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 :)

MoleLED Fresnels?

Mark I am still waiting to hear back from Mole Richardson. I have sent them a couple of emails about their LED lights and retrofit kits but not gotten a reply. Yes I know I could pick up the phone and call, but this is 2014 and they should return emails. Especially from someone who owns 30 Mole lights. But I digress.
 
Hmm... that's pretty poor form. Keep us in the loop if you get anywhere with them. Here's the most useful test of the MoleLEDs that I've found so far: http://cineolighting.technicate.com/index.php/pages/light_lab/99

The colour does seem to match in pretty seemlessly with actual tungsten. That said, I'm interested in the daylight versions, and Mole list them as a little less colour accurate than their tungsten versions (90 CRI vs. 95 for tungsten).
 
I wanted to test them but the sales rep told me they had problem with light quality (returns) so I went on to try the Zylight F8 and thought it was great. Modern design, slim and lightweight, and great light quality. Reds were very close to tungsten rendering. we bought them.
 
Well I give up trying to get any response from Mole Richardson. No returned emails or phone reply, and I see they haven't had any activity on Facebook or twitter for 5 months. I'm guessing they don't want my continued business. Guess I'll look elsewhere for LED options.
 
I just called Mole (to make sure the world hasn't stopped spinning) and I was able to get through.
 
Zeb B said:
Yeah but . . . they always have a table for Mr. Holland at The Ivy ;-)
Click to expand...

Heh. I can also just walk in to speak to somebody, which I guess is the benefit of proximity. I sourced some of these lights for a studio and they were indeed back ordered at the time. It took them a minute to fulfill that order. Don't know what the current status of these lights are. I'll be adding a couple more to my kit around May.
 
Dedolight claims to have new focusing and panel LED's with the best quality light with the highest output and lower power consumption than others. I will certainly be stopping by at NAB.
 
No one?

I'm kinda surprised there isn't more interest in these. I'm particularly interested in getting a couple of the 400w Studio Junior in daylight - photometrically they're basically equivalent to 575w HMI fresnels (without worrying about bulbs or ballasts), but they're also considerably cheaper than the HMI alternative, with full dimmability (without colour-shift) and no real issues with flicker for high framerate work.

All of which should make them a really useful light IMO.

I'd love to hear some feedback from anyone who's used them (particularly the daylight versions).
 
I've used them and kitted out several "things" with them. The 400w is a fairly large light, however, it's got a lot of bang and it's a pure fresnel.

This entire line uses quantum dot LEDs with a special "mix" that's actually pretty good compared to other LEDs on the market.

I believe they dim down to 10% on the light if I'm not mistaken.
 
I saw an extensive Mole LED demo recently. Mole is going for the single color, pure horsepower and retrofit the rental fleet approach. Not doing anything with color mixing, focusing etc - just straight running game approach. Solid stuff . . . as always

Hexolux for the small flexible kit. Arri for color mixing. Mole for blast dat shit
 
Mark K. said:
Thanks Phil, would you have any hesitations about using them directly on talent?
Click to expand...

As Zeb said Mole is hitting Daylight and Tungsten only. I actually know a lot about the base quantum LED printed plate and even the mixture of things on top/within the phosphor that they are using to achieve this quality of light. Basically as far as LED light goes it's one of the highest quality sources out there and I have no hesitations using these on talent. And I have used them on talent. This tech is in other lights as well, but the Mole units really have a nice and ideal fresnel. It's a slightly different rendering than a traditional tungsten source as the LED plate is a round disc of light, but it still reads as a single source. This is important for some of us.

There was a time when I was designing my own lights and that project has been put on the back burner in my life due to odd chaos. These were literally the target lights I needed to out design and we were using the "next" stage of this technology inside made by the same LED supplier. How's that for transparency? Though, I'm pretty happy with my design versus these as they would be smaller and lighter weight. Alas, the dreadful start up demon reared it's head and bit off the other half of this project's body.

I dig these lights. They might be the best quality LED based tech out there right now. In quality of light, throw, and shapability.

I'm also real fond of the Nila lights for similar reasons, though they don't provide a single source. However, they are rugged as hell and ideal for location work.
 
Thanks fellas, I think that's what I needed to hear.

I wasn't sure I'd ever be comfortable with LEDs directly on talent, but remote phosphor units cured me of that fear - and if these fresnels are the equal of the Cineo/BBS RP lights so far as colour and smooth light quality goes, then I think we'll get along just fine.

Cheers
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top