FloLight LED500 Light Review

[Kelly Olsen]

Wow, sounds like my idea of the mixed 3200K / 5600K was a bust. Maybe we won't waste time on that then.

I don't think the idea was "a bust" at all. I just think you have the advantage of having a free product focus group here and the ability to get feedback from what consumers think would work for them based on their needs.

The idea of a LED light with two color temps worked for me because of the ease of going bi-color until I was told that I'd have to have half the light output to get that feature.

It is still a good idea, but between the two options we are giving you feedback that the higher light output is more important.

I still shoot with 3200K lights so the idea was appealing, but based on your information I was able to decide that I would prefer to gel and have a higher output and I'm happy that you gave me the opportunity to let you know.

 

[Gary]

Yep, before I built my LED's I experiemnted with the CFL's in my Fotodioz fixture. Even though I had 5 Daylights and 4 3200's I never used the 3200's. I recently replaced all to daylight and have a CTO filter if I ever need it. Did the same with the LED panel. More light when you need it is definately better
Gary

 

[Cool Lights]

Yes focus groups are invaluable. So while we are at it, now is the time to talk about any other features that would be interesting. Considering that this will be a hard focused type LED panel will we want mirrors on the barndoors still? I think mirrors work better as intensifiers for softlights but I'm not sure they'll be considered effective on a more focused beam LED panel.

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

I think a stainless steel-type of material on the inside of the barn doors would be great.

Some other things. Having used, and loved the Cool lights flos, please allow some way for the barn doors to remain securely shut. Velcro, a latch something.

Also, if the new LEDs had some kind of filter clips inside permanently attached to the lights, that would be very useful as well.

 

[MattinSTL]

Wow, sounds like my idea of the mixed 3200K / 5600K was a bust. Maybe we won't waste time on that then. To answer a previous inquiry in here, I have never seen an LED which can change color temperature so they are fairly rare and not easy at all to find. Yes, that would be ideal, then you can just have all 512 (or however many) LEDs dedicated to whichever color you choose but its just not that simple to find one LED that can do it all.

I think the problem is that LEDs are "chipped"... look through the front of the led lens (that's what you're looking at and seeing as the plastic bubble that makes up the body of the led, save for the newest gen that have separate lenses)... looking down into the LED you see the fine wires going into the center portion of the led, well, that is where the light "happens"... and the more the LED is chipped (triple-chipped) etc. the more light you get when the led is appropriately driven. The problem with color changing leds is that the pie must still be divided into the max number of slices per the amount the led is chipped... BUT... that's not to say that you can't end up with a median temp of something like 4100k or something and have the entire fixture pumping at full output and WB to that. It would just be the bitter pill of accepting that at the extremes of 3200k and 5600k that you'd be limited... which is why I agree with the other posters that you should probably just go for a straight 5600k solution.

As long as we're dreaming though, can you imagine in the future an LED that can not only change color temperature but can also change beam / spot angle electronically as well. That would be incredible to be able to do that with one LED. To be able to change the beam as well from a very small spot to a wide one.

I think that for larger leds this may be possible because all you'd really need to add is a secondary lens... like a zoom lens uses to achieve 10x zoom in one body, but to do it electronically, w/o a mechanical system... would be some pretty tough physics. The led isn't really that much different from a normal "analog" light bulb... the difference is that instead of a filament, there's an electron gap... and it's basically static electricity that we see as the light... or more properly a photon discharge from electron transfer between polarized surfaces... which is why the light pattern is controlled by the acrylic ball in which it happens... the front of which is the lens.

Someone mentioned my carrying the Lishuai panel for $200. I can't do it as theres already a lot of cost in it direct from Lishuai. I really need to manufacture this using my resources to control the costs better. We'll know more in about 5 days.

We can do this its just a question of time as always. We all know how projects can take much longer than you thought in the beginning especially when there are teams involved and each team has other stuff to work on as well.

Good luck in the development of this. On the one hand I'm jealous that you are where you are because of the resources around you, but on the other I know that it's still a lot of work to push this through and make it happen. If you can come up with something like the Flolight 500 and be close to $200 I think you'd really be on to something. While it's possible on paper, it would be scary to then offer warranties and other "premium" services that a normal retailer offers... because I don't see how you'd have any margins left. Flolight is making a good profit on those, so I doubt the price will go up from the introductory price... but I also understand their pricing because of all the incidentals of running a business... so again... good luck. If you can get something like this near $200 and actually keep the price near that point I think you'd sell a couple thousand of 'em.

 

[Mike@AF]

I'd like to see them with the metal reflectors. It would be nice if the reflectors were removable from the barn doors via some type of velcro or clip.

