Mole Rchardson did it again. WTH!!? 10K equivalent Led light!

[Minu Park]

www.mole.com

You can actually see their ads "The first 10k LED light on NAB!"

To me , this is the biggest news.

(I guess, this will be next version of led senior version, which uses 900 watt to create 5k equivalent light),
Again, this means, probably, we would have an access for 18k to create 10k light, and that means I can light so cheap!!!!

How do you think about this?

 

[Michael Tiemann]

www.mole.com

You can actually see their ads "The first 10k LED light on NAB!"

To me , this is the biggest news.

(I guess, this will be next version of led senior version, which uses 900 watt to create 5k equivalent light),
Again, this means, probably, we would have an access for 18k to create 10k light, and that means I can light so cheap!!!!

How do you think about this?

I think you miscalculated: it would be 1800W (not 18K) to create daylight-balanced equivalent of 10K tungsten shooting through a full CTB.

 

[Paul Dean]

... this means, probably, we would have an access for 18k to create 10k light, and that means I can light so cheap!!!!

I spoke to a Mole Rep last week. The new LED Tener is daylight balanced and draws 1400W. If Moles’ claim that it has the output of a tungsten 10k (but daylight balanced) is true that would make it 137FC brighter than an Arri 6kw Compact Fresenel (489FC verses 352FC) at 30’ with roughly the equivalent beam spread (30.5ft verses 32.9ft), but not quite as bright as an Arri 12k Fresnel (596FC.) I am sure it is not going to be cheap, but it will be cheap to power since you can power it off the wall or a Honda EU7000.

Paul Dean

 

[jacob.schwarz]

Wish these light weren't so green! Once they fix that i'll start getting excited.

 

[Martin Stevens]

Wish these light weren't so green! Once they fix that i'll start getting excited.

These lights by Mole are not at all green, period. They use quantum dot tech and are awesome!

 

[jacob.schwarz]

Martin, that good to hear that you've had a great experience with him. The guy that is local that i rented them from all of his LED mole richardson cast super green, and i can't mix them with either my kinos or M18s without having to put 1/8 or 1/4 minus green on them.

 

[Tarquin Cardona]

How heavy are these anybody?

 

[Martin Stevens]

Martin, that good to hear that you've had a great experience with him. The guy that is local that i rented them from all of his LED mole richardson cast super green, and i can't mix them with either my kinos or M18s without having to put 1/8 or 1/4 minus green on them.

Weird to here that they were too green.

I own a few Mole Richardson Daylight LED Fresnels, the ones that use their quantum dot technology,
and they look as good as any HMI that I have. I have zero color issues with them basically.

I know that Phil also likes them.

 

[Phil Holland]

Martin, that good to hear that you've had a great experience with him. The guy that is local that i rented them from all of his LED mole richardson cast super green, and i can't mix them with either my kinos or M18s without having to put 1/8 or 1/4 minus green on them.

Weird to here that they were too green.

I own a few Mole Richardson Daylight LED Fresnels, the ones that use their quantum dot technology,
and they look as good as any HMI that I have. I have zero color issues with them basically.

I know that Phil also likes them.

I do use them and I've even seen the Tener. It's larger than you'd expect.

The green cast comes from older LED Fresnels out there (like the very first ones), the newer/new-ish models don't suffer from it from what I've seen.

We still happily use them on set.

 

[Tripp Green]

I have two 150w Baby LEDs, and they definitely appear to have a yellow/green tint to the eye, but this does not seem to show up on camera. I actually reached out to Mole and had a brief exchange with their VP of Engineering (very awesome customer service, I was connected to a VP within like 10 of sending an email) and he said that I was not the first to ask about the apparent tint, but that it does not affect what the camera sees. I'm not sure how/why, but that does seem to be the case from the little and very unscientific comparison I did in my kitchen

 

[Gene Sung]

Just out of curiosity, are these LED a "Hard" light source like an HMI? With the LEDs, can you have a daylight temperature that can do a hard cut like an HMI or a Tungsten Fresnel?

 

[Mark K.]

Will there be a tungsten balanced version? It's pretty easy to match the output of a 10k tungsten (in daylight) via an M18 or 2.5kw HMI on set or location. But a 10k tungsten fixture that you can plug into a wall has never existed before.

I think that's where this 'tener' becomes particularly exciting.

 

[Paul Dean]

Will there be a tungsten balanced version? It's pretty easy to match the output of a 10k tungsten (in daylight) via an M18 or 2.5kw HMI on set or location. But a 10k tungsten fixture that you can plug into a wall has never existed before. I think that's where this 'tener' becomes particularly exciting.

