Coollights LED

[puredrifting]

Hi all:

My apologies for the poor quality snapshots of the lights here, I have been too busy testing to shoot some nice photos of the lights but I will at some point soon. Here are some initial impressions of the Coollights LED 600 panels. I am actually working with these lights for an upcoming article for a magazine so I cannot provide a complete report in great detail but I will provide my impressions of the lights and working with them so far. I have not yet had the chance to light a real project with the LEDs, I have only shot test footage and have taken measurements and experimented with them.

I received the shipments air freight from Richard in China last week. Both lights came packaged nicely. The nylon bags that the lights come in are very nice, black ballistic nylon with a white Coolights logo silk screened onto the front with an adjustment strap. The bags feature plenty of room and compartments with the main compartment inside reserved for the lights. In the interior of the main compartment is lined with a softer grade of nylon cloth. The bag also features plenty of room to house the power supply for the lights.


A very nice lanyard with a aluminum caribiner clip is attached to the lights so that the power supply can be hung from your light stand. This adds the benefit of better air circulation around the power supply. As we all know, less heat equals longer life in electronics. Since I am in the U.S., the power supply came equipped with a detachable 12' standard grounded threee prong OSHA cord. The cord is heavy duty and not cheaply made. Not sure what the AC cord supplied for 240 V countries will be like. The power supply itself is variable voltage so it will be the same for all LED 600s the world over. The power supply terminates in a four pin DC XLR cable.


The rear of the light panel contains a larger master power switch flanked with five bank power switches. This allows you to vary the output of the instrument without dimming. Dimming in LED fixtures does cause a shift in color temperature in the output, although this varies from instrument to instrument. The light also features a nice rotary dimmer underneath the fixture near the light stand adapter. I like that the dimmer knob is fairly long, it makes it easier to find in the dark or when you are not looking underneath the instrument for it to adjust it. The dimming effect is nice and linear, no major jumps in the dimming percentage. I do not own a color meter so I was not able to measure the color temperature shift as the instrument was dimmed, but I assume that there is some shift.


The light will fit into the main compartment of the bag with the included barn doors in place. The barndoors are very nicely done and extend to about 8" on all sides. Since the instrument is square, it seems as if all four barndoors are the same length. This makes folding the doors up easy and quick since you don't have to search for which set of doors are the horizontal and which are the vertical as you would on most lights. Richard has discussed the possibility that he may supply various accessories for these lights in the future that could include color correction panels, diffusion panels and possibly a speed ring for softboxes. The channels that hold the barndoors and would be used to hold these opther accessories are very heavy duty and could easily hold additional weight and width besides the barndoors. The clips that hold the barndoors to the light are spring loaded and heavy duty, much as you would get on an Arri or other professional instrument.


The front of the instrument features six hundred 5mm LED lights, arranged in a square. The LEDs are bare, there is no safety glass or protective panel in front of them, although with the barndoors folded over the light, the LEDs are protected during transport.


The light stand adapter includes a standard 5/8" receiver that will easily allow the light to be mounted on a standard light stand or C-stand arm. Adapters are available from third party sources to adapt this standard 5/8" receiver to other configurations like junior and senior pins, 5/8" recepticles, etc. The tie down knob is plastic but seems to be large enough to crank down on safely and the light stand adapter feels as if it would hold the additional weight and leverage of a small Chimera or other softbox fairly well without sagging or drooping the light fixture down.


I received two LED 600 panels, a 5600k flood panel and a 5600k spot panel. I was interested to see the difference in output between the two so I set them up for some informal testing. I took light measurements and readings with both my Panasonic HPX170 and with my Sekonic L308s light meter. The readings were taken in an otherwise dark room with no ambient or other light. I recorded the following exposure readings in each situation.

These are real world numbers, not laboratory measurements of the lights since I do not have all of the necessary equipment to set up and measure from a truly controlled situation.

I recorded the following exposures. I was impressed with the output levels.

Camera exposure
Camera - Panasonic HPX170 P2 camcorder
ISO: I rated the HPX170 at ISO 500 at 24 fps with a 180d shutter. The readings were taken from the subject position with the Sekonic L308s light meter at exactly 6' from the LEDs to the subject, female with white skin. Besides the light meter reading, I also let the camera meter the subject, I used the camera's zebras set at 75% and 100%. I adjusted the camera to record the highlight areas of the face with a decent amount of peaking at 75% and highlights anywhere near 100% exposure. The readings from the HPX170 and the Sekonic L308s were identical. I metered each light individually and recorded the following exposures.

