DIY ring light rip-off

CB_Radio said:
I've seen them, or some other company selling the camping ring-light for big bucks, defend themselves on forums before. Maybe it was dvinfo, but they claim that while their light may appear to be the same as the 3-dollar light, it's actually different and that they've replaced all the leds with high powered color corrected ones.

Is this true? I don't know, but these camping lights have been around for a while and the general reaction is the same as yours.
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Looking at the video they made, no corrected LEDS, but they claim 5600K leds on this Flolight. It looks cold and blue-isch to me. If they used other leds like ultra bright white 5mm , they cost $1 pcs.
 
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I used them on a shoot today. They DO NOT white balance well. But it is workable for certain projects. I will post some footage tomorrow. They kind of look greyish. Great for 2 bucks.
 
I bought 4 of the camping UFOs (slightly different design with 60 LEDs.
Got them today. Wow! Real bright an close to 5500k.

But after 5 minutes they start smelling like burned plastic and turnd off. All 4 of them.

I looked into it and found that the conductor board and all the bits on it is literaly molten.

Frank
 
I bought 10 of the 24-led versions of these last summer from a national chain called Poundland, here in the U.K. and yep. they were only £1 each!
It is a pretty throw away price, so I thought: why not?
I light for low/no budget drama mostly, and In My view, they can only really be justified for use as a low key source in or behind props etc, with a gel taped over them to kill the give-away look of the cold/bluey leds.
You do have to keep an eye on them though because they draw a surprising amount of current - did'nt have to meter 'em - the battery (4 x AA's) were getting HOT after only a few minutes. Don't even think of trying rechargeable cells, at 1.2volts weird things happen to the leds. - no current-limiting at this price!
The other issue with them is the leds are very hit-and-miss on both colour uniformaty and reliability, so unless pressed for a special effect, (eg front-axial projection) I certainly wouldnt be using them as a camera ring-light.
These are marketed as camping/table parasol lights, so I guess it's a case of 'horses for courses' - can't beat the price though... untill I see 'em in 98p-land!
 
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