Still trying to get used to VidLed lights

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DVX100Shooter

Veteran
I have had my Superbright dimmable VidLed light for about a year and a half now and love the light. However it seems like the light casts out a bluish look onto my subjects faces. I white balance with the light on and it still comes out bluish. Normally I have a gel (amber one) or clear diffusion to soften the light some but last night I went without any diffusion because the nightclub I was shooting in was somewhat dark and I needed the extra punch from the light.

What could I be doing wrong that I keep seeing a bluish tint coming from the light? I did several white balances before the event began. I don't notice a bluish tint when I see crews using the LITEPANELS LED lights so why is my VidLed producing one?
 
Did you get the 8000k light or the daylight light? The 8000k light needs to be in similar sources to look truly white... or else you must gel. You really don't have any other choice.

This means that if you're under lights like you might have in a football stadium or parking lot that you probably won't have to gel... but many interiors have lighting that falls between 5600k and 3200k.
 
We leave the coolLED deliberately ungelled, as it is at its MAXIMUM brightness like that. Each cool blue LED is double chipped and we can drive it at a higher amperage.
If you have other, lower color temperature light sources around you, you will need to gel it. Start with the least amount of gel you can "get away with", say 1/2CTO and work your way up in strength until you get the desired look.
We could of put a permanent gel on them, but you would lose out on their brightness potential that CAN be useful if there are no other light sources around, or the other light sources approximate the coolLED's color temperature.

Like you call it; you have the 'Superbright' VidLed.
 
So Mr Vidled since I have the Cool Vidled-40 and an assortment of gels that came with it, what gel would be ideal to use for indoor 3200k shoots? I've used the light with 1/2 CTO clear diffusion, also used the Amber one most recently but it cut the brightness of the light down more than I wanted. I've used the blue gel as well for an outdoor at night shoot one time and it didnt look bad but still noticed a bluish tinge.

I guess I will just have to experiment with the light/gels. Its like everytime I see a crew using a LITEPANELS light on their camera they either have no gels or they are using the clear diffusion gel (the same one I use) and there video looks great however when i do it, it comes out still looking like there is a bluish tint to it which makes me think I am using the wrong gel on that light. I ALWAYS white balance the camera so I know its not that.

Is there a website I can look up that discusses gels and when to use which for various lighting situations? Lighting is one of my weaknesses that I am eagerly trying to get better at!!!!
 
To bring a COOL down to 3200k you're actually changing a lot. You should pick up a gel swatch book the next chance you get. They are FREE from stores that sell gels (at least at the pro-shops in STL)... and that way you can see what you want and what it will do ahead of time. There's a number on there for TRANSMISSION = 58% (this number changes for every gel) and that tells you how much light loss you have in passing through the gel.

A half CTO isn't going to turn 8000k into 3200k... you'll probably need a FULL CTO to get in the ballpark... and yeah, you probably won't be happy with how much light you lose in doing that. Personally I'd avoid trying to use that light in with low tungsten lighting. Watch any NFL football game... the interviews on the sidelines have people looking bluish and off-color (slightly)... do you think the NFL isn't using a good on-cam light? There's a situation where they needed max punch or whatever... and they are accepting the trade-off. "Warm White" LED technology isn't anywhere near Daylight (and beyond) LED technology. If you want to better understand why you're going to have to Google it... I don't feel like turning this into a dissertation on LED tech.

Get one of those swatch books and you can see what color correction gels do. It's listed right on them.
 
I still wait for a new release from VidLed and hope that they will offer dayleds with higher output...
I went for the CoolLeds back then and knew, I was trading output for color accuracy - but that´s still OK.
If I gel down with 1/2 CTO that´s a good compromise for most situations, but more and more I use the VidLed as a bluish kicker or accent light without correction.

So, really need new on-camera lights (on got stolen and one for our 3rd HVX), if there isn´t some updated VidLed info soon, I´ll probably go with the new Lightpanel Micro...
 
VidLeds ship with a nice assortment of gels, so you should have everything you need to correct it. I have the DayLed (5600K) and it takes a 1/2 plus a 1/8 CTO to make it perfectly match the temperature of a (3200K) Lowel Pro Light. I certainly lose some power doing that, but if matching color temperature is necessay (which is usually the case) then that's the price of admission.

Clearly the 8000K CoolLed will need more CTO, and since the difference between 3200 and 5600 is the same as the difference between 5600 and 8000 (2400), I'll take a stab and guess that you'll need double what the 5600 does - so at least a full CTO, or more likely 1 1/4.

Again, that will kill a lot of power, possibly making it no brighter than my 5600 with 5/8 CTO, but again - if that what it takes...well...

And you still have the ability to gel it to 5600 (probably with 5/8 CTO) or leave it off completely for the stadium lighting thing. You've got some nice options there.
 
DVX100Shooter said:
I guess I will just have to experiment with the light/gels.
....
Is there a website I can look up that discusses gels and when to use which for various lighting situations? Lighting is one of my weaknesses that I am eagerly trying to get better at!!!!
Click to expand...

You need to check the gel manufacturers. Roscoe I believe has a great manual for cc gels.

Color Temperature difference is not measured in Kelvin. It is measured in Mireds, which are 1,000,000 times the reciprocal of the Kelvin value. From 8000K to 3200K you have a difference of 188 Mireds ( 1M/3200 - 1M/8000). A full CTO gel gets you 160 Mired roughly ( there are small variations between manufacturers.) A 1/8 cto gets you 20-30 mireds depending on the manufacturers. So you neet 1 + 1/8 CTO for perfect color correctino to Halogen.

--gabriel
 
I bought the 5600k a while back and it takes a bit of CTO to warm it up. If that blue cast has a bit of purple in it, add a little plus green (1/8). They're fun lights and last a long time, but I still can't get them to be as pretty as tungsten.
 
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