CoolLights Questions

J

jjneff

Active member
Putting together a light kit this year and am 99% sure of going with Coollights. I have already steered a hospital to them. Now for my questions. Mixing the 150 CDM with the LED's and if so what should I mix with the the 150 CDM? I am a fulltime stock video producer for Getty Images so I shoot in studio and on location all the time. I also do corporate video as well. I have an upstairs studio so I don't want to much heat. I do want something strong enough to use with cookies to light patterns on walls. I currently use fluoro lights but they are cheap and barley do the job. I would like a 3 light kit. I am not worried about overpowering full daylight as I just use bounce and diffusion for those situations. would like to have 3 lights to start. Dose the 150 CDM get as hot as a 650 tungsten? Is five minutes correct to warm-up and cool down? Dose it have a dimmer and can you focus it into a spot? Is Fluoro a better mix then LED with the 150? Thanks for the help all I really appreciate all the knowledge here!







http://www.istockphoto.com/jjneff
 
I can take a shot at a few of these questions based on owning a Cool Lights 150 CDM fresnel and a few other LEDs and flos.

The CDM fresnel is certainly bright enough to use for tasks like projecting cookie images on walls and such. Yes, the warmup time is about five minutes until it stops changing color. The manual says to allow five minutes to cool before restriking, so I just follow that recommendation. It doesn't get anywhere near as hot as a 650 watt tungsten fresnel, but produces similar light output. After all, it's a 150 watt unit. Still, you wouldn't want to put your hand right on the top of the unit while it's running; it gets pretty warm there, but cools off much quicker than a traditional tungsten light. The talent (and whoever is paying the bill for your power and air conditioning) can certainly appreciate that there is a lot less heat when working under these lights. There is no dimmer; you need to use scrims, focus setting and distance to the subject to adjust the level. Like any fresnel, it can be focused from flood to spot over about a 5:1 range with the big knob on the back.

I find that the CDM color matches well with daylight fluorescent lights without special effort. The LEDs I have look green if they're mixed in with the CDM and fluorescents, but a 1/2 minus green gel on each of the LED units can fix that OK.

I bought my one CDM 150 to try out the technology and am definitely planning to add one or two more as soon as finances allow. I think they're great lights for the money.

Hope this helps.

- Greg
 
The CDM tech is great stuff. I'd also consider some biax flos, cool lights or otherwise, for soft light. LEDs still seem to me more practical when you need battery power, what with the high cost and color issues, etc. Biax flos are getting very cheap and kick out some nice light.

As for color matching anything - you can do a test in an hour or so. Shoot some raw DSLR stills of a (actual photographer's) gray card under your various lights. Open them in photoshop and eyedropper them, and check the CMYK values in the info pallete. (I know RGB is "video" color, but CMYK expresses color closer to how we "think" of color, being additive). Look for even values in C, M and Y. If, say, your C and Y (cyan and yellow) reading is 10-20% higher than M (magenta), you know you need some minus green. Re-shoot with 1/8, 1/4, wheatever minus green, re check, and make a note of what gets you close.

And BAM - you're an expert on your gear, and you've tested your own stuff vs. reading "ahhh, maybe try a red gel??" on a forum. It may not be scientifically accurate to within .000192% of true daylight, but it will tell you a LOT about your lights.
 
Good info Michael thanks, the only main concern I have with biax flos is how fast the light falls off. When I am shooing in hospital settings my lights are at times 10-15 feet away . LEDs seem to have a much greater throw. I do care about quality of light, if tungsten was not so hot I would use it because I love the quality of light it produces. I do need cooler lights for my studio.
 
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