Christmas LEDs

J

JordanBlock

Well-known member
Anyone played at all with using LED christmas lights to put together a cheap LED light? Strings can be had very cheap after the holidays.
 
Most of them have a weird flicker to them, but thought about it. Let me know how it turns out if you decide to give it a go.
 
What's the colour temp of those? Most of the ones I've come across are very blue.

G.
 
I've heard of people rigging them up in a lite-panels type display by drilling lots of holes into a cheap sheet of masonite. It tends to be a very labour intesive way to get a very low wattage light. Take a 100-bulb string of those lights, bundle them up on the floor and see how much light they give off. Kinda disappointing. Cheap though!

White and coloured string lights are a great thing to have in your lighting kit though, to use as practical lights. You can also use them to cheat bokeh in a shallow-DOF closeup.
 
Best use of these I saw was some photog - maybe Clay Enos? - wrapping up a couple of strands and putting them around his lens, creating a low-power ringlight (must be used in conjunction with more powerful lights, of course), but the catchlight patterns in the subjects' eyes were INSANE! Supremely cool trick, if subtle.
 
I too have seen some holiday videos where LEDs are strobing.

It would seem to me that inexpensive holiday tungsten lights might be a better choice. In the US at Big Lots they have strings of inexpensive LED and tungsten lights in both white and mixed colors. New they are priced from $7 to $10, after Christmas they are often half price.

Terry Thomas
Atlanta
 
I bought a bunch of small led strands about 3' long, they run off two aa batteries, their great for creating depth for those that like the out of focus bokah look of light in the foreground or backround. They also work great for night car scenes, you can string them above or below the actors face, like from the sun visor or whatever. These don't seem to strobe, but some of the lights that do, you can sometimes change your shutter speed to get rid of or lessen it, depending how your shooting. These light I have are a bit blue, but you can deal with that by using a manual white balance.
 
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