5600k Flood Panel direct at meter/subject
24fps @ 180d @ 6' = f 4.08

5600k Spot Panel direct at meter/subject
24fps @ 180d @ 6' = f 5.65


I then proceeded to take a different set of measurements to check the actual FC/lux output. Since my light meter does not have FC or lux readouts, I had to do some calculations. I am not sure if these measurements are exact as the EV/FC and lux scales are logarithmic and not linear. Standardized FC measurements are always taken at ISO 100. I recorded the following measurements. Note that these readings were take at a distance of 5', not at 6' as the above camera exposures were.

Flood Panel
EV 8.5 @ 5' = 900 lux = 83.6 FC

Spot Panel
EV 9.5 @ 5' = 1800 lux = 167.2 FC

By this measurement, something seems off. The spot panel does seem a lot brighter than the flood panel but not twice the FC. My calculations may be off here as I am using an EV to lux calculator. In the measurements above, the EV reading is definitely accurate but my calculations in converting to lux and or FC may be off so if you are a stats whiz, please feel free to run these numbers and see if your results vary from mine.

Color Cast
As expected, the LED600 panels do exhibit a small green spike in the color output. Evidentally this is endemic to 5mm LEDs and I can tell you from experience that the LED500 Prompter People panels also exhibit the same green spike.

The stills below were taken with the setup shown below with the spot panel punched through the small Chimera as a key source and the flood panel bounced off of a 42" white flexfill. LED lights have a harder light quality than fluorescents so I would typically not use them without diffusion or bounce. I was concerned that the LED 600s might not have enough output to use as a bounced instrument or for use through a softbox but they surprised me. They worked quite well, both through the Chimera and bounced off of a Flexfill. The samples below are lit only by the two LED Panels, the only ambient light in the room was an incandescent practical shining on the wall (the orange looking wash on the picture) and some twinkle lights on the potted plant. Both practical sources were located about 18' behind the subject so they did not affect the color cast on the subject at all. There was no hairlight or rim light used to separate the subject from the dark BG.
(this still was shot during the day but the test shots below were shot with the same setup at night

The first image was shot at 5600k wb preset on the camera.


The second image shows the same image after color correction in FCP's three way color corrector using the grayscale chart the subject is holding.


I am going to shoot some images using manual WB, which I suspect will work almost as well as FCP's three way color corrector. You can see that under the 5600k preset on the camera, the lights do have a definite green spike although it was quite easy to correct with the color corrector in FCP. Another alternative would be to mount some -1/8 green gel in front of the lights while shooting. There are three easy and effective solutions to mitigating the slight green spike in the LED600s.

I am continuing to shoot tests with the LED 600s and will keep posting as I discover more and more. Please feel free to PM me or post in this thread if you have specific questions about the lights. Now that I have done some testing, my next challenge will be setting up a decent looking shot using the LED 600s along with possibly some tungsten and or fluorescent instruments. As long as the LED 600s are being used solely to light the subject, I do not foresee problems is adding other color temperature instruments as background and accent lights.

So far, the LED 600s show promise that they may be the solution to a lot of our challenges in lighting. I agree with what Richard has posted about LED lights at this point. They are not the be all, end all, the technology is too young but they do provide an interesting solution if you are trying to reduce heat, size and weight and increase energy efficiency. LEDs definitely seem to have a different quality than tungsten, HMIs or fluorescents.

The best part of about the LED 600s is that they are DC powered, which opens up an entire world for use in the field, in cars, in locations with no power. Just realize that any LED light made currently will do nothing in direct daylight and very little in shade even. These lights are probably best used for interiors, in cars, at night, etc.

I will be posting a lot more as I explore these lights. I did not order the battery plate that Coollights has available but I am toying with the idea of buying a lower cost battery belt to see what sorts of run times can be achieved in using these lights on location using battery power. More on that later.

Dan

[ChipG]

Dan,

You are awesome! Thanks! I can't waite to read the upcoming magazine article.

For a guy who will be shooting a fast paced run 'n gun show on tornado / storm chasing these look so good, looks like I'll be able to take a 6 inch woods suction cup and stick it to the exterior window of our SUV and put up one of these pannels up in less than a minute to shoot interviews when light starts getting low outside. Looks like it'll have about a 5 second removal time. Because of the size it also looks like I'll be able to use the same suction cup mounting technique for lighting inside the vehicle at night.

Do you think I'd be able to make some velcro straps to mount one to the headliner or are they to heavy? I don't mind sewwing in vecro to the SUV's headliner... I'd make power cables that run from the 12V battery to the 4 pin xlr so they would not have the battery weight.

How much are these again for dvx users?

[ChipG]

Ok, I found where it says for dvxusers who are early adopters they will be $379.00 each.

How long will this offer be good for?

Do you offer a discount for a multiple purchase?

Thanks!

[puredrifting]

Hi Chip:

Couple of issues with your scenario...

1. Output. Even in cloudy conditions, these aren't going to do that much on daylight exteriors. The output is just not that high. Just to give you an idea, in bright daylight to really do anything the camera can see, I typically would use a 4k HMI.