Yes there will be a tungsten balanced version. As I said above, the output of the daylight version is about exactly between a 6k and 12k HMI Fresnel. You can’t compare the quality of light of a 2.5kw Par or even an M18 to a real Fresnel. A single point source behind a real Fresnel lens (not a frosted Fresnel as in the Par lens sets) gives a unparalleled crisp hard light. The Quantum Dot LEDS being used by Mole create the point source necessary, where the array of LEDs used by other manufacturers can not. If Mole’s claims are true (and they usually are) we have not had that kind of output and quality of light in a fixture that can be plugged into a 20A wall outlet or run off a Honda EU7000.

Paul Dean

 

[Mark K.]

Yes there will be a tungsten balanced version. As I said above, the output of the daylight version is about exactly between a 6k and 12k HMI Fresnel. You can’t compare the quality of light of a 2.5kw Par or even an M18 to a real Fresnel. A single point source behind a real Fresnel lens (not a frosted Fresnel as in the Par lens sets) gives a unparalleled crisp hard light. The Quantum Dot LEDS being used by Mole create the point source necessary, where the array of LEDs used by other manufacturers can not. If Mole’s claims are true (and they usually are) we have not had that kind of output and quality of light in a fixture that can be plugged into a 20A wall outlet or run off a Honda EU7000.

Paul Dean

Very interesting Guy, though I'm kinda confused now - I've always worked off a rough basis of assuming approximately a 4:1 ratio of lumen efficiency going from HMI to Tungsten. 1.2k HMI = 5k of tungsten. 2.5k HMI = 10k of tungsten etc.

And comparing an 1800w M18 to a 2000w Arrilite 2000+ (both of which use arrimax open-face reflectors), that does appear to ring true. At 30' full flood (63° beam compared to a 62°, so very close) you're looking at very close to 4x the output from the M18 compared to the 2000+.

However looking through the photometrics for fresnels (on the Arri calculator), the HMIs don't seem to fair any better than about 2x the lumen efficiency of their tungsten counterparts. I almost never get to work with bigger fresnels (excluding 5ks in studios) as everything's open faced lights into frames most of the time, so I've never really encountered this discrepancy before. Why does HMI lose so much of its efficiency advantage compared to tungsten when going through a fresnel lens?

Cheers,

Mark

 

[Michael Tiemann]

Very interesting Guy, though I'm kinda confused now - I've always worked off a rough basis of assuming approximately a 4:1 ratio of lumen efficiency going from HMI to Tungsten. 1.2k HMI = 5k of tungsten. 2.5k HMI = 10k of tungsten etc.

And comparing an 1800w M18 to a 2000w Arrilite 2000+ (both of which use arrimax open-face reflectors), that does appear to ring true. At 30' full flood (63° beam compared to a 62°, so very close) you're looking at very close to 4x the output from the M18 compared to the 2000+.

However looking through the photometrics for fresnels (on the Arri calculator), the HMIs don't seem to fair any better than about 2x the lumen efficiency of their tungsten counterparts. I almost never get to work with bigger fresnels (excluding 5ks in studios) as everything's open faced lights into frames most of the time, so I've never really encountered this discrepancy before. Why does HMI lose so much of its efficiency advantage compared to tungsten when going through a fresnel lens?

Cheers,

Mark

Confused indeed! I think the answer is somewhat simple, which is that you have to separate out the various factors and not let confusion creep in. The first order of business is to normalize "lumens at color temperature". If you shoot everything at 3200K and care most about that, then indeed HMI is not going to be a more efficient source, because the CTO factors take HMIs greater efficiency back down to tungsten levels. Since RED (and most other cameras) are optimally balanced for 5600K, many of us are more concerned about converting tungsten to daylight, and the CTB factor makes inefficient tungsten two stops worse. LEDs can be made to work at either temperature (or they can be tunable, which means you can shoot at either, but with only half your bulbs illuminated). And of course one can use CTO on a 5600K LED to match tungsten, resulting in the aforementioned drop in efficiency. But the crucial thing is that all this math happens in the "lumens at color temperature space" and has very little to do with the "lumens per foot of throw" or "lumens per degree of spread" space.

