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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Came 150W LED Fresnel?

Nick Gardner said:
I experimented with a 100watt LED (I just bought the LED and power supply like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/100W-Cold-W...704?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35cdafbb40) that I put in a mole richardson baby housing. It wasn't green just a little on the blue side, I rather liked it. Very crisp "winter light" looking. I wouldn't automatically fear green. the nice thing about LEDS is you just put a piece of 1/8 minus or whatever on the lens, and it lasts forever. I have been meaning to buy a couple of those chinese led fresnels for a while now. I may get around to it soon.

Nick
Click to expand...

no you can't, because it si a green spike, not a shift toward green - not the same. CRI will still be utter crap
 
Robert Ruffo New said:
no you can't, because it si a green spike, not a shift toward green - not the same. CRI will still be utter crap
Click to expand...

Rob, are you sure about this? Fluorescents have a green spike that can't be removed. Even Kinoflos do. I know b/c I've tested them with a spectrometer. It has to do with the mercury used in the bulb that creates a spike at 545mn. The problem is also that fluorescents have a discontinuous output; there are wave lengths of light that are completely absent.

LED's on the other hand have a much more continuous output and can have spectral outputs that aren't nearly as spikey.

In other words, "Good luck Terry, the force may be with you yet, LOL!"
 
I never actually went in and measured the light for color shifts. Just used it gelled in normal situations. It didn't produce anything I couldn't remove with normal color post work. I'll try to post some pics.
 
Robert Ruffo New said:
Horrible CRI, horribel skin rendering. Crap.
Click to expand...

Maybe. Won't know until I try it. At some point, one of these Chinese companies is going to figure out how to get this right. Just a matter of time. Is it here yet? We shall see. :smiley:

Thanks, Peter.
 
:thumbup1:
 
I use LEDs almost daily and am very happy with the results on skintones. I like them better than kinos. Kinos never seem to match anything but kinos. I use Leds to light the talent and HMIs for the background and level and they match quite well. Some of the newer "cheap" chinese LEDs look much better than the 1x1 light panels. To each his own, and what is acceptable to some isn't to others, but I am very happy with the LEDs I use.

Nick
 
I agree 100%. I take a similar approach with LED's and HMI's and the newer LED's are much nicer than the 1x1's. Very happy working this way, smaller lighter and battery powered...
 
Terry VerHaar said:
FWIW, I couldn't help myself and ordered a unit to test. To be specific and clear, I ordered the 150w unit from Came listed in the link at the start of this thread. I'll report back on my impressions when I get it. Wish me luck. :ohmy:
Click to expand...

I'd be interested to read your thoughts Terry - I'm having mixed results with the 'cheap' (or 'budget' depending on your perspective) LEDs - but not come accross these Came ones
 
Gary Paul Walker said:
I'd be interested to read your thoughts Terry - I'm having mixed results with the 'cheap' (or 'budget' depending on your perspective) LEDs - but not come accross these Came ones
Click to expand...

It is due to arrive today. I probably won't get to test it much until later in there week but I'll try to give some impressions as soon as I can.
 
Terry VerHaar said:
It is due to arrive today. I probably won't get to test it much until later in there week but I'll try to give some impressions as soon as I can.
Click to expand...


Hey Terry, Any feedback?
 
Sorry guys. Delivery got delayed and it is now due today some time. I have to be out of town until Friday so it looks like the weekend before I can test it.
 
Terry VerHaar said:
Sorry guys. Delivery got delayed and it is now due today some time. I have to be out of town until Friday so it looks like the weekend before I can test it.
Click to expand...


Copy that
 
So, I finally had some time to spend with this light. The results were kind of surprising so I don't know whether to be delighted, surprised or confused. LOL This was not scientifically rigorous so take it all as loose and observational but it was revealing at a least to me.

To start with the basics, the build is pretty solid - not bullet proof but better than I might expect from your basic, inexpensive Chinese product. No loose screws, no misfitted parts, etc. The connectors were solid which I am really happy about as I have had trouble with this on other Chinese fixtures. I think they may be learning something from previous failures and, overall, I think the light will last fairly well. It was bigger and heavier than I expected but that was because I was expecting something about the size of my Coollights CDM150 Fresnel. Turns out this one is bigger and beefier.

The barn doors are sort of permanently affixed - well, get out a screwdriver and you can remove them - but I don't see much of reason to take them off, anyway.