Definitely would be nice to have gel clips built into the light so easily add filters and diffusion. This might be more expensive, but it could be useful to have some type of sliding holder for gels. Sort of like scrims, but they would just be a metal frame you install the gel on then slide the frame with the gel into the light. If multiple frames were available for purchase you could have ready-made fillters at your disposal and quickly be able to alter the lighting.

These LED's will be dimmable correct? And they'll hold the same temp at every level they're set at? If not, then the bank switches such as the FloLights LED500 would be nice.

A battery mount would be nice too. That way the light can be placed anywhere, even hung on a wall or from the ceiling without worrying about a power cord.

That's all I have for ideas right now. I'll be looking forward to your lights. I'll probably have to order 2 or 3 LED500's in the meantime, but then I'm still good for at least 2 of yours when they're ready.

 

[floop]

my wish...

my wish...

I was all set to order a buncha lights from richard when i saw the flolight500. Its not quite there, but made me think that tungsten and flo's days are numbered. I've decided the next lights I buy will be LED, i'm just waiting on the technology and price to catch up to my desires.

This is my wishlist for a "must have" led fixtures:

1. daylight
2. as bright as possible
3. i'd pay the $500 for a bigger fixture that was crazy-bright.
4. I want shiny barndoors where there is a hinge on the tip of the doors and you have the option of folding out the reflected faces to make double length barndoors (that are black on the inside. This would allow maximum light reflection or maximum spill control from one fixture. (i always want one or the other, not both.)
5.make the back of the fixture extra deep and include a cavity with three filter frames inside that can easily/quickly velcro in the fixture. (i assume velcro is ok with these low heat light.) This would allow you to quickly pop on diffusion/gel as needed. (and have your three favorites with you at all times.)
6. i'd love it if the fixture/frame was just under 12x12 so you could use the inexpensive gel samplers. (again, i'm assuming heat isnt an issue and you can gel 1/2" from the bulbs)
7. My dream fixture would fold up to be its own case. I vote put a pop-off case front and back to hold filters and mask/protect the lollypop during transit. In theory LEDs are super durable. Make the rest of the case live up to it. None of this "the barn doors basically close" thing. I want to be able to snap it all together and pitch it in a bag/the truck. Ooh, put some clips around the lollypop on back so you can coil up your power cord too and have that also inside the "case".
8. 12v plug of some kind.
9. (as long as we are dreaming...) the ability to connect multiple fixtures together at the edges to make one larger light. Need a huge/bright source? Snap 9 of these together and make one megaLED light. (easier than making lots of different models too)
10. i vote you make these as hard a light source as possible. Its easy to diffuse a light. Its hard the other way around.
11. dimmable, please
12. while we are dreaming... a retractable eggcrate that fits around each led. using a knob you can adjust from full retraction (having no affect) to a full inch deep eggcrate, giving extreme spill control.
13. One of those mondo LEDs in the middle, so you can kick on some serious power when needed.

thats my wish. probably not very useful, but there it is.

 

[Cool Lights]

Glad that MattinStl joined in. We have a temporary waiting period on trying to make our 250w and 400w CDM fresnels happen while we find a suitable bulb, so I thought this would be a good time to start working on the LED projects.

Yes LEDs are "chipped" is a good way to put it. I discovered how they do the 100w and 300w LEDs I have seen recently. They basically just make a 10 x 10 matrix of 1w LED chips bonded to a ceramic and metal substrate. For the 300w one they use 3w LED chips instead. If you look at this picture of the 100w LED you can see the matrix:

They can use any chip they like in there from an advanced high cri / high lumen per watt model to something thats barely 50% better than tungsten and terrible CRI.

Its not terribly practical to use these for anything but street lights at the moment because of the need for such a huge heat sink and the inability to put a great mirror around it.

I saw the 30w version of this in a relatively small spot type fixture and touched the heat sink area and were amazed how uncomfortably hot it was to the point you could not leave your hand on there. And it was very heavy too due to the heat sink and other parts of the fixture. Imagine now the 100w or 300w version and how heavy and hot we would think it was. In a street light no one would care about weight or temperature much as long as the LED does what its supposed to do in its fixed and immovable installation; they don't even care about CRI or color temp too much--look what it's replacing with sodium vapor or mercury vapor. Practically anything would look good next to those.

As for changing color temperatures, I saw this recently and its the only example I have seen of one single LED that can electronically change color temp:

http://www.enfis.com/news/press_releases19.htm

Its made in the UK so it must be terribly expensive. Of course at 160w, it will have the same issues of heat sinking to worry about but it does do variable color temperatures between 3000K and 6500K. It also does color changing too so with the one chip you could simulate any color temperature or color on the color wheel, not needing to worry about gelling anymore. CRI is claimed to be 90. They didn't talk at all about lumens, lumens per watt or heat sinking in the press release so thats all to be discovered yet.

