Questions about use of LCD lights (vidled)

L

logic108

Active member
Most of the lighting I've used in the past has been what might be called soft lighting. I don't really use hard lights to light my projects.
I really like the idea of LCD lights. The fact that they are robust and small means I can take them wherever and be flexible when setting up. I want a lighting kit that I'll use during the daytime for fill and during the nighttime for shadow work and so on using snoots etc.
I come from a photographic background and I'm thinking if it's possible to softbox two LED's in something like a 40 inch Westcott and have other 'photographic' style contol over the lighting.
I was thinking of going for 6 of the vidleds so that I could do daylight interiors and exteriors and dark interiors (i.e poker table at night with nice shadows etc).
Would a 6 piece LED lighting setup be flexible enough - could I get some nice creative lighting effects bt going LED?
 
Even if I put two lights in the box? But yep could frost them if soft enough.
So do you think it's 'doable'? Having a lighting setup consisting of 6 led's? Doable for the 90% of usual situations?
 
I believe you can bold up to three VidLeds together, so you´d get one large LED fixture with a lot of output, than you´d have one VidLed for fill, one for rim/back light and one for the BG (well for interview situations type setups)...
All in all the VidLeds are extremely versatile and Marius is a great guy, that makes two reasons to buy them :cheesy:
 
Exactly my thoughts. I wonder if anyone is using this setup.
I love the idea of gaffer taping these leds all over the place so I can get the lighting just as I want it. And i'm pretty confident that I could get a nice soft light from two leds in a box. Plus I can put a gel on them and use like a gold reflector for outdoors.
I love lighting but hate being restrained by power and durability issues. I'd love to be able to light everything using led units.
 
Matt s. I've seen these vids and actually these vids are what got me thinking about having an all LED set.
If I'm honest these vids that Mattin did are a better advert for the vidled product than the vids on the front page of vidleds site.
My thoughts are that I want to place an order for 6 lights. it would be great if Vidled could offer some kind of package deal or show clearly some professionally made movie using only vidled lights.
The first company that can post on their website some professional looking video using only led lights has got my business.
I'm reminded of why I went Nikon- I saw a demonstration of their Creative Lighting System on their site and was hooked. That day I bought 1 sb-800 and 2x sb-600 and haven't regreted that purchase for a moment.
 
Hi Logic:

Nice idea but have you actually checked out the specs? I had the same idea that you had about a year ago but upon investigation of the light's actual output, I discovered that even three of them bolted together through a small 24" x 36" Chimera would have too little output, not to mention too high of a cost for what I was getting.

The Vidleds are great little lights but IMHO, they are not adequate for an entire kit in comparison to tungsten or flourescent fixtures. I recently constructed two homemade Kino Flo Diva 200s from scratch for around $200.00 ea. These lights have a lot more output, are daylight balanced or tungsten balanced by just trading out the tubes. They output 110 watts ea. whereas the three Vidleds together only output a small fraction of the same wattage.

Specs:

Vidleds = 6ft with half CTO for daylight correction - 80 lux
Dan Kino knockoff = 6ft with Kino 5,500k tubes - 479 lux

Three Vidleds inc. batteries, bracket = $825.00 for lights plus $300.00 for batteries/charger or $45.00 for three AC adaptors
Dan Kino knockoff - AC power only - Around $200.00 plus $40.00 for Kino daylight tubes.

No contest. The only way I would use the Vidleds for what you want to do would be if I were in a situation without AC power and if I had extra money to burn. IMHO, even three Vidleds through a softbox will have too little output for anything but a completely dark room and even there, might not have enough output to do much. I think where the Vidleds excel is as an on-camera fill or eye light or possibly as a hair light. They are great little lights but by the time you buy six with all of the batteries/chargers/AC/brackets/mounts/gels/etc., you could purchase some real Kinos, make your own for hundreds less as I did or just buy a traditional tungsten kit.

I think in the near future, LEDs will become a viable replacement for traditional lights but we are not there yet. They are too low output, too expensive and they are still a small source, therefore not as soft as a Kino or softbox.

Best,

Dan
 
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I guess the VidLeds never were intended to form a lighting package, but rather are what they are: an on-camera LED light.
For their size and their weight, they give you a lot of light, and this without the need for AC power.
For extreme doc work (one man army in the desert type of gigs) they could even be the ONLY solution to get some light to where there isn´t...
For me traveling light with lights means a Rifa 80, two/three Totas, Manfrotto Nano stands - and my two CoolLeds :thumbsup:
 
Apart from the vidleds the new Zylight z90 has a lux rating of 571 at 1 meter and 143lux at 2 meters. I know about the cost, but the idea of having an all led setup is too intriguing.
I'll do more research but the Zylights look good and could work with the vidleds.
 
Speaking from personal experience... you can NEVER have too many lighting tools! A 10 ton grip truck might have several DOZEN options. If you asked about completing a kit with any six of anything of only one type I'd probably advise you to consider other options for part of your kit.

In my personal shooting package I've got a mix of tungsten, fluorescent, and LED.

The LED is the third point in a "triangle" of lighting tools... they share some of the benefits of the tungsten lights... i.e. they can generate hard, dramatic shadows... and from the fluorescent corner we gain power efficiency and zero heat... an additional benefit from the fluorescent camp is that it's no big deal to have daylight balanced LEDs... and you can still pop an opal or light frost on the LED and make 'em soft.

An LED is truly zero heat... whereas the flos get too hot to comfortably touch... a bunch of flos will STILL heat up a room... don't believe me? Put your hand on a Diva after one minute and try to hold it there.