FWIW, it comes with two plastic "lenses" for color temp changes - amusingly, both the amber and the clear lenses are marked "3200K." LOL I tested it with the clear/frosted lens and then realized that you probably don't need either cover if you plan to WB to daylight. Might even gain you a few FC. I usually don't shoot tungsten so I haven't yet fooled with that.

There is an internal fan which is actually very quiet but, if noise is an issue, there is a switch on the back to turn it off completely.

The focus knob is pretty smooth. I didn't measure but at full spot is it pretty much a narrow spot. At wide open, it still isn't really a flood but I think you could light a two shot MCU without a problem.

Brightness - Actually, seems pretty good on that score. I am sure it is nothing near the 1500w equivalent they suggest - at least by the name on the fixture. I am thinking it may be fairly compared to a 650 or maybe a bit more. I'll have to do further testing to get a handle on that.


It is fully dimmable but it doesn't seem like the range from full to low is that huge. It is very handy though to be able to easily dial down a couple stops and there didn't seem to be any color shift at all. Again, I didn't measure carefully but from a purely visual standpoint, it seems good.

The big issue is, perhaps obviously, whether the color balance is usable. My first impression on firing it up was that it did, indeed, seem to be a good solid "white" beam; no noticeable green at all. But, of course, eyes can be deceiving so I took it a bit further. This is where the results were surprising so I am glad to hear of any suggestions as to how I can reasonably test it further, or evaluate it differently.

To test the color, I first put a white card into full sun (actually, I didn't have a proper white/grey card available so I had to use a piece of bright white printer paper). Then, I shot a few seconds with my fully warmed up Scarlet set to 5600K. Then, I did an auto WB in the camera a shot a few more seconds. The theory here was just to get a proper baseline with my camera and the piece of white paper. Next, I moved over to the other side of the room - very little sun through the windows and no artificial light except for the Fresnel. Again, shot straight 5600K, tint at 0, then did an auto WB. BTW -since I realized I was working with some daylight "spill" from the windows, I then performed this same test in a dark closet - no daylight, no other artificial light. FWIW, the results weren't much different on these last two.

After shooting the test footage I took it into RCX. So, when I did an auto WB on the paper in full sunlight, I got a color temp around 5500K with a tint value of around +2.5. The scopes in RCX were, obviously, pretty even and the white was pretty neutral. When I looked at the footage lit by just the fresnel, it again looked pretty neutral with the auto WB (in camera) footage having readings of around 5300K and a tint value around +11.5. BTW - predictably (I think?), whether I did auto WB in camera or re-set and did it with the eyedropper in RCX, the results pretty much matched.

So - what did I see? I really did expect to see something of a green spike or tint but where was it? There was no spiked green bar in the histogram and the waveforms were pretty much at equal levels for R, G and B, and pretty flat as well. While the tint number 0f 11+ seems like a pretty high number, futzing with it a tiny bit between 0 and 15 didn't yield any super-dramatic shifts in color either. And, at +11.5, the tint was actually shifted in the direction TOWARD green. Isn't that the opposite of what I would expect if there was a "green spike?"

So - any thoughts? I clearly should test with skin tones but, like I said, should I be impressed? Confused? Skeptical? :huh: At this point, I am kind of optimistic.
 
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Terry VerHaar said:
So, I finally had some time to spend with this light. The results were kind of surprising so I don't know whether to be delighted, surprised or confused. LOL This was not scientifically rigorous so take it all as loose and observational but it was revealing at a least to me.

To start with the basics, the build is pretty solid - not bullet proof but better than I might expect from your basic, inexpensive Chinese product. No loose screws, no misfitted parts, etc. The connectors were solid which I am really happy about as I have had trouble with this on other Chinese fixtures. I think they may be learning something from previous failures and, overall, I think the light will last fairly well. It was bigger and heavier than I expected but that was because I was expecting something about the size of my Coollights CDM150 Fresnel. Turns out this one is bigger and beefier.

The barn doors are sort of permanently affixed - well, get out a screwdriver and you can remove them - but I don't see much of reason to take them off, anyway.

FWIW, it comes with two plastic "lenses" for color temp changes - amusingly, both the amber and the clear lenses are marked "3200K." LOL I tested it with the clear/frosted lens and then realized that you probably don't need either cover if you plan to WB to daylight. Might even gain you a few FC. I usually don't shoot tungsten so I haven't yet fooled with that.

There is an internal fan which is actually very quiet but, if noise is an issue, there is a switch on the back to turn it off completely.