On the issues of cost, yes its true that $200 doesn't leave as much profit and coverage for warranty work. I was thinking we may take a stepped approach and have a pre-introductory price of $200 for people that pay and get on the list. An introductory price of $260 once they're in stock for a while and then a final price in the $299 to $325 range which is more comfortable for getting what we really need out of it.

 

[Cool Lights]

I'd like to see them with the metal reflectors. It would be nice if the reflectors were removable from the barn doors via some type of velcro or clip.

Definitely would be nice to have gel clips built into the light so easily add filters and diffusion. This might be more expensive, but it could be useful to have some type of sliding holder for gels. Sort of like scrims, but they would just be a metal frame you install the gel on then slide the frame with the gel into the light. If multiple frames were available for purchase you could have ready-made fillters at your disposal and quickly be able to alter the lighting.

These LED's will be dimmable correct? And they'll hold the same temp at every level they're set at? If not, then the bank switches such as the FloLights LED500 would be nice.

A battery mount would be nice too. That way the light can be placed anywhere, even hung on a wall or from the ceiling without worrying about a power cord.

That's all I have for ideas right now. I'll be looking forward to your lights. I'll probably have to order 2 or 3 LED500's in the meantime, but then I'm still good for at least 2 of yours when they're ready.

So we're seeing the interest in the polished aluminum reflectors on the barndoors. I don't know about removable. Velcro holds the material out from the barndoors quite a bit and is awkward. A better solution would allow the mirror to slide into a frame of some sort which closes afterwards to keep it there.

The battery I was looking at it a bit too large to mount to the fixture inside or outside so I think we're looking at a box on the floor.

We'll have a dimmer and perhaps bank selects but at least the dimmer.

 

[Cool Lights]

I think a stainless steel-type of material on the inside of the barn doors would be great.

Some other things. Having used, and loved the Cool lights flos, please allow some way for the barn doors to remain securely shut. Velcro, a latch something.

Also, if the new LEDs had some kind of filter clips inside permanently attached to the lights, that would be very useful as well.

Another vote for mirrored barndoors and filter clips or slide in filter adapter.

 

[Cool Lights]

I was all set to order a buncha lights from richard when i saw the flolight500. Its not quite there, but made me think that tungsten and flo's days are numbered. I've decided the next lights I buy will be LED, i'm just waiting on the technology and price to catch up to my desires.

This is my wishlist for a "must have" led fixtures:

1. daylight
2. as bright as possible
3. i'd pay the $500 for a bigger fixture that was crazy-bright.
4. I want shiny barndoors where there is a hinge on the tip of the doors and you have the option of folding out the reflected faces to make double length barndoors (that are black on the inside. This would allow maximum light reflection or maximum spill control from one fixture. (i always want one or the other, not both.)
5.make the back of the fixture extra deep and include a cavity with three filter frames inside that can easily/quickly velcro in the fixture. (i assume velcro is ok with these low heat light.) This would allow you to quickly pop on diffusion/gel as needed. (and have your three favorites with you at all times.)
6. i'd love it if the fixture/frame was just under 12x12 so you could use the inexpensive gel samplers. (again, i'm assuming heat isnt an issue and you can gel 1/2" from the bulbs)
7. My dream fixture would fold up to be its own case. I vote put a pop-off case front and back to hold filters and mask/protect the lollypop during transit. In theory LEDs are super durable. Make the rest of the case live up to it. None of this "the barn doors basically close" thing. I want to be able to snap it all together and pitch it in a bag/the truck. Ooh, put some clips around the lollypop on back so you can coil up your power cord too and have that also inside the "case".
8. 12v plug of some kind.
9. (as long as we are dreaming...) the ability to connect multiple fixtures together at the edges to make one larger light. Need a huge/bright source? Snap 9 of these together and make one megaLED light. (easier than making lots of different models too)
10. i vote you make these as hard a light source as possible. Its easy to diffuse a light. Its hard the other way around.
11. dimmable, please
12. while we are dreaming... a retractable eggcrate that fits around each led. using a knob you can adjust from full retraction (having no affect) to a full inch deep eggcrate, giving extreme spill control.
13. One of those mondo LEDs in the middle, so you can kick on some serious power when needed.

thats my wish. probably not very useful, but there it is.

I don't think flos days are quite numbered yet. Too many installations out there for that to go away over night. Just like tungsten didn't go away with the appearance of fluorescent. All these technologies overlap for a while. Its going to be a while before we can make a fixture to equal the CL-255P (let alone the CL-455P or CL-655P) in output and match its price level or even get close.

