DIY LED lights?

MyFilmPro

MyFilmPro

Active member
Hello all,

I was just wondering if there was anyone out there experimenting in a DIY LED light set up? I'm thinking of an on camera mounted one for events, but if that works out I'll expand to a full light set up for the indy projects I have on the go.

Any input would be great, or just let me know that you're interested and I'll keep you posted on my progress.
 
I've messed around with them a little - I've made a couple of on-camera ones that kind of do the job acceptably. I've no immediate intentions of throwing any more money at this stuff as it'd most likely be just as cheap to go out and get a vidled (if they ever get back in production again :Drogar-BlackEye(DBG ) but who knows... I may give it another shot


I don't have any idea about your level of experience with LED lighting, and I'm by no means an expert either But, based on my limited experiences, this is what I've deduced over the last 6 months or so of messing around - you may find some use out of it :)

The hardest thing for me was to find LED's with an accurate (and useable) colour - most "white" LED's are anything but white - you end up with colour temps from between 5600-9000K for "cool white" and 3000-4500k for "warm white"
Unless you get something that has a much tighter range, you'll find your footage will have a different coloured hotspot from any surrounding light.

Also, most regular "white" 5mm LED's that you buy at an electronics store are generally rubbish.
They have a narrow beam spread (in order to keep the intensity high) and are usually what is referred to as a "single-chip" design (meaning that there is only one light emitter per LED)
In order to get the most light output, multi-chip LED's are the best bet - these do cost more and may need to be heat-sinked to prolong their life

Personally, the best I've managed to try are luxeon LED's - they aren't cheap though :(
Lamina Ceramics (who make the panels which they use in Zylights) are supposed to be good too - unfortunately they were too pricy for me to try out.

Both of these types are best used with a constant current driver board (which powers the LED/s with a constant current that is independant of voltage (7.2-18V = no problem)

Then there's the tricky bit.... getting the LED light in a housing that looks the part! It's got to be durable, maybe waterproof and look like it's a pro accessory (especially important if you are doing paid work) That's not as easy as you'd think.

I'm keen to see how you get on with this though - make sure that you post some pics/worklog!
 
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I got some of the edison base 120V cheapo LED lights on ebay that are pretty much crap. One of them blew up on a shoot the other day, and the color-temp is pretty wacky. I built an array of 12 of the 30W output flood lights and it works okay, but if I had to do it all over again, I would've gotten a used tungsten light.

I quickly realized that you need a whole bunch of these things to get any significant light output. It starts getting very $$$. For a light output equal to a 1000w tungsten, it was gonna be around $500 in LEDs alone. AND there's no beam control.

If you made a couple dozen units, you could get a circuit board printed that would ease in the construction a LOT, because in order to be really efficient, each LED would have its own resistor.

I also bought a battery powered stick LED "work light" that is sometimes handy for little highlights or closup shots with diffusion on them, but these are designed using one resistor for the whole circuit, so the battery doesn't last long.
Greatest thing is that they run cool, so summer shooting with the windows closed is a lot less sweaty.
 
The LED's are Cree. They are more expensive than others but they are really worth it.
They are powered by 12 volt with a simple cigerette lighter plug. The 11 light has a switch to turn on either 6 lights or all 11. The on camera (5) has a switch for either 1 or all 5.
Gary
 
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I started fooling around with these lights after working with the new tactical LED flashlights. I have to admit I have purchased and returned many of the flat panel LEDs they have no throw and a lot of waste. The Crees that I used are High powered, 5600k LEds that are mounted in a reflector with a 30 degree beam. You get the best throw and if needed use a diffuser to soften the intense light for up close work.
As far as output, that's such a tough thing to explain using LUX, Lumens or Candlepower. The best way is in actual use. I recently shot a scene using flouresents and the LED as a hair light. The 11 bulb fixture was at 10 feet and I could only use 6 of the 11 bulbs that's a pretty potent.
Thanks for the comment about selling these but I make stuff that I need and keep refining it till it becomes part of my lighting kit, besides it's so simple to make these lgihts you could do it with just a few hours of work.
Gary
 
mcgeedigital said:
I have the cree upgrade to my surefire flashlights...they are ridiculously bright!
Click to expand...

How's the CRI though? Thats the tough thing with LEDs. The best way to tell (without having an expensive integrating sphere tester), is to take a McBeth color checker and shoot some video of it (after white balance) at noon on a clear day outside in the sunlight. Then, take the same color checker inside, in a completely controlled, dark room and turn the LEDs on and toward the color checker and shoot some more video (after white balance again). Then compare the two color charts for consistency.

I've been looking at these high wattage LEDs for our 2nd high strength panel and it looks like the 1w units are the best for lumens per watt output so using more of them but hopefully getting more efficiency too. Trying to weigh the benefits of using a brand name like Cree vs. a no-name, less expensive one.

CRI seems to be a real tough thing for them to get right. Lumens per watt is also something to watch for. Typically a 1w LED will be something like 40 to 70 lumens and a 3w will be maybe 110, so its unfortunately not 3 times or over what you would expect in the difference between the 1w and 3w. I would hope if a 1 watt was 60 lumen output that a 3w would be 180 lumen or over but they just can't do it for some reason (yet).
 
Gary said:
I started fooling around with these lights after working with the new tactical LED flashlights. I have to admit I have purchased and returned many of the flat panel LEDs they have no throw and a lot of waste. The Crees that I used are High powered, 5600k LEds that are mounted in a reflector with a 30 degree beam. You get the best throw and if needed use a diffuser to soften the intense light for up close work.
As far as output, that's such a tough thing to explain using LUX, Lumens or Candlepower. The best way is in actual use. I recently shot a scene using flouresents and the LED as a hair light. The 11 bulb fixture was at 10 feet and I could only use 6 of the 11 bulbs that's a pretty potent.
Thanks for the comment about selling these but I make stuff that I need and keep refining it till it becomes part of my lighting kit, besides it's so simple to make these lgihts you could do it with just a few hours of work.
Gary
Click to expand...

I wonder if you couldn't have gotten even better throw from a 15 to 20 degree version?
 
The project box is from Radio Shack but the bulbs are not.
I can't find the spec sheet right now but one of the reasons I went with these is because the CRI is about 85.
I have tried beam spreads from 80 to 15, the 15 definately throws better but it's pretty difficult to control up close, even with at diffuser.
These are 1 watt crees and put out 110 Lumens, as macgeedigital stated the output is remarkable.
Gary
 
Not exactly compact but the LR6 looks interesting. Dimmable with a CRI of 92. I have no clue what it costs.
 
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