LED Lighting: F&V (85 CRI / 2,860lx) or Dracast (95 CRI / 3,200lx)?

[Ryan Sauve]

I'm looking at pulling the trigger on one of the following over the next few days. I was about to jump on the F&V K4000 3-light kit but then saw someone mention the Dracast in another thread. The F&V K4000 3-light kit (http://www.fvlighting.com/k4000-led-studio-panel-3-light-kit.html) is $1,050 and a similar Dracast 500 3-light kit (http://dracast.com/lights/lighting-kits/three-led-500.html) is $1,735.75. Do you guys think the extra CRI and lx justifies the extra $700? Has anyone had a chance to compare the two?

 

[Chris McKechnie]

LED based sources that have less than 93CRI can become very problamatic with the MX sensor. You will see green/magenta shifts, so to combat this you will have to throw filters in front of your LED's, which in turn, decreases their output. Just something to think about.

 

[Ryan Sauve]

Thanks for the feedback Chris! I plan to use them in mostly interview settings so color accuracy is fairly important to avoid crappy skin tones. While I know tungsten is king, I need something small, light, portable, and that can be battery powered as I will be flying with these a lot and using them in remote locations in some cases.

 

[Jeff Garton]

Most LED fixtures have a non-continuous color spectrum. In these cases hi CRI does not necessarily mean you will get good photographic results from the unit. The only way to know is to test and see if it works for you. It has been discussed often elsewhere, manufacturers love to state CRI stats for LEDs, but they not very useful. Filtering LEDs can help sometimes with unfavorable situations, but sources deficient in certain wavelengths can yield unpredictable results. You can't correct for what is not there. Whatever you decide, I would make sure the units are returnable in case you are not happy after trying them out. Personally I have used Dedolight and Litepanel LEDs. And while the Dedo units have a high CRI, there have been many situations where they were not usable (mostly skintones and some kinds of fabrics) and no amount of filtering would correct them. The litepanels I have used performed similarly even with a much lower CRI. I would give the edge to the Dedos but I have read some DPs prefer the Litepanels. At any rate, I've never been able to predict what will work and what won't, and manufacturers usually do not publish the output spectrum, so: test, test, test...And make sure there is a good return policy.

 

[Ryan Sauve]

Great advice Jeff, I'll definitely check out the return policies. Being from Canada might also complicate things.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

To add to the above posts, both light fixtures you have posted of, are extremely cheap lights and not only do not have a continuos color spectrum and are not in exact color temperature range, but they will also have a temperature drop very early on in their life span.

Thye are however not a bad starting kit for a NO budget user, but if I was to use something cheap in the LED fixtures I would get Coollights, that is what I have tested and used couple of times with good results, but for high end work and the best color representation and color temperature long duration without spikes and precise image representation I would get only high end fixtures which unfortunately are more expensive, see Litepanles 1x1 at nearly $2,700 per Fixture, and Area 48 Soft just little below that, but a much greater fixture and over all performance then even the Litepanels, more on this here: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...ent-Lighting&p=1167917&viewfull=1#post1167917

Read form the start of that tread to also learn a bit more on LED fixtures.

 

[Mark-André Voss]

Hi Ryan,

we did not meassure the Dracast lights yet so unfortunately I can't comment on how they compare to our lights and how accurate their CRI rating is. If you should visit NAB I would advise to visit our booth (C11739), bring your camera with you if you can and make some testshots yourself. Specs and even CRI ratings (even when they would meassure up identical) only tell you part of the story about the quality of the light and how it renders on camera.

Best,
Mark

 

[Mark-André Voss]

Hi Chris,

the CRI rating is not really connected to green / magenta shifts directly. The result of an LED light / sensor can vary drastically from manufacturer to manufacturer even with identical CRI, it's more a question of how the spectrum is being distributed. Therefore it's best to test the light of your choice with the camera / sensor you use. Personally we use our RED One MX with our LED lights regularly so we have some experience with this combination. I hope next week I can post some frames (R3D) of a shoot that will take place this weekend.

Best,
Mark

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Good words Mark,

further looking at your LED's I can surely say that for the price they do look really nice, and while they sure are not IMO at list in the same category of the Litepanles and Area 48's, and they shouldn't be at their price range been exponentially cheaper, fact is that choices are good for our ever growing community were not every one can afford the Top products with some times their very high prices tags to match.

Truth be told, is not just the CRI volume in itself that counts, but the true color rendition and how it effects the image, were there must be no color shifts or spills from the given Kelvin measurement, and also important is that it's color rendition should be maintain at a fair life span of the LED's without a large percentage of loss in quality output true to its grade.

Best of luck with your products.

