Coollights LED

Construction seems robust but I'm concerned there is no glass/plastic to protect the LED bulbs from getting damaged. I may look into sliding a sheet of acrylic plastic into the barndoor frame.

If these LEDs are anything like the ones that are used in the VidLED units, they should be very tough. There's a video clip showing a VidLED light being tossed against a wall without any failures.

An LED is solid resin, not hollow like a typical incandescent lamp. The failure point would be the leads where they're soldered into the circuit board.
 
Construction seems robust but I'm concerned there is no glass/plastic to protect the LED bulbs from getting damaged. I may look into sliding a sheet of acrylic plastic into the barndoor frame.
Not sure if that affects ventilation of the led's but Richard will tell us.
Also what happens while running on battery and the power cable is plugged in? does the DC power supply overide the batt or does it blow up?

Thanks for your comments monkeyking. On the protection for the LEDs it will seal in a bit more heat to have a plastic protection panel. I thought it was good to leave it open since we drive the LEDs pretty well to get the output we get.

On the power supply, we've seen that while the LED panel and innards are very strong, the power supply itself could be damaged if plugged in at the same time as the battery. So, I would definitely use one or the other never both at the same time which is not necessary anyway.
 
Just finished my first day of interviews. The LED600 held up very well. It had a layer of 1/2 cto and 216 diffusion and I still only had it running on 1 or 2 banks about 6' away from our subjects as a fill light. Diva 400 was the key. As a test, I was running it off an AB Dionic 90 which lasted all day and then some . very impressive. Not sure how long batt would have run with all banks up, but that would have been way too bright for my needs. Good to know that I can gel down the daylight LED for tungsten shooting and still have plenty of footcandles. I liked that I could switch banks on/off without using the dimmer knob which probably affects color temp when dialing down.
I was pleased that I never had to break out my big heavy AntonBauer Hytron 140's (5lbs). The smaller/lighter Dionic 90's worked fine. At one point we were going to mount the LED onto the camera and use as an obie light but it created a doulble eyelight that the director from ICT found distracting. We already had one eyelight from the Diva. It's good to know that the LED is pretty lightweight without attached battery and barndoors.

I'll have to try it out as a key light next week. 2 or 3 of these would make a compact interview lighting kit.

Thanks Richard.
 
Stills? Stills? Come on, don't be a tease!

Dan

Just finished my first day of interviews. The LED600 held up very well. It had a layer of 1/2 cto and 216 diffusion and I still only had it running on 1 or 2 banks about 6' away from our subjects as a fill light. Diva 400 was the key. As a test, I was running it off an AB Dionic 90 which lasted all day and then some . very impressive. Not sure how long batt would have run with all banks up, but that would have been way too bright for my needs. Good to know that I can gel down the daylight LED for tungsten shooting and still have plenty of footcandles. I liked that I could switch banks on/off without using the dimmer knob which probably affects color temp when dialing down.
I was pleased that I never had to break out my big heavy AntonBauer Hytron 140's (5lbs). The smaller/lighter Dionic 90's worked fine. At one point we were going to mount the LED onto the camera and use as an obie light but it created a doulble eyelight that the director from ICT found distracting. We already had one eyelight from the Diva. It's good to know that the LED is pretty lightweight without attached battery and barndoors.

I'll have to try it out as a key light next week. 2 or 3 of these would make a compact interview lighting kit.

Thanks Richard.
 
I tried experimenting to get a "poor man's softbox" effect and bought 1/2 yard of white felt at the local Walmart. I draped it over the barndoors on my led600 spot and it actually isn't bad as a softbox effect for only about $4.
 
Nice guerilla style topcat.

I am doing a shoot in a glass conference room next week. The entire wall to the outside is glass. Guess what you get when you hang the right kind of bedsheet in front of the glass? A softbox the size of a king size bed! Cool! I love guerilla style. Granted, not very controllable but it is a group of about 10 people so how much flagging and control could you have as they move around the scene anyway?

Dan
 
OK,
Here is a photo with Daylight Flood LED 600 as Obie light (OB Light = On Board Light). Powered by
AB Dionic 90 battery. All LED banks are on but dimmed to the minimum setting.

chris

1235931538.jpg


Rear view:

1235932037.jpg
 
Last edited:
Wow Chris, now you make me wanna get ahold of one of these babies just to get a nice huge OB that can transform into a fill light! :-)

The CL-LED600 really seems like it's worth its price tag!
 
Just got mine in, (1 spot and 2 floods) with AB mounts.

These things are BRIGHT AS HELL! :)

I am going to try and use them on a teleprompter shoot with Gen. Colin Powell tomorrow.
 
Here are some pics from a shoot today where the only light I used was a CoolLights 600 LEd with 1/8 minus green, 1/2 cto and a frost:

1237075555.jpg


1237075538.jpg


1237075522.jpg


And to show you just how much light these put out, here is a shot of my B camera guy with no light:

1237075506.jpg


With light:

1237075483.jpg
 
Looks great. I assume you chose 1/2 CTO to blend in with some (maybe 4000Kish) commercial flo lighting. 3/4 CTO should bring all the way down to 3200K.

I think a lot of people will end up just holding the fixture like that. Its not very heavy at all, even with a battery on it. I've done it myself for a while--good endurance exercise.
 
Yeah, I bought the 5/8 to junior pin adapter so that it would give him a good handle.

The Dionic 90 battery powered that beast ALL DAY.
 
Back
Top