The focus knob is pretty smooth. I didn't measure but at full spot is it pretty much a narrow spot. At wide open, it still isn't really a flood but I think you could light a two shot MCU without a problem.

Brightness - Actually, seems pretty good on that score. I am sure it is nothing near the 1500w equivalent they suggest - at least by the name on the fixture. I am thinking it may be fairly compared to a 650 or maybe a bit more. I'll have to do further testing to get a handle on that.


It is fully dimmable but it doesn't seem like the range from full to low is that huge. It is very handy though to be able to easily dial down a couple stops and there didn't seem to be any color shift at all. Again, I didn't measure carefully but from a purely visual standpoint, it seems good.

The big issue is, perhaps obviously, whether the color balance is usable. My first impression on firing it up was that it did, indeed, seem to be a good solid "white" beam; no noticeable green at all. But, of course, eyes can be deceiving so I took it a bit further. This is where the results were surprising so I am glad to hear of any suggestions as to how I can reasonably test it further, or evaluate it differently.

To test the color, I first put a white card into full sun (actually, I didn't have a proper white/grey card available so I had to use a piece of bright white printer paper). Then, I shot a few seconds with my fully warmed up Scarlet set to 5600K. Then, I did an auto WB in the camera a shot a few more seconds. The theory here was just to get a proper baseline with my camera and the piece of white paper. Next, I moved over to the other side of the room - very little sun through the windows and no artificial light except for the Fresnel. Again, shot straight 5600K, tint at 0, then did an auto WB. BTW -since I realized I was working with some daylight "spill" from the windows, I then performed this same test in a dark closet - no daylight, no other artificial light. FWIW, the results weren't much different on these last two.

After shooting the test footage I took it into RCX. So, when I did an auto WB on the paper in full sunlight, I got a color temp around 5500K with a tint value of around +2.5. The scopes in RCX were, obviously, pretty even and the white was pretty neutral. When I looked at the footage lit by just the fresnel, it again looked pretty neutral with the auto WB (in camera) footage having readings of around 5300K and a tint value around +11.5. BTW - predictably (I think?), whether I did auto WB in camera or re-set and did it with the eyedropper in RCX, the results pretty much matched.

So - what did I see? I really did expect to see something of a green spike or tint but where was it? There was no spiked green bar in the histogram and the waveforms were pretty much at equal levels or R, G and B, and pretty flat as well. While the tint number 0f 11+ seems like a pretty high number, futzing with it a tiny bit between 0 and 15 didn't yield any super-dramatic shifts in color either. And, at +11.5, the tint was actually shifted in the direction TOWARD green. Isn't that the opposite of what I would expect if there was a "green spike?"

So - any thoughts? I clearly should test with skin tones but, like I said, should I be impressed? Confused? Skeptical? :huh: At this point, I am kind of optimistic.
Click to expand...

LEDs often have (simultaneously) a green spike AND a magenta spike. Which is why plus green and minus green alone can't make them look quite right. Check out the lights with a spectrometer (or the reflection off a CD) and you can get a good idea of what's up.

Still... sounds... promising!
 
Good input, Matt. I would have thought that any spikes like this would somehow reveal themselves on a histogram or videoscope. No?
 
Terry VerHaar said:
Good input, Matt. I would have thought that any spikes like this would somehow reveal themselves on a histogram or videoscope. No?
Click to expand...

Not always... If you don't have a spectrometer (prism) just look at the reflection of the light off a CD.

I like LEDs but some are better than others and they don't make skin glow like tungsten or sunlight can.
 
Matt - thanks for the info. I don't have access to a spectrometer but I'll give the CD thing a try. :-)

I agree about the quality of light with tungsten but I really do hate the heat and the energy draw of tungsten. Just like film has always been the "standard" that digital needed to match, I suppose tungsten is that for lighting. That said, perhaps some of the visceral response to tungsten is based on the warmth of the source (3200K). Given the better response of digital to daylight sources, perhaps some of tungsten's "allure" is fading. In any case, I continue to pursue the holy grail of artificial daylight sources. I bought into the Hexolux group buy and look forward to seeing what those can do.
 
So - I tried the CD reflection thing and, indeed, there does seem to be a reflection of a green and a magenta band. I guess that means they sort of cancel each other out in a normal histogram but will effect the tonal qualities of color and especially skin tone. I guess the next step would be to light some people and colors and see what can be done in color correction. I don't have a proper color chip chart but I suppose that would be revealing as well. Not yet sure how terminal this is... :-/

Again, Matt, thanks for the advice. :thumbup:
 
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