LED's and the BMCC

I'm have a couple music videos coming up and I'm wondering how well a couple of 500 (or 1000) count LED banks will hold up for lighting mostly interiors with the BMCC


Anyone here shooting LED's as the main lights in their kit ? Any links to some footage ?

I'm not sure I understand what you are asking... how would someone showing you a footage shot under (some random) LED lights help you in anyway to light your scene in its own unique setting? LEDs are lights as any other light source (although you have to be careful with the green tint many LEDs have).. how you light your scene comes down to how many lights you have, how much kick your lights have, how close you can place them, use diffusion or not, beam angle, size of the space needed to light etc... if you don't have the camera you are going to use, you can always check the base sensitivity of that camera from the specs and go with that when you plan how much lights you need

I'd like to bump this back up.

By the way, I don't think Elias needed a "schooling" in lighting 101. Clearly not many people have shot with LED lights over tungsten (including myself).

I'm investigating some bi-color LED fixtures from Ikan vs what I'm normally used to: Arri fresnels. Has anyone else used LED exclusively for a shoot? I'm finding that 500 count LED fixtures compare to 300w fresnels. The 1024 LED models are between a 650 and 750 w fresnel.

Anyone have feedback on buying a kit from scratch and going all in on LED?

I have had problems with flickering from some RGB led lights not specifically designed for camera use.

I've used LEDs many times and litepanels even gave me a few fresnels to review (inca and sola) The basic fact is they're almost all 100% crap. Even the Arri RGBA Fresnel are really only good for color washes. Almost all of them either go green or magenta, ina way which is hard to balance out. The cheaper ones do not at all match, so one may be green the other may be some odd color I've never seen. The Solas from LitePanels are good as a low power HMI replacement-- though their build quality is rather meh.
That said, LEDs have their place-- primarily in slick environments, urban environments, space ect. My biggest problem with them is that due to their very discontinuous spectrum it's hard to predict what gels will do. They are pretty deficient in reds, and some in oranges as well so CTOs and party colors don't work as well-- most of the blue and green gels will be fine.Sotrarro Yellow-- one of my favorites-- looks rather bad, and for the most part skin tones render muddled on them.

If you can find it Remote Phosphor LEDs are much better as are LEPs (Light Emitting Plasmas) but those are both newer technologies which really aren't on the broad market as of yet.

BiColor fixtures, specifically are pretty dim, by the way, since it's 1/2 and 1/2, unless you're salt and peppering them but of course then you're dealing with a odd color temp--might work, might not.

Also the quality of light you get out of most of them leaves a lot to be desired. They're neither hard like a good Fresnel, nor soft like a kino.

Adrian, searching on LEP took me to a three year old article by Adam Wilts about the Photon Beard Nova. The article got me to the AMPAS colour and solid state lighting project but that appears to have nothing to review after three years!

Sad that everyone recognizes the difficulties of using LEDs but it seems incredible that nothing has filtered down to the general public in terms of plasma lights unless you want to light your aquarium or grow marihuana! Found nothing for plasma lighting videos. Even the Photon Beard Nova webpage only describes the product but didn't appear to provide a way to buy it.

Do you have any links for use of the plasma lighting technology for digital sensors where it is available to use?

Edit:
Found the US and Canada source for the Photon Nova. Maccam In Van Nuys CA. Only $8,909 so I'll have to pick up a few of those... Not.

Rick Lang
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Hive Lighting is doing a lot of good work with LEPs. Their lights @ CineGear last year were fantastic. Also PRG has, at I think Abel Cine, a Remote Phosphor light. Biggest problem is that both of these technologies are very much so new, and economies of scale haven't kicked in-- though they are pretty competitively priced with HMIs, which is really what they're most likely to supplement (whereas LEDs, the good ones at least, tend to try to be Kino-Flo Like.) Like HMIs, these are generally not purchase items, unless you're a rental house or renting out a truck-- even then it's hard to justify getting them since they aren't as well known yet. Personally I may have some new on Remote Phosphor lights towards the end of the yr, but I can't speak on that too specifically at this juncture.

http://www.hivelighting.com/

http://www.cineolighting.com/
http://www.fdtimes.com/2011/09/26/prg-foton-inkie/

Adrian, thanks for the links. I had just researched the LEP technology. Do you think you prefer the Remote Phosphors to the Light Emitting Plasmas?


Rick Lang
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I don't yet have a strong opinion; but I would say LEP is better since you get a true point source which you can play with. on RP-LEDs you don't really get the "point" in the same way you would on a HMI or Tungsten tube-- so for me LEP means with one type of design you can build an array of lights around it--and really get some good control with a fresnel which is where most LEDs, RP-LEDs included really fail, and I am very much a start hard to go soft type of person.

And I thought quality lenses were expensive! Looks like quality lights like these are in the same league and the domain of professionals with a healthy budget. Good to know the technology exists. Thanks again for your posts.


Rick Lang
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so far i got myself two tecpro fellionis high output. they are 5600k and dimble.,

so far i got myself two tecpro fellionis high output. they are 5600k and dimble.,

Alexander, do you have a link for those lights ? I tried but failed to find those online. Thanks

Rick Lang
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Alexander, do you have a link for those lights ? I tried but failed to find those online. Thanks

http://www.dedoweigertfilm.de/dedo/defa ... &section=0

http://www.dedoweigertfilm.de/dedo/default.php?la=0&pg=0000041906&id=Felloni&section=0

Thank you, Alexander.