But it's the X-Factor in the LED lights... and in the Vidleds in particular... it's the SIZE and CONVENIENCE. It isn't just about the quality and type of light that they put out... it's about how easy it is to get these lights where you want them... and to be power independent. Every stand, gobo arm, baby plate, wall spreader, etc. etc. etc. is about giving you a place to rig lights (okay some other things too, but we're talking about lights here)... so look at the thousands of tools that have evolved to get a heavy, powered light where you want it. Now you have a TINY, reasonably lightweight light... that emits a far wider and smoother beam then you'd ever expect... that is almost independant of that entire GRIP TRUCK of tools that are needed to get lights where you need them!

So the LED corner of my triangle is where I go when I need SPEED and CONVENIENCE... plus little to no heat... but mainly it's the speed and convenience. On a recent feature... the lighting crew sometimes got 2 HOURS to set up a shot that the director ended up not liking (due to lighting)... and within 30 SECONDS we were able to show him an alternative that he DID like... using ONLY VIDLEDS!

If you're getting Vidleds and planning to rely heavily on them as constant light sources, then I'd probably lean to the external battery option though... the deluxe version lasts about 1.5 hours at full bright... and the other versions will run off a DVXuser battery for something crazy like 4-5 hours.

As you can tell from this post and my other Vidled posts... I really like these things, but at the same time I feel it's really important to deliver an unbiased analysis... it's unlikely that the Vidled should be the ONLY tools in your kit... but I never leave home without mine... and there will be some shoots where the kit of Vidleds really is the best choice anyway... even if you have other options.

Also... there is a reality show being shot about 20 miles from me... it's called "Farmer takes a Wife"... (whatever)... and anyway... I was over there two nights ago and they had a lightpanels 1x1... and uh... I was not really impressed with it. A girl was handholding it while she wore a belt of batteries bandito style... basically it looked like a lot of gear packed on a person to run this thing... and honestly, as best I could tell... a couple of Vidleds bolted together probably has CLOSE to the same spread and light quality... and I'm not sure how bright they had the lightpanels at max brightness, but it was never as bright as my two cooleds... and they only dimmed them down from the initial setting... which made me think they could have got that job done with my little bolted pair of cooleds... and a DVXuser battery... instead of this big cumbersome rig and battery belt.
 
led lights

led lights

just using LEDs as your only light source is limiting
but as i read in an earlier reply, it is a function of convenience vs time needed for set up and money in your budget
in a perfect world i don't know one cameraman that would turn away a 10 ton grip truck and a lighting truck full of HMIs ,tungeten and kino w/ a 1000amp 3phase generator
since most independents don't or can't have aceess to this i see your dilemma

the thing that sticks out in my mind is that cameramen should not get stuck on on a type of look or one type of lighting fixture. this might happen due to ease of use or money or time. you may find that running leds are cool because you don't have to plug them into anything but without knowing your style or even what you are shooting have you tried using a small tungsten package with 216 on the doors? or better yet through a 3x3 or 4x4 frame? how about zip lights from M-R? how about bounce light with a piece of styro or white card? kinoflo skinned with diffusion on the doors? double diffusion? i think what i'm trying to say is that there may be a place for a streaky hard back light or practical bulbs in a cone skinned with opal or a wallolite with a crate or even chimeras in its infinite uses. experiment. what is regrettable is a cameramans failure to try different things outside of his/her knowledge of the camera. lighting is painting. even if a rig is cumbersome or not the most effective try it out you may like the way it looks in the end.

good luck always
 
In the DIY section there is an ongoing discussion about imported LED lights
that intrigued me. I found a 56 LED light on Ebay , designed for climbers and bikers, that supposedly can run for 30 hours on 3 AA batteries. I ordered one a few days ago and am going to try to adapt it for video use. Cost shipped from Asia was about $12.
 
mainstreetprod said:
In the DIY section there is an ongoing discussion about imported LED lights
that intrigued me. I found a 56 LED light on Ebay , designed for climbers and bikers, that supposedly can run for 30 hours on 3 AA batteries. I ordered one a few days ago and am going to try to adapt it for video use. Cost shipped from Asia was about $12.
Click to expand...

Is this what you're talking about?

http://cgi.ebay.com/56-LED-4-Mode-H...QQihZ020QQcategoryZ106984QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I'm always wary when they don't even list the color as white or warm white. A lot of these things use the cheapest LEDs around which have a bias that looks almost lavender in color and for sure toward blue. But let us know how it turns out.
 
Not that exact light but similar. For that price I would not expect to get the perfect color temperature for video, but to have to white balance or gel to correct it. Which you also have to do often with expensive lights.
 
I bought several led lightbulbs and flashlights off ebay and they haven't been of a consistent color in the entire lightspread... it isn't just that the color temp isn't a particular white... it's that they can be several different colors all in the same beam.

The quality and consistency of the light is more important then the rated color temp.
 
After a lot of thought I've realized that it's best to go with a mix of LED's and Kinos. Just so that I can have the most adaptable system. I still kind of dream about an all LED setup and it might happen in the future but we'll see and I'll build my lighting system bit by bit and see what I need and what I'm lacking as I go along.
I think a couple of vidleds and maybe one Zylight are on order plus I'm lovin' the cool lights website and the cool lights are in my future. Thanks for the input guys.
I get really excited about lighting and when I think of shooting something I think first in terms of lighting. Controlling light is really controling colour right? So good control of light is what makes me really excited along with clarity of the image and depth of field.
 
I'm a soundguy... but if you do a search you'll see that from the very beginning I've always said that without light you have nothing... LIGHT IS EVERYTHING.

Any camera is nothing more then a light manager.

The actors and set are the canvas... the light is the paint... the DP is a guy watching an artistic creation... and the camera is the thing that lets others see it later.

It doesn't matter how good everything else is... there is no art without the paint.
 
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