you need a water resistant setup or need a more blue light, in which case the Pelican would be the winner.
As I mentioned in this thread before everything has trade offs.

A general question: Actually I work with tungsten-lights and I also would like to mix them with the 600. What do you recommend: 5600 or 3200? The tungsten-ones I adapt with filters and so do I have to do with the LEDs but which one would be the best. The threads I read show that the majority is buying 5600.

Thanks

Markus

Yes there is a trend toward 5600K / daylight from what I see in my experience helping people out.

A lot of it depends upon the legacy of existing equipment people have or work with on a regular basis. If they work with tungsten lighting a lot, they may tend to choose 3200K for fluorescent, LEDs and CDM. Another group will get bulbs of both color temperatures so they have the versatility of switching out as necessary. Still another group of people that have no existing fixtures will tend to buy 5600K only. You don't have that luxury with most LED fixtures as of this time--they're fixed either at 3200K or 5600K until some more advances come along that allow us to switch between the two electronically with the same fixture.

Hi Richard,

thanks for your information though I don`t see my choise made easier. But well, that´s the price to pay as an early adaptor ;-)

May it be possible that you don`t send to Spain. I wasn`t able to choose shipping.

Thanks
Markus

Richard shipped my lights to New Zealand, so i'm sure that Spain wont be a problem. (Aside from all the rain on the transport planes).

We do ship to Spain. That's easy compared to New Zealand ;-).

Its just that we ask to do all those international transactions by hand so there aren't any mistakes on shipping quotes and the correct shipping vendor is chosen too. Its just not that reliable to do international shipping in an automated environment--so many variables. So I always have people contact me at info@coollights.biz for shipping quotes elsewhere.

I chose daylight LED lights -- It provides a good fill under daylight conditions.

I can always gel for 3200 k. Usually situations that require the lower color temp are indoors, and I can get away with using lights of lower intensity. So losing some of the output with a CTO gel isn't as detrimental as when I have to use a CTB with a tungsten instrument in daylight.

Dean:

Are you going to have your panels out on the boats? Have you used them in daylight outdoors for fill situations yet? Would love hear your experience and see some stills or footage if you have. I have only used mine for interiors so far but have an upcoming gig with actors running in and out of cars and trains that I may try these for.

Thanks,

Dan Brockett

Dan...

The lights won't go on the boats. They're going to be used to shoot our cooking segments and other studio-type features.

I just shot a cooking segment last week and can post a still frame later today. This location has a huge window through which you can see open sky. Once the sun goes high the window becomes a huge softbox but it doesn't have much directional characteristics.

The Cool Lights provide a bit of direction to the light that already exists.

And for the EX1 users out there, it seems the "red blacks" aren't a problem in this situation.

I too will be interested to hear how it does outdoors and whether you needed the minus green or not. Seems that Stewart, the guy that started this thread, in his review was using them outdoors and it seemed he didn't use the minus green. Normally for best results you would need to because daylight is full spectrum of course and the LEDs aren't.

Hi Richard. How long does it take for an order placed today to get to New York City? I need some lights for this weekend. Thank you

Hi Jaadgy,

Fedex Ground (the most commonly chosen method) is usually about 5 days or so to NYC from Reno, NV where we ship from. Of course faster methods are available but can get pretty high for the larger package sizes. You can go on our website and go through the checkout up to payment and you should see the shipping options and corresponding costs for each one.

Here's a frame grab from the cooking demo.

The room had a fair amount of daylight coming in through huge picture windows behind the camera. All indirect sunlight.

The Cool Lights were used to provide some "direction" to the lighting, placed on either side of the camera with 1/2 minus green gel.

This shot was color-corrected with Apple's Color. Some slight gradient added to the top and side margins to draw attention toward the center of the shot.

BTW: even though the LED lights are missing a lot of the spectrum with wavelengths longer than 600 nm, they still looked good to me. No weird highlights or shadows. And after we worked this site for four hours, we could pack up the lights right away without having to wait for them to cool off!

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/attachmen...1&d=1236670206

Are you in front of the camera or behind it Dean?

