Richard Andrewski
REDuser Sponsor
I don't know about the color mixing... i can do that with Gels and I am concerned that giving 1/2 my lights to another temp would cost me more than I want to pay in brightness.
Yes sir, you are correct. It is the cost of being able to dial in a custom color. However, since I would choose 8000K as the upper color for the daylight side, then you will normally end up mixing both colors at least to some extent to get 5600k. And as with the RGB type fixtures you won't want it super close to your subject or you might see multiple color shadows. Some of the Zylights have this kind of issue for example.
As to why we choose 8000K instead of 5600K for the upper end, there are mainly two reasons:
1). Sometimes you actually want a very bluish tint light for various reasons and this would give you that without gelling. White balance to 5600k and you get a nice blue tint. For instance, choosing around 8000K could help with a day for night simulation.
2). 8000K 5mm LEDs have much less of the green spike issues that the 5000K to 6000K ones have. So, this gives us an opportunity to not only custom mix and get whatever color temperature we want within the range of 3000K to 8000K but it also lets us alleviate the green spike and produce something more approaching a full spectrum. Thus you shouldn't need any minus green when mixing with other lighting like real daylight.
3). One other benefit of 8000K LEDs is that they are even more bright and efficient in output than the 5000K to 6000K ones and quite a bit more than the 3000K ones too. So you get a bit more output than even what we're capable of now on the LED 600.
I was pretty sure most will feel this way, wanting the single color panel, but I will probably produce a few of the other one, no matter what as I know there are some out there wanting this capability.
So, mostly an all daylight panel with a few "mixer" models available for those that want the capability.