Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

Medium budget lighting

Linda Barzini

Linda Barzini

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 30, 2009
Messages
269
Reaction score
0
Points
16
Location
Chicago
I'm finally ready to drop hot lights and go with LED. I don't want tungsten, jokers, hmi, kino flos; nothing hot, heavy, or high amps. I'm not particularly impressed with the diffused output of my Astras. I also don't want to buy the expensive Skypanels or Gemini.

So what is the best of the rest. I shoot almost exclusively on location with soft diffusion for narrative, fashion, and music video. I am thinking of $3,000 to $4,000ish to start.

I am currently leaning toward the Aputure line of products, specifically building around the 300d/120d because with the Bowens mount and ballast off the light, they seem to be able to do most anything. The 300d is comparable to a 2k tungsten. It is somewhere between a Joker 400 and 800 to produce daylight through a window. It can be made into a spacelight (and easily mobile on a boom). It can be softened nicely with the lightdome. It can take any Bowens medium softbox, china ball, Octagon or be placed behind something like a 6x6. It also has a fresnel attachment and barndoors. They are not bi-color. Do CTO gels work with these?

I also like the Falconeyes flexible LED light mats. They seem like they offer comparable performance to Litemats at 1/3 the price. The lightweight portability is really attractive, but less flexible for light shaping as the Aputures.

The other option I am considering are the Lishuai Edge lights. These have the LED lights around the inner edge and bounce out, so the are soft lights and have barn doors. They aren't as bright as other LEDs, but they just released the Lushuai Edge 1380. Beautiful idea, but I hate not having enough light, especially shooting 100-120 fps. Lights that don't require diffusion is attractive.

My current preference is Aputure: 2x 300d, 2x 120d, and Bowens light shaping attachments - fresnel attachment, barndoors, spacelights, lightdomes, and grided softboxes/octagons. Maybe add an Aputure Tri-8c or two.

Lots of grips complain about how cheap LEDs don't match well, but if I stay in the same family, I hope they are pretty close. The online reviews show the CRI/TLCI to be extremely good. Can Aputures be warmed enough with CTO?

Thoughts? Opinions/weaknesses to an Aputure based system? My needs are portability, dimmable to strong output, and flexibility (narrative to high key fashion).
 
I would rent, try and test as manufacturers claims for color accuracy and output
on LEDs are quite wild.

In real setups you will not find a LED thats as powerful as a Joker 800 (let me know if you do)
Even the just released Dedolight DLED30 is not as powerful at a similar flood and its over your budget for one light.

In many situations you can however work much closer with LEDs, as they are not hot and have a softer light quality.

I really like my Hive Wasp 100C's for smaller setups, full color, Kelvin and saturation control and
standard Profoto size for accessories.
 
I don't think the 300Ds are ready for primetime yet with colour temp and green tints all over the place.

On the other hand the 120D is brilliant. Used it with the light dome for 90% of the pilot I just shot.

In the larger range I'd either wait for Aputure to fix their light (I assume by gelling it and therefore cutting the output) or check out the Razyr 7 300 fresnel for clean output or the Wasp 100c for full colour
 
Linda Barzini said:
I'm finally ready to drop hot lights and go with LED. I don't want tungsten, jokers, hmi, kino flos; nothing hot, heavy, or high amps. I'm not particularly impressed with the diffused output of my Astras. I also don't want to buy the expensive Skypanels or Gemini.

So what is the best of the rest. I shoot almost exclusively on location with soft diffusion for narrative, fashion, and music video. I am thinking of $3,000 to $4,000ish to start.

I am currently leaning toward the Aputure line of products, specifically building around the 300d/120d because with the Bowens mount and ballast off the light, they seem to be able to do most anything. The 300d is comparable to a 2k tungsten. It is somewhere between a Joker 400 and 800 to produce daylight through a window. It can be made into a spacelight (and easily mobile on a boom). It can be softened nicely with the lightdome. It can take any Bowens medium softbox, china ball, Octagon or be placed behind something like a 6x6. It also has a fresnel attachment and barndoors. They are not bi-color. Do CTO gels work with these?

I also like the Falconeyes flexible LED light mats. They seem like they offer comparable performance to Litemats at 1/3 the price. The lightweight portability is really attractive, but less flexible for light shaping as the Aputures.

The other option I am considering are the Lishuai Edge lights. These have the LED lights around the inner edge and bounce out, so the are soft lights and have barn doors. They aren't as bright as other LEDs, but they just released the Lushuai Edge 1380. Beautiful idea, but I hate not having enough light, especially shooting 100-120 fps. Lights that don't require diffusion is attractive.

My current preference is Aputure: 2x 300d, 2x 120d, and Bowens light shaping attachments - fresnel attachment, barndoors, spacelights, lightdomes, and grided softboxes/octagons. Maybe add an Aputure Tri-8c or two.