Strictly behind the camera. :-)

The photo includes: Margot Oshiro, our "field reporter" who caught the barracuda that gets cooked up. Dave Lancaster, the host for the "Reel Recipe" segment. Cindy Paliracio, our "anchor host". And Naoki, a gyotaku artist. He took Margot fishing, then printed the fish for her at his studio. Gyotaku is an old Japanese art where a fish is imprinted directly onto a sheet of paper. This was before cameras were invented, and allowed a fisherman to prove that he really did catch a fish that big.

Hi Dean:

Nice set and the lighting looks pretty good.

Just out of curiosity and going totally OT here but in California, we are always catching Barracuda but few eat them for fear of Ciguatera poisoning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciguatera Is that not a concern in Hawaii? I have also dove all over the Caribbean and most places I have been, people avoid eating Barracuda, because of fear of getting the poisoning. It's a shame since their diet consist of nothing but high protein bait fish, I bet they would taste great.

Just curious because I have heard this beginning 35 years ago when I began fishing as a kid and also heard it all throughout my diving career, especially when I am with spearhunters and they are spearing fish.

My first official commercial dive video that I shot as a promo for a resort in Honduras, I had some great shots of me with the camera, face to face with a 6 foot Barracuda, just drifting, staring me down. Great shots on Hi-8. Those were the dropout filled days...

Dan

Dan...

The "set" is actually the SubZero/Wolf showroom in Honolulu. They're very nice about letting us film our cooking segments there.

There is a problem with ciguatera here, too. There's a testing kit that we demonstrated during the printing segment of the show. Naoki took a tiny amount of the meat and had his assistant check it. Cigua-Check Fish Poison Test Kit The meat tested "clean".

Someone recently told me that the risk is higher when certain conditions coincide: rain and runoff, followed by lots of bright sunlight. I'll have to follow up on that sometime.

Aha, a testing kit. I did not know that such a thing existed. Did you try some?

Dan

Hehe, hope that testing kit is reliable. Dean, sounds like you've taken up the tradition of Gyotaku with more modern technology now...

The test kit seems to work... so far.

Used it on three different barracuda caught in the same area and no one got sick. As I understand it, the kit uses a "go - no go" threshold. If you see any blue on the sample swab the fish is hot. If it's white, and there's a comparison patch just to make sure, it's not.

Anyone have an idea how this fixture compares to a Kino Flo Diva Light 400 (4-bulb)? I'm lighting a 15 x 15-ft chroma key wall. I'm planning to buy two Kino Flo Foto-Flo 400's studio lights (4 x 4-ft bulbs per fixture), and four Kino Flo Diva Light 400's.

I also would use the Diva lights for location shoots. But a two light kit with case weighs 65 lbs and I'm not thrilled about dragging two 65 lb cases around when the lightweight Cool Light CL-LED600's could possibly accomplish the same thing (plus save a TON of money).

Any advice would be appreciated. :)

Hi Mitchell:

I own two of the LED600s and two of my own homemade Diva 200s. I would advise using fluoros for green screen illumination over the LEDs. The reason being that the LEDs actually will somewhat show a lot of brighter and dimmer areas within their beam since the light is actually coming from 600 tiny 5mm bulbs vs. two or four 55 watt Biax tubes. The entire goal of lighting green screens are to achieve uniform illumination across the screen. The fluoros also have the advantage that they are softer and less specular than LEDs. This isn't to say that you couldn't use the LED600s for green screen, I have. But I feel that a fluoro is a better tool for this particular task.

The CoolLights fluoros are excellent, a much better value than the Kino Divas although the Kinos are really nice if you can afford them. I made my own a few years ago, but if I was buying today, I would have bought the CoolLights, they cost the same as the ones I built from scratch plus it took quite a few hours of my time too to construct them.

Enjoy,

Dan

Thanks Dan. We can afford the Diva's.......I think I'm still leaning toward getting them. They seem like the "safe route" for pro use. No?

Richard, I tried to place an order from Switzerland but your software doesn't let me select any shipping - it says Fedex is the only option, but I can't choose it and the next step makes a big error with "ERROR_NO_SHIPPING_SELECTED_SELECTED". Is it possible at all to order from abroad?

Hi Francois,

We just handle all international orders through email. Send me an email at info@coollights.biz about what you were wanting and we'll take care of it. Thanks for your interest.