Now at night, early morning before the sun comes up, great, but once you have full blown daylight,even with cloud cover, these just aren't going to do very much for you for exteriors. Car interiors at night, I think they will work pretty well.

2. Location of DC plug. You may find these difficult to mount flush with anything because the four pin XLR sticks straight out the back of the instrument. There are right angle XLR pins available but they still are going to stick out an inch or two and the switches on the back are not flush either.

3. They weigh about three pounds I think, but I don't think that is including the barndoors. Figure at least another pound or two with the barndoors. I have not weighed them yet but I will. In my mind, these would be difficult to Velcro, especially in a moving vehicle with the vehicle bouncing up and down. There are other ways to mount in a car though besides the headliner. Suction cups, Mafer clamps, headrests, etc. You can find ways to make these work in a big SUV especially.

4. I believe that Richard has them on the site for $425.00. You will have to ask him what kind of deal he is doing for DVXUsers directly but I think it is a few bucks less.

Talk soon.

D

[puredrifting]

Originally Posted by ChipG

Ok, I found where it says for dvxusers who are early adopters they will be $379.00 each.

How long will this offer be good for?

Do you offer a discount for a multiple purchase?

Thanks!

I am not selling these, you will have to speak with Richard, he is the MAN! ;-)

Dan

[ChipG]

Dan,

Always appreciate it! I'd only use them for around sunset into night time, seems like most tornadoes are in the evening and when we go back to film the damage path it is dark.

I can't belive for under $2k I could have 5 of these. 3 floods and 2 spots for me.

Since these are LED's could I vaccum bag them (with a little hole for the power cord) so I could shoot in the rain and keep them dry?

[Cool Lights]

Thanks Dan for your comments! I'll be looking forward to hearing more about how you're getting along with them.

ChipG,

I'm sure the pricing is a bit confusing what with the price on the site ($425) and an intro price to dvx/redusers. $379 was what I originally thought for the special pricing when we announced but we made a couple of changes after that announcement (based on early feedback from potential customers) to the voltage processing so the panel has a wider input of 10VDC to 24VDC (the good news) and that added $20 to the cost (the bad news).

So, the new dvx intro price is $399. Still, $20 is an inexpensive price to pay for that kind of voltage protection and range. Everyone that's ordered and got one in Europe or elsewhere so far has felt it is a great value.

The $425 price is what they will go up to after the dvxuser/reduser offer and I do not know at this time how long it will last but will end at my discretion.

The best thing is to already start contacting me if you are interested in the offer so we can start processing them as we do that manually at info@coollights.biz. Orders are already stacking up. For example, the 5600K spot panels will be totally pre-sold before you know it as a lot of people have already pre-ordered that both in direct shipping from China to where ever they are and also those that have already pre-ordered in the USA with first priority on shipping when they hit stock in February; and we do have a limited supply of those spots coming. 5600K Flood panels will be in the most plentiful supply for those that don't pre-order.

On the other questions about rain proofing, I would personally not cut a hole in the vacuum bag. I would rather get the battery plate, attach a battery and vacuum bag the hole thing with no holes at all. And constantly examine for punctures too because the panels are definitely needing to be kept dry. Some experimentation may be necessary to find the best way for you and the power you intend to use if not by our battery plate.

On questions about mounting in the car, what Dan said about the XLR connector protruding is true. Another way to power beside the XLR input would be to buy a battery plate accessory from us and power through the D-Tap on the battery plate which would keep the back surface pretty flat and avoid the XLR connector sticking out. Yes, there would be the battery plate and that would add some to the back but not much. The D-TAP is on the side of the battery plate and doesn't take up any additional room sticking out the back beside the width that the battery plate takes.

[puredrifting]

Richard,

if the LED 600s were sealed in a bag as Chip would like to, wouldn't you have some issues with heat build up? This would enclose the LEDs themselves and would cover the ventilation openings on the lights. Could that cause too much heat build up and fry the electrical components?

Dan

[mcgeedigital]

Nice review Dan,

How did you mount the spot LED to the chimera?

Thanks.

[Cool Lights]

Originally Posted by puredrifting

Richard,

if the LED 600s were sealed in a bag as Chip would like to, wouldn't you have some issues with heat build up? This would enclose the LEDs themselves and would cover the ventilation openings on the lights. Could that cause too much heat build up and fry the electrical components?

Dan

That is a good point Dan and I wouldn't want to do it for a long time. One reason we get the output we get is because we drive the LEDs closer to spec than many but this also means a certain amount of heat output. We have a nice natural ventilation through the chassis. The heat's not terrible but could buildup if the airvents were clogged for any long period of time. It would be interesting to see what kind of waterproof rigs people could come up with that would still allow the unit to breath correctly through the air vents on bottom and top.