Lots of grips complain about how cheap LEDs don't match well, but if I stay in the same family, I hope they are pretty close. The online reviews show the CRI/TLCI to be extremely good. Can Aputures be warmed enough with CTO?

Thoughts? Opinions/weaknesses to an Aputure based system? My needs are portability, dimmable to strong output, and flexibility (narrative to high key fashion).
Click to expand...

I’m in the same boat and I’m leaning towards the Kinotehnik 602’s. Also compatible with Profoto RFi accessories.

http://www.newsshooter.com/2017/10/30/kinotehnik-practilite-bi-color-smart-led-fresnels-reviewed/

http://shop.kinotehnik.com/product/practilite-602-smart-led-fresnel
 
Since you mention fashion photography, you should talk with your friends in the makeup department. I know that at UNCSA's School of Design and Production (and the School of Filmmaking, come to think of it), students are schooled in doing makeup for a variety of lighting conditions. If they know the production is going to be under tungsten lights, they will do things one way, and if under LED they will do things another way. As much as the CRI numbers all look good, when you look at the color spectra as reported by a C700 (or equiv) you'll see the big blue spike next to the lump (or pair of lumps) that barely reaches into the red on one side and not quite to cyan on the other.

Daylight_7547K-v2.jpg


Tungsten_3153K.jpg


Aputure-AmaranHR672S-Update.jpg


Thus, deep red, aqua/cyan/turquoise and indigo/violet colors will probably look most different when illuminated by tungsten vs LED.

OTOH, those color deficiencies (one at each end and one in the middle) are probably narrow enough that even if you get slightly wonky results initially, you can use LUTs or Resolve to push the colors where you think they belong. RWG + Log3G10 makes this a real breeze. But your friends in makeup can also give you great pointers from their own experiences. They have great eyes for subtle colors and for what works and what doesn't!
 
I could literally write a book on modern LED lighting. Some of the lower priced options certainly do not "perfectly" match even within their own product lines. Which is frustrating as hell.

Notable brands like Litepanel, Fiilex, Nila, more recently HIVE, Digital Sputnik, and many others are doing a better job matching within their ecosystem.

I'll go one step further, you absolutely can't buy any lights online based on their published numbers, especially the lower priced options. Some brands are more trustworthy than not, but it's extremely important to see and test out the lights themselves.

It's pretty easy to find yourself with an LED that emits a strange "white" that's somewhere between green and not white or perhaps to pink or even find that your spill has a yellow/blue rim, which will need to be diffused out.

Heh. I sound like a crotchety complainer on this, but it will largely depend on your tolerances and what you are trying to achieve with your lighting. If you are looking for a clean white light at whatever your preferred kelvin, there are nice options.

The multi-tool are the bi-color, RGB, RGBA, RGBW, RGBWW options out there as you can dial it in and match on set. COBs and quantum dots chips are hit or miss depending on who makes them, their QC levels, and their general chemical mix to blend out the evils.
 
I've heard great things about the digital sputniks... from a lot of people I trust. They often go on sale for around $6k for a kit, so I would rent those and try them and consider stretching your budget. If you're planning to rent, I think you could find a rental market for them.

I have a 120d and the light quality seems quite good, but the build quality is dodgy and the fresnel attachment kind of sucks. I wouldn't trust them for rental purposes, maybe owner/op. The output seems comparable to a 650w fresnel. Not bad, not outstanding.
 
I've been looking at LED lighting for a long time and there honestly is no perfect solution as of yet. For matching color you just have to do your best and it is really close these days compared to even a couple years ago, at least for lower budgets. I've lucked into a bunch of Litepanels 1x1s at auction that make up the best of my LED kit and I've primarily been using higher quality Phillips LED 5000K/5500K and 2700K bulbs in simple practical fixtures or clamp lights to help things out. It kills me that they don't have a 100w+ spot bulb that's daylight balanced but the new 120w 2700k isn't bad at all and would be the ideal bulbs for me to switch to for bare bone hardware store LED lighting. Now, as far as professional lights go, I've seen YouTube comparison videos and such and can clearly see that the Aperture fixers have the edge in regards to cost and overall quality. But portability is where things get tricky and your preference and lighting style play into which fixture you go after. Even just the on-camera units had varying features and qualities despite being labeled simply "spot" or "flood" and one manufacturer to the next had different interpretations of just those two key terms. One could flood like crazy but another would be more of a soft spot and another could be a spot light but only within a small circle or one so big it might as well be a flood. There definitely is a reason why the big brand LEDs are expensive but again, things are changing so rapidly that one year's dud light could have a revision and become the next year's darling. It sounds like you have some good selections but I would advise to do research on each light and compare it with the competition and see if you might be happier with a mix of brands rather than sticking with just one. Also, YouTube reviews really help if a camera shop or rental place isn't nearby or otherwise doesn't carry what you're looking for.
 