 

[John Galeano]

Hi Ryan,

we did not meassure the Dracast lights yet so unfortunately I can't comment on how they compare to our lights and how accurate their CRI rating is. If you should visit NAB I would advise to visit our booth (C11739), bring your camera with you if you can and make some testshots yourself. Specs and even CRI ratings (even when they would meassure up identical) only tell you part of the story about the quality of the light and how it renders on camera.

Best,
Mark

Hello Mark,
Do you plan on making barn doors for the K4000?

 

[Christian Simpson]

We just picked up a set of the K4000's Bi color and they are suprisingly awesome. Its not really stated anywhere but RED Bricks certainly do work with the K4000 just so you know. That was one of my questions when researching them. They are a great value.

 

[Brian Robbins]

I recently jumped on the F&V train... very happy so far.

 

[Ryan Sauve]

I rented some rebranded chinese LEDs called "LED Go" last week from a local rental house and they seemed to do a decent job. Here's the kit...

http://www.vistek.ca/store/ProVideo...eo-lights-hard-case-2-x-light-stands-sta.aspx

I'm now actually considering buying this kit. I'm just worried about its rebranded status and the quality control implications. The rental price does go towards the purchase price if I decide to buy them so I'll save almost $400 since I've rented them once and will be renting them again next week. Comes with gels, stands, barn doors, a hard case for the lights, a soft case for the stands, and I don't have to worry about shipping, and returning, if needed, is easy.

The were fairly bright but 9850 lux at 1 meter (3.3 feet) seems a little exaggerated. If that's an accurate measure, are the other lights really that much less bright? Also wonder about the >90 CRI. I'll have to do my own testing on the next rental. I have attached a few stills so you can be the judge. 24fps 1/48 ISO800 RG3 RC3, shot on Scarlet-X with Rokinon 85mm at about 5.6ish. Lights are full blast about a meter and a half away (about 5 feet), they're not gelled, but I'm using a 5-in-1 reflector unzipped to diffuse the light. Diffuser and light are about a foot apart. These were 5600K lights (for key and another for hair). I'm not sure about white balance setting on camera, probably between 5000k and 5600k, no correction or grading.

 

[stu aull]

Ryan-
pics look pretty sweet on my so-so computer monitor!! excellent skin. Did you gel the window behind the guy?? looks like it. (in a good way)
If these lites have a funky spike somewhere, it doesn't seem to show here.
thx for posting!

Stu Aull
Alaska

 

[AndreasOberg]

My team came back a few weeks ago from filming in the rainforest of Costa Rica. We decided to use an array of FVLights. We used them both indoor and outdoor and were very happy with the results. We didn't have any problems whatsoever with color casts, they "just worked" and were very problem free. Its incredible how long these lights can run considering how strong they are and how light they are. We were also shooting slow motion in 260 fps inside and didn't have any problems with flicker. One thing I really like with the FVLights is that they have so nice filters for the lights. The big LED 4000K has a white filter in front that diffuses and softens the light and the Z180 has these nice magnetic tungsten filters. Very elegant solution.

Here is an image which was taken in a quite tricky situation. Very harsh sunlight hitting the background and dark shadows on the targets. We couldn't use reflectors because we were in shadow where the reflector would have needed to be. We also couldn't move the poor parrot long because he had just been rescued a few days earlier so we had to shot where we were (which was a very cramped space). We decided to use a K4000 to fill in the shadows and a smaller Z180 to bring out the highlight in their eyes. Thanks to the HDRx in the Epic we would overexpose the hands/the top of the feathers while still get the darker areas. The shadows was lit up by the main K4000 light just to the right amount.

I'm planning to write a post on here on our experiences with the Epic and our equipment, maybe a "Lighting the Animals of the Rainforest" post would be of interest? Quite interesting to work in the rainforest with all the animals and ehm the "rain".... in the rainforest. You have about 3 seconds to cover your equipment when the weather Gods wants to test you!

/Andreas

 

[SK Moore]

F&V AC Adaptor

F&V AC Adaptor

I have the Bi-Color 4000s ... Just to let you know the v-mount AC adapter that comes with them works to power a Red One + LCD out of the D-tap , so if you forget your power supply for your camera or something It would come in handy as a backup.

 

[Kwan Khan]

I have the Bi-Color 4000s ... Just to let you know the v-mount AC adapter that comes with them works to power a Red One + LCD out of the D-tap , so if you forget your power supply for your camera or something It would come in handy as a backup.

Very True (love them)

 

[Tommaso Alvisi]

Is it rated 60W, right?
If so I think it would not be sufficient for the Epic/Scarlet...unfortunately!
We need a 30w dragon epic!