Best LED on camera light

avr

avr

Well-known member
Hi I´m owner of a litepanel MICRO that I used in weddings. It´s a cool fixture but the light output is no enough for my purposes.
i´m looking a led (on camera) fixture with more power output. I saw the littlepanels mini PRo, Ikan iLED 150, Sony HVL-LBPA and some others

Someone knows this models (or others) and which is the most powergul led light?

thanks in advance.
 
Best LED

Best LED

Hello, and perhaps I can give you the right answer to your question. The best light really is the one that suits your purposes perfectly. It may not be the brightest or the nicest looking one, but one that has the output and quality of light and construction that was designed and made for your particular purpose. It is really confusing out there, as there are too many models that claim too much and deliver too less. Buying mistakes can be very costly in time, money and above all an assignment that has to be post corrected. I myself have videotaped well over 2500 weddings in my lifetime and I can only say this, lighting is paramount to a successful shoot and choose your equipment wisely. Now for some suggestions.Pick a light that has at least the luminosity output equivalent of a 100 watt halogen. I say at least because in led terminology that should equate to about 1700 to 2000 lumens. If the rating is not in lumens, then they might have the output in fc of footcandles. Formula 1 lux=.092 footcandles. So the 1700 lux (minimum suggested) is 156 fc. Now here's the tricky part. Whe LED light manufacturers rate their lumens or fc, it is usually at the native led color, usually 5600 or 6000, or 7000 K degree color temperature, which is really too blue for anything, So they supply color correcting amber filters to place in front of the leds to warm things up a little. Now the light is nice but the output got suddenly dimmer. OK. Now that 1700 lumen light just shot down to about 1400, not good. You may also see in the specifications that the horizontal coverage is 60 degrees or less, great for interviews or mid zoom range, but take a wide, very wide angle shot of a white wall and you will see that the edges are darker than the center. What do you do? You put the diffuser filter to spread the light a bit and what do you have? MORE DIMMING. So now that 1700 lux just became 1000 lux and is really useless over 15 feet unless you gain up to 6db or greater. For my money, I would get a led light that already has a nice neutral 4500K without any filtration and definitely with a dimmer. Horizontal coverage of at least 90 degrees without diffusers if possible. Wedding videography is very demanding on equipment so look for solid build and high output. The camera you use will dictate what powering options are available , but most pro broadcast systems use the p-tap connector and prosumer models will be good with either a belt pack or on light battery. Good high power units consume roughly 10 watts per 700 lumens or about 30 watts for a 100 watt halogen equivalent. So really the leds are roughly between 3-4 times more efficient than filaments.
So now you have an insight of what it's all about, go out and seek that perfect light.
 
For my money, the Zylight Z90 fits this bill perfectly.

It has daylight and tungsten presets, as well as the ability to dial in plus and minus green for fluorescent lighting as well.
 
I bought the Comer 1800 from Taky and as far as I'm concerned its hands down the best deal on the market. Lots of light, decent color rendition, well made + plus they even throw in 2 power tap adapters that cost an arm and a leg anywhere else. I really like this light. Zylight is nice but how much do you want to spend on a sungun?

Lenny Levy
 
I finally bought Comer 1800, great fixture, very well made and great output. very versatile too. I´ll check it on the land.
 
Comer 1800 is an awesome OB light, the dimmer is awesome and it runs for hours off just one of the batteries
 
I'm pretty happy with the Flolight Microbeam 256. I hadn't come across the Comer 1800 in my research before buying it, but it seems like a great light as far as output.
 
I checked out the Flolight Microbeam 256. it's 1321 lux at 3 feet (about 1 meter) in 5600K color temp. Comer 1800 is 1800 lux at 1 meter in 4500K color temp. To use 5600K indoor, a gel is needed. That will further decrease the overall light output.
 
How heavy is the Comer 1800? It looks like it would throw your balance off a little and be a little front heavy if you are doing hand held stuff?
 
I just measured it.

Comer 1800 - 15.7 oz
Comer 900 - 9.3 oz

NP-F970 Battery - 9.7 oz
NP-F770 Battery - 7 oz
 
So does anyone have beamshots on Walls to help us compare all these lights? I'm pretty tired of being the one to do so as I spent 6 years writing about lights for CPF.
Thanks
 
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