In a parallel universe is the question of beam throw and spread. Open face lights are going to have a more relaxed beam spread pattern: softer light and less throw compared to their fresnel counterparts. But more importantly, in this universe, lumens per watt is blind to color-temperature. It should not be surprising that Tungsten produces lots of lumens at 3200K. And if they don't need to be normalized to 5600K, then indeed it could be within a factor of two of what HMI produces at 5600K. But because most people normalize their measurements to 5600K, tungsten is removed to its inefficient space and the numbers look terrible (or great for HMI if that's your thing).

But if you live in a 3200K world, tungsten is not a terrible solution compared to HMI. And tungsten-balanced LEDs will give you an extraordinary bang-for-the-watt compared to tungsten.

 

[Mark K.]

Haha, well Michael if I was confused before I’m doubly so now! Because I have no idea what or whose questions you’re answering there

My question was: why does HMI lose so much (roughly half) of it’s lumen efficiency, when going through a fresnel lens compared to an open-faced reflector?

Fresnels obviously offer superior control of the beam in general, but as I pointed out, at like-for-like wattages and beam angles, the difference in efficiency between the two bulb types (tungsten and HMI) is halved when put through a fresnel lens as opposed to firing out of an open-faced reflector.

 

[Ulf Krentz]

Haha, well Michael if I was confused before I’m doubly so now! Because I have no idea what or whose questions you’re answering there

My question was: why does HMI lose so much (roughly half) of it’s lumen efficiency, when going through a fresnel lens compared to an open-faced reflector?

Fresnels obviously offer superior control of the beam in general, but as I pointed out, at like-for-like wattages and beam angles, the difference in efficiency between the two bulb types (tungsten and HMI) is halved when put through a fresnel lens as opposed to firing out of an open-faced reflector.

Mark, no surprise here. With a open face or PAR reflector design you use the entire light emitted by the lamp. The fresnel construction only uses the light that hits the lens and the light that hits the mirror and is reflected back to the lamp (so you roughly end up in double energy of what is going towards the lens without the mirror) All the other light that hits the inner of the (dark) housing is lost and not used. Fresnels provide a very high quality light but are not very efficient. Hope this clears it up

Cheers
Ulf

 

[Mark K.]

Mark, no surprise here. With a open face or PAR reflector design you use the entire light emitted by the lamp. The fresnel construction only uses the light that hits the lens and the light that hits the mirror and is reflected back to the lamp (so you roughly end up in double energy of what is going towards the lens without the mirror) All the other light that hits the inner of the (dark) housing is lost and not used. Fresnels provide a very high quality light but are not very efficient. Hope this clears it up

Cheers
Ulf

Thanks Ulf, but again, that's not the question I'm asking. I understand the differences between an open-faced reflector, a fresnel and a PAR. It's the reason behind HMI bulbs losing half of their efficacy (compared to tungsten bulbs) when put into a fresnel that I'm trying to understand.

In an open-faced arrimax reflector the efficacy is 4:1 compared to tungsten, behind a fresnel that drops to 2:1. My question is why.

I'm assuming it has something to do with how a tungsten filament spreads its lumens compared to the arc generated in an HMI bulb - but I'd love to know what, exactly, causes such a difference in efficacy to occur.

 

[Ulf Krentz]

Thanks Ulf, but again, that's not the question I'm asking. I understand the differences between an open-faced reflector, a fresnel and a PAR. It's the reason behind HMI bulbs losing half of their efficacy (compared to tungsten bulbs) when put into a fresnel that I'm trying to understand.

In an open-faced arrimax reflector the efficacy is 4:1 compared to tungsten, behind a fresnel that drops to 2:1. My question is why.

I'm assuming it has something to do with how a tungsten filament spreads its lumens compared to the arc generated in an HMI bulb - but I'd love to know what, exactly, causes such a difference in efficacy to occur.

No, this should not be the case. Not sure from where you have this experience. I just checked with Arris "Photometric Calculator", the values for the same beam settings were for example 210lx for 1K tungsten to 864lx for 1.2K HMI so this seems more in the expected ballpark?
http://calc.arri.de/calculator

 

[Mark K.]

No, this should not be the case. Not sure from where you have this experience. I just checked with Arris "Photometric Calculator", the values for the same beam settings were for example 210lx for 1K tungsten to 864lx for 1.2K HMI so this seems more in the expected ballpark?
http://calc.arri.de/calculator

Hmm... then the plot thickens. The efficacy is only dropping when you get to the higher wattage fixtures. It's still 4:1 around the 1kw mark, drops between 4-3:1 around the 2kw mark, and goes down to 2:1 from around 4kw onwards.