I have six of the Falcon eyes 18x24 leds. They all match each other, and match my other daylight sources (HMIs) well. In my recent experience, most of the new LED stuff coming out is pretty interchangeable without gelling anything.

Nick
 
any suggestions for replacing a 2k HMI with
a led fixture of some type?

what would you use for those high power solutions
like daylight through the window etc.
 
Curtis boggs said:
any suggestions for replacing a 2k HMI with
a led fixture of some type?

what would you use for those high power solutions
like daylight through the window etc.
Click to expand...

I think M18s are dropping in price and the M18 is still the best affordable (no need to rent a generator truck) tool for the job IMO. Maybe the Hive light but gaffers have told me mixed things about the first gen whereas Arri is typically bulletproof... but the Hive might be the choice for owner/op as it's a bit more efficient and cheaper. But I hear stories about reliability and durability not matching Arri's gold standard.

IMO no such LED exists yet.... Aputure 300D seems like the closest thing but that's equivalent to a 400w Joker at best, not as bright as a 2.5k HMI or M18 by any means and the beam feels a little softer but not much.

If you really need an LED for the job the Digital Sputnik DS6 seems like a good option, or the Cream Source was popular before... IMO since those are not true single source fixtures the M18 is still the best option for hard light. This will change... but I'd pick up an M18 still. Or rent and wait it out. I think we're a few years away.
 
Matt W. said:
I think M18s are dropping in price and the M18 is still the best affordable (no need to rent a generator truck) tool for the job IMO. Maybe the Hive light but gaffers have told me mixed things about the first gen whereas Arri is typically bulletproof... but the Hive might be the choice for owner/op as it's a bit more efficient and cheaper. But I hear stories about reliability and durability not matching Arri's gold standard.

IMO no such LED exists yet.... Aputure 300D seems like the closest thing but that's equivalent to a 400w Joker at best, not as bright as a 2.5k HMI or M18 by any means and the beam feels a little softer but not much.

If you really need an LED for the job the Digital Sputnik DS6 seems like a good option, or the Cream Source was popular before... IMO since those are not true single source fixtures the M18 is still the best option for hard light. This will change... but I'd pick up an M18 still. Or rent and wait it out. I think we're a few years away.
Click to expand...


I just bought a Wasp 1000 a few weeks ago, love the thing to pieces. Touch noisy at the head, which is somewhat disappointing. Output and color are phenomenal, easy to use solo and the ability to attach speedrings like you can with led monolights is amazing for my solo/small crew work.
 
I stopped my research because the choices for me became either very good or excellent. As Matt W said, "Things have gotten shockingly good."

The Aputure 300d and 120d fit the price, power, weight, and flexibility for my needs. The Bowen's mount will allow all modifiers from china ball, fresnel, softbox & grid, spacelight, lightdome. The 300d is so powerful it is somewhere between a Joker 400 and 800. Why not use 2 from the same location to replicate sunlight through a window?The light weight head can be mounted on a boom with a spacelight attachment and powered with a battery on location. I will always use diffusion so any green fringe won't be an issue. 2 of each with modifiers should be a good start; I'll likely add some flex panels (Intellytech or Falconeyes), Quasar tubes, and a Tri-8.

The Hive Wasp C (half as powerful) and Rayzr 7 (3x weight) also were contenders. The Digital Sputniks were definitely interesting, there are articles that claim the low CRI is irrelevant, but they are really small, really light, really powerful, 1,500-10,000K and can dial in colors. The price of 3 for $6,600 is a bit high. Accessories are also equally pricey. IMO, all are excellent options depending on needs.

Quality is very good and only getting better. Prices are dropping nicely. Even several LED lights in the Low Budget Lighting thread should be seriously considered.


led.jpg
 
Linda,

thanks for sharing the list !

If u can, share some spectrum graphs of the light sources u end up buying. The manufacturers numbers don't mean much and CRI is - at best - one of many metrics to look at.

Spectrum and CIE graphs would be interesting... even more so if u end up geling lights b/c of spikes.

- M
 
Mike Nagel said:
Linda,
The manufacturers numbers don't mean much and CRI is - at best - one of many metrics to look at.

Spectrum and CIE graphs would be interesting... even more so if u end up geling lights b/c of spikes.

- M
Click to expand...

I agree. CRI isn't too useful for non full spectrum light. Extended CRI with R9 (saturated red), R13 (light skin) and R15 (medium skin) would be better for me but difficult to find on many lights. I read blogs and watched youtube reviews of people with experience (Meet the Gaffer, Cinematography Database, etc) to judge. I'm aware QC and published results can be variable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top