DIY Ring Light from LED Camp Light?

Z

zns72

Active member
I have been trying to find a thread that was posted a while back about someone who built a DIY Ring Light from one of those LED Camp lights. Does anyone happen to have those instructions?
 
oh..so that's how it works.

oh..so that's how it works.

Actually, I already have the light. I couldn't remember how he attached it to his hot shoe. Whether it was a homemade L bracket or hot shoe mount he had salvaged.
 
for $12 including shipping - it's not a bad deal for a light, however it's not an ideal camera light. It's VERY blue, so you'll want CTO on it to bring it even down to daylight, and by that time, you'll lose probably half the output of the light. My understanding is the FloLights gang (who sell this light for $150) have replace the LEDs to equal output and better quality ones. If it were me, I'd opt for either a cheaper, warmer on cam light or look at the VidLED www.vidled.com, if you're needing an on camera light that will be around for a good long time
 
I've been tempted to build my own led light, but I can't seem to find any online store that lists the color temp of the leds they sell. Is it related to the mcd value?

I found this store on ebay that sells 100 leds (13000 mcd) for only $10 shipped, and includes free resistors too.
 
MCD is just luminous intensity or the amount of light its putting out. Lack of specs is the problem with a lot of places that sell LEDs. But most of the market for LEDs doesn't care about color temperature or CRI. It's not until you get into photographic / film / video lighting that we care. White, yellow, red, etc. is good enough for most of the other applications out there. They just go by color, not the precise color temperature. You really have to find a place that understands the value of communicating what the true color temp and cri are before you should buy some.
 
Hi all. Richard is spot on about issues getting off the shelf LED lights and modding them. Most all "White" LEDS that you get from applications like camp lights, flashlights, etc. will be very blue around 8000k to even 10000k. If anyone is feeling particularly adventurous you can by appropriate colored discreet LEDs and make an array. Here is one link to a pretty decent lamp:

http://www.lc-led.com/View/itemNumber/118
 
I'm really just kind of curious. In which situations is an "LED Ring" really useful? I mean; how often would you actually want to light up your subject directly from the front, with a light attached to the cam? Won't you just get that crappy flash effect?
 
Thanks for the info Richard and Bob, and nice links Bob and Trezpasser.

It seems to me that it is better, and cheaper, to buy the 8000k-10000k leds and then gel them down to ~5500k because the brightness of the bluer ones is so much greater than the 5500k ones (13,000 mcd ungelled vs. 2,500 mcd). They also draw less electricity (20mA vs 30mA).
 
Just an observation, I made three lights initially, warm (3200k), neutral (5500k), cool (8000k). For a while I was doing a lot of filming in industrial settings where the available light was very yellow and I tended to use the cooler unit (8000k) much more. That said for all my regular shooting I pretty much go for the neutral (around 5500k). As for using a gel on the cooler lights, they ended not as bright as the neutral light without the gel. I don't remember what I had to use to bring them to a neutral state but it was pretty substantial. Since making the first three units all the LED lights that I have made are around 5500k. One other thought to throw out there, I added red, green and blue LEDs to the array with independent on/off and potentiometers to be able to "color" the light. I never use the colored LEDS for direct lighting but it has been extremely helpful with other lighting techniques. Just some food for thought.
 
Bob Hill said:
As for using a gel on the cooler lights, they ended not as bright as the neutral light without the gel.
Click to expand...
I'm surprised by that. At vidled's page, he shows a 1/2 CTO gel on his 8000k light bringing the brightness down only by 1/6. He doesn't say what the mcd rating of his cool leds is, so a straight comparison is impossible, and I don't understand the mcd scale, so 13,000 mcd may not be 5 times brighter than 2,500 mcd.

I guess the thing to do would be to get some 1/4 CTO gel and do some testing. Anybody know of a good place to buy gels in San Diego?
 
JMC,

I don't know if you can compare the units that I built to the excellent ones that Vidled produce. The difference in brightness between my neutral and cool lights wasn't that great to begin with and is due to my choice of quality LEDS available at the time I built the units. As with everything, what you get for output is going to depend on the components you use.
 
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