28-Light LED Shootout | No Film School Test

Teddy_Dem

Teddy_Dem

Well-known member
A pretty comprehensive LED light test over at No Film School:

http://nofilmschool.com/2017/04/2017-led-light-shootout

The lights tested (in ascending price order):

The Sun - Free
ARRI: 1k Tungsten - $599
Aputure: Light Storm LS-1 - $695
Ikan: Lyra LB10 Bi-Color - $799
Westcott: Flex X-bracket Bi-Color - $899
Hive: Wasp 100-C Omni - $999
Westcott: SkyLux - $999.90
Dracast: LED1000 PRO Bi Color - $1220.63
Rayzr: 7 - $1,269
Litepanels: Astra BiColor - $1,350
Quasar Science: QLED - $1400 ($250 per bulb, we had an array of 4 with Housing)
F&V: Ultra Color K8000 2x1 BiColor - $1,679
Light and Motion: Stella 10,000 LED - $1970.80
Fiilex: Q500-AC 5" Fresenel - $1,995
BB&S Lighting: PipeLine Remote Phosphor 4' LED Bank - $1,997.45
Cineo: Maverick (Tungsten & Daylight units) - $2,150,50
Zylight: F8 LED Fresnel - $2,250
BB&S Lighting: Area 48 - $2,269.95
ARRI: L5-DT Daylight - $2,338
Kino Flo: Select 30 DMX - $2,386.88
Mole Richardson: Junior LED 200W Tungsten DMX - $2,409.95
Fiilex: Matrix Bi Color Panel Light - $2,495
Hive: Wasp Plasma Par - $3,279
Outsight Creamsource: Doppio+ Bender Bi Color 2x1 LED - $3,695
Cineo: HSX Color Tunable Fixture - $3,735.33
Kino Flo: Celeb 401 DMX - $4,628.95
ARRI: Skypanel S60-C LED Softlight - $5,625
ARRI: M18 HMI - $10,515

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqnrLv36Lp4


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhX-qaYKZ0k


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihZqGUXW3dc

 
Thanks for posting. Nice find.

Now, I understand I'm watching a light test on the internet(on my iPad Pro), but after watching the first video and putting this in a vacuum, I'm a little surprised and disappointed. Some of the lower priced lights looked really good and some of the expensive and highly regarded lights looked BAD. I have seen some of these lights in-person and on my camera and know how they look "in the real world", like the Astra's and Dracast's, but treating this as your only source of data... The Arri Skypanels and L5 looked horrible along with some of the Cineo lights and Creamsource. The Westcotts looked good along with the Kino Select. The Kino Celeb was not impressive, oddly enough. I liked the Quasar tubes, too. But the biggest disappointment for me was the Hive 100-C, because I have two coming, and it did not look good in that test.

Again, lots of factors and variables to take into consideration in this test, including what you are watching it on. I found myself disagreeing with Timur on several lights that he liked that I thought did not render a good image.
 
Just looking at the graphs it has some far red unlike the LEDs

Im convinced that this lack of far red in LEDs makes for poor skin.

Imagine you have a deep red freckle.. well that is going to read as black under a light with no deep red hitting the subject, most unflattering.

(same reason tungsten is a wonderful source for skin)
 
Yes, a bit disappointed in how the Hive 100-C did in this test. Would have liked for the Digital Sputnik DS1 to have been included, but apparently they couldn't get a hold of one in time for the test.
 
(The cheap ones) They are all the same - blue hump drop nice roll from green to yellow and then drop off at red - seems like all the drivers are from the same factory - and they are ok - there were not any disaster zones here?
The pricey leftfield indies seem to need more consideration.
 
morgan_moore said:
20 second skim down the images. Hive led looks a bit dodgy, HMI and plasma win.
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Jon Miller from Hive has a note about the testing in the comments section. Search the page for his name. I don't know if his comments form a reasonable rebuttal to the NFS test, but offhand he appears to make some decent points.
 
I'm also very disappointed from this test regarding the Hive 100-C! just like Run&Gun here I bought two of them and this test makes me a little nervous about my investment in these leds. That Rayzr 7 though wasn't bad at all! I was about to pull the trigger on those R7 but decided to hold on a little bit and check some reviews before, from what i saw on the internet here and there many colleagues are quite happy with the R7...looks promising!
 
