Anyone use an LED Flashlight?

A

andrew00

Well-known member
...Or torch as we call it in the UK hehe.

I find myself wanting to use a flashlight sometimes to shine on the talent's face, preferably something that can be dimmed, to simply brighten their face a touch. It's also use for 'convergence' related shoots when I'm shooting stills in natural light but want the face to stand out a little.

I was wondering if anyone used one and had any luck? I say w/LED but if there happens to be a pro-film regular torch to recommend that'd be useful too.

I mean, I can just get any old flashlight but something film friendly in the colour balance etc would be useful.

I've used a LED top mount light before but they're non directional and have very little thrown so aren't the most useful in this case. I'm more talking about if I'm 10 feet away.
 
Be carefull using LED lighting that isn't meant for video production. Aside from color temparature not matching perfectly, many LED lights are on a different frequency then camera shutter speeds can match resulting in strobing.
 
egproductions said:
Be carefull using LED lighting that isn't meant for video production. Aside from color temparature not matching perfectly, many LED lights are on a different frequency then camera shutter speeds can match resulting in strobing.
Click to expand...

yup, I have seen it many times when trying to use leds for nuance or even ambient light. It mostly occurs in strips of light, like led christmas lights and such. A simple flash light might do the trick, but you will need to diffuse it. try a piece of tissue paper in front o it. they really dont give off to much heat, so that would probably work.
 
I can think of three major problems with using a flashlight:

1) The beam is pretty narrow relative to the coverage from a video lens;
2) In designing a flashlight, almost no effort is given to making the intensity of the light even across the beam; they have really pronounced hot and dim spots, which also can vary a lot depending on the spot/flood setting of the light;
3) With LED lights, color temperature and rendering accuracy are completely unknown and, again, unaccounted for in the design. Most of the LED flashlights I've seen look very blue to my eyes, but I have no idea how that would render on camera.

You could probably overcome the first two problems by using a lot of diffusion on the light, but that would reduce the brightness a lot and might make it much less effective as an "obie" or catchlight for the eyes, or make it too dim to be of any use outdoors. As to the color, if there's little or no output in a particular part of the spectrum (say red), nothing you can do with filters is going to add it back. A traditional tungsten-bulb flashlight would probably render colors better, but they're much less efficient, and I wouldn't imagine nearly bright enough to use outdoors (where you'd need to add a CTB or similar gel).

All in all, I've gotta say it would probably be a lot more successful to just use a purpose-designed video light.

- Greg
 
Absolutely. Led flashlight makers in general are into making more powerful units and at a smaller form factor as the led technology advances. In order to gain the most lumens from a flashlight, they use the highest output leds, usually bluish, at high 5600+ Kelvin degrees to attain their goals. Rarely you would see a led flashlight having a 3200K or neutral 4000Kish rendition, as the lumen per watt value drops dramatically with lower color temperatures. Another issue is the led driver in the flashlights that control the led's current and to offer the multi mode functions ( hi-med-low-SOS-strobe). Fine for flashlights.Those drivers most likely use the PWM or pulse width modulation to control the brightness function and the feed current to the led(s). The PWM driver circuitry is really the problem when using it in any type of led light for video use. Many have reported the banding effect at higher shutter speeds with no remedy in post. Low priced video led units as well as certain flashlights do use that type and cases were also mentioned about a high pitched whinning noise ( barely audible) being picked up by the cam mic. That I would imagine as being the inductor frequency interacting with capacitors in the economy led driver board. I have once seen a videographer use a high powered led flashlight for facial daytime fill at distances of around 10 ft. Longer distances will have no effect at all, as the led intensity will greatly diminish. Too bad there is not a led flashlight that has a high output ,dimmer, variable color, variable beam,high CRI, and a non-PWM circuit. Then it would not really be a flashlight but an ideal video light.
 
I have this video. The team has their own videographer duck taping a flash light (torch) on top of the camera. It's quite a scene.

 
On the last feature film I worked on I used several inexpensive 9-LED flashlights for kickers, general fill and special effects (with gels over the faces). Here in the US I purchase these flashlights at Big Lots stores two in a package for $5 and that includes batteries. Since much of the production was at night on the streets of Atlanta I gave one of the flashlights to key crew members for their safety then at times "borrowed" them back if I needed them for a shot.

Yes, to my eyes, they do seem a bit blue. But, in this kind of usage I do not worry about the color balance.

One use of the LED flashlights saved the production hundreds of dollars. The script called for two of the actors to drive up to a police road block. I told the director we could shoot the scene without hiring any real police officers and their vehicles. All I needed to do was film the actors in their car while the crew wiggled their flashlights which had red and blue gels over their lenses. The movement of the colored lights over the faces of the actors looked exactly like the characters had been stopped by a police road block. It's like radio - it's what happens in the minds of the customers that does the trick.

BTW, since the gels made the light output dimmer I just doubled up on the LED flashlights!

Terry Thomas
Atlanta
 
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not all led flash lights are terrible,z96 is a great one. It's a cheap light with good brightness and warmth, even better than other expensive lights.
 
The clip in post #6 perfectly illustrates the *problem* with the videographer's LED flashlight: it's obviously a much higher color temperature than the other indoor lighting in the location. So it looks bluish, and is highly distracting when it shines on the dancers (or anything else). It's probably a lot like an LED flashlight I have, that appears to be about 8000 Kelvin, which is high even compared to outdoor light.

So this videographer is using an outdoor (or perhaps even higher K) light for an indoor shoot, which is a classic no-no. Indoor lights should be about 3200K. There are LEDs spec'd for that, but probably not too many that are found in flashlights (if any). They produce less total light, so they wouldn't be likely choices...

The videographer could have fixed the problem by putting an appropriate amount of CTO (orange) gel in front of the light, although it would have reduced the amount of illumination.
 
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egproductions said:
Be carefull using LED lighting that isn't meant for video production. Aside from color temparature not matching perfectly, many LED lights are on a different frequency then camera shutter speeds can match resulting in strobing.
Click to expand...

OK about the LED tint being different from the main light, but what are you talking about LED light frequency? They are DC, not AC as fluorescents.

Going back to the flashlights, they might be interesting as eye lights, or as a fill (diffused) if no other light is present. You can rubber band several flashlights and duct-tape them to the camera handle, and they can work quite well as a doc location light.
 
Norman99 said:
Another issue is the led driver in the flashlights that control the led's current and to offer the multi mode functions ( hi-med-low-SOS-strobe). Fine for flashlights.Those drivers most likely use the PWM or pulse width modulation to control the brightness function and the feed current to the led(s). The PWM driver circuitry is really the problem when using it in any type of led light for video use. Many have reported the banding effect at higher shutter speeds with no remedy in post. Low priced video led units as well as certain flashlights do use that type and cases were also mentioned about a high pitched whinning noise ( barely audible) being picked up by the cam mic. That I would imagine as being the inductor frequency interacting with capacitors in the economy led driver board. I have once seen a videographer use a high powered led flashlight for facial daytime fill at distances of around 10 ft. Longer distances will have no effect at all, as the led intensity will greatly diminish. Too bad there is not a led flashlight that has a high output ,dimmer, variable color, variable beam,high CRI, and a non-PWM circuit. Then it would not really be a flashlight but an ideal video light.
Click to expand...

If the light unit has any kind of DC-DC supply inside, to boost voltage, it's certainly not good for pro video work.
 
I'd be interested to test out the Coast LED x21 which the above photographer used. His shutter/ISO etc are always within a normal range. If you look at his behind the scenes that thing is super bright. Its also 271 bucks.
 
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