Jim Feeley said:
Jon Miller from Hive has a note about the testing in the comments section. Search the page for his name. I don't know if his comments form a reasonable rebuttal to the NFS test, but offhand he appears to make some decent points.
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I think it's worth putting Jon Miller from Hive's quote in this topic...

The Arri Skypanel scored low on their tests but is already proving to be a popular light among gaffers and DPs. As noted by Jon Miller below, with an RGB light you can dial in the color more so the test video may not have taken that into account when testing the lights. They say the Skypanel has a green tint but the Skypanel also has a dedicated knob for quickly dialing out green. I suppose if you just want things to be super simple (and if you're color blind) and only use the presets then you may not get the best results with RGB lights (unless the presets are accurate which it appears they are not), but if you're willing to dial in the color more accurately I'd imagine you'd get better results than what they got in the tests. A non-RGB light on the other hand, to correct you'd need to use gels and would have light loss as a result.

Jon Miller said:
Jon Miller here from Hive Lighting. So first just want to say we were very grateful to be included in the test, and we rarely comment on these tests as they are completely independent and for better or worse we want everyone to judge our products without undo influence from us.

But we are surprised by the results here, having said that I think the test sort of misses the point of what we hope we created with the 100-C. We aren't just a "white light" LED. The point of the 100-C is that there is no single white light setting. With the ability to fine tune every part of the color spectrum, you don't ever need to have any kind of distinct spike in yellow, or blue etc. In fact you can adjust the color temp and add points of blue or yellow, red or green etc. as you see fit both to your eye, your camera and your meter. The point is you have total control to correct to any skin tone and camera sensor. If you turned on your light and your camera and your light, found yourself getting this specific result and disliked it, a couple dial spins later and you can have totally different output.

As for the output level, we assume it was either dimmed, or through some lens and diffusion combination as that is completely different from our photometrics, both in house and independently tested.

We do have independently verified test results from Light Lab in Anaheim California we will put up on our website and Kickstarter.
Again we still think this was a cool test, we are glad to have been a part of it, and really appreciate the time and effort of NFS, Timur and everyone who worked on this, it just might not have been the best test for what our light does well

- Jon Miller, Hive Lighting
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For beauty campaigns filmed in studio I'd always push for tungstens but been very pleased with the skintones rendered by the SkyPanels.

All the Gaffers I know are huge fans of the lamps.
 
bill totolo said:
More reason to key faces with tungsten or HMI's.
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I "went back to" tungsten whenever possible and the situation allows, years ago. Some people just don't get it, I had someone ask me if I like tungsten so much, why not just light with 3200K LED's... *Sigh*...

I actually didn't buy the 100-C's with the intentions of using them for keys, though. But I will test them with my cameras and set-ups and see how they look to me, in the real world, in different situations and in different uses(including as a key).

But to me, tungsten is still king.
 
Bern Caughey said:
For beauty campaigns filmed in studio I'd always push for tungstens but been very pleased with the skintones rendered by the SkyPanels.

All the Gaffers I know are huge fans of the lamps.
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Really?

I don't have experience with the sky panels but have heard they're still green, as if they've placed output and RGB at the top of their list.

Another problem is you cannot double or triple up on your colours (please correct me if I'm wrong). I.e. a "deep blue" background for night exteriors. So you still may end up adding gels, which begins to go against its own philosophy as a gel eliminator. This may have changed or be a possible firmware update but it doesn't sound like it.

I think gaffers like the sky panels because they've added them to their lighting packages and they're seeing returns on their investments as DPs and productions request them more frequently. Plus, LEDs are super easy for them to use in the field. So I'd say quality of light isn't the reason why gaffers like them, but it's unimportant anyway.
 
rob norton said:
I don't have experience with the sky panels but have heard they're still green, as if they've placed output and RGB at the top of their list.
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I just don't understand the philosophy behind saying the Skypanel (or any RGB light, really) is too green when you can simply dial the green out with a dedicated knob in a few seconds. Perhaps someone could explain to me how the RGB capabilities and the plus and minus green capabilities of the Skypanel are insufficient to deal with the green issue?

Or is it just a matter of people ignoring those capabilities and saying the default preset is too green and they're too lazy to take a few seconds with the turn of a knob to correct it?
 
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I agree on the Rayzr 7, certainly up there with the best of the LEDS, however the one thing that strikes me from the quick look I've had, is how dead the Daylight reference image is, the patches, skin tones, shirts everything, it looks terrible. I would love to see these lights being tested as a fill in a daylight interior, rather than a single source studio setting.
 
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