Plus you have lots of studios out there and flos and metal halide make more sense for that as you need large quantities of light and LEDs wouldn't be cost effective yet for cyc/green screen lighting or in a huge fisher light or space lights for all those specialty needs. Fluorescent and HMI/metal halide will be around for a while yet and even legacy tungsten will be with us due also to all the existing installations out there. LEDs make sense for the super portable kit for the traveling videographer / filmmaker and even then for only situations where they have a lot of control over the environment and are not trying to fight daylight too much.

Other items on your list are noted and where possible we will incorporate them. Particularly mirrored barndoors, daylight, hard beam, gel / accessory frame, etc. Everyone's on board with that so far. I think the idea of "snap togethers" has a lot of merit and is just an engineering problem to solve but could take a while to make an elegant solution.

As far as size of the units. I see both of the panels under 12 x 12 or very close to that.

 

[MattinSTL]

If you have the resources available... a powerful LED ring-light would surely sell as well. While not everyone would buy several, as many would do with the other light you mentioned... EVERYONE would have to have one! I'm talking the same overall specs as the LED-500... in a "donut" that has a 5-6" hole.

I built something like what you've been talking about... with 1200 leds. It works pretty well... but the color temp is a little wacky. Just this year I've started to see 5600k leds that appear to be truly white.

Should be fun to see where this leads. I'm watching with as much anticipation as everybody else.

I'd really like to see what the LED500 can actually do... via an informal video posted by a member.

Also... I agree with the idea of making the panel 12" x 12" if possible. Or make them so that 2 together can best utilize gels in the appropriate sizes or fractions of size. (half-sheet, quarter sheet, etc)

Don't forget heat management! This is fairly important. The general public is misinformed about LEDs and heat... yes the normal LEDs don't get too hot to touch, but they do get reasonably warm (hot?) where the action is happening... and once you nest 500 of them in a sheet you definitely need to be sure that heat can escape. If the gels create a virtual seal on those LEDs you'll have problems over the long term. Be sure the fixture has reasonable venting in the back and that the gel system doesn't "seal" the front. If you have a slide-in mechanism for plastic gels or something like that, be sure that there's some vertical air flow.

That's all I can think of right now. Floop has some good suggestions up there... and yes, I agree that flos are going to be around for a while yet... probably longer then people think when they see these new LED designs. The general price-drops in LED tech still doesn't approach the smooth lumens per dollar that flos offer. Pop in a couple 30w daylight spirals (good ones) and then see how much LED punch it takes to recreate that... and we're talking about less then $30 in CFLs... but the thing is that LED can do things that flos CAN'T do... so yeah... I think the various lighting tech is going to fall off gradually... and flos aren't going away anytime soon.

 

[Cool Lights]

Yes a ring light. Not a mic ufo light ;-).

I was thinking a lot about how you'd attach it to your camera and wondering about something like a plastic, lightweight speedring type thing with the LEDs attached to it. The speedring to go around your lens. Rubber tipped thumbscrews on the speedring to keep from scarring the lens.

Heat management. Absolutely. Far hotter than people imagine. We're talking about using an aluminum PCB which is very useful for this sort of thing and not so expensive here in China. As far as the gelframe that does need a lot of careful consideration because its heat buildup which will kill these things. On the 4x4 model with 5w LEDs I think the whole thing is basically going to be one big heat sink with a yoke on it. 80w will make it seriously hot.

As far as the dimmer goes, one of the companies has a button type dimmer technology. Touch the button once, the light comes on. Touch again and it goes off. Keep pressing the button while its on and it dims down until you release the button. Keep pressing the button and it dims all the way and then comes back up again. I like a good old fashioned pot but we'll investigate this to see how well it works.

 

[Zander]

Yes a ring light. Not a mic ufo light ;-).

I don't know who is crazy enough to put weight on their shotgun. Stupid.

As for the discussion of LED and changing color temp. The, LED based, zylight has some way to change temp and color. Is that through extra optics and/or hardware?

 

[floop]

i'm pretty sure the zylight uses a combination of R, G and B leds, to allow mixing of virtually any color. The downside being that when you dial in pure blue, you have 1/3 the lights on. If thats true, for maximum brightness you'd want a bank of leds natively cranking 5600k.

 

[Cool Lights]

That's what I was thinking too. In a way, its similar to the idea I had except at a chip level. I believe you could probably also have two chips in one LED -- one 3200K and one 5600K which would be a bit more precise but again one of the chips is wasted when you're not using it and the LED is more expensive too.

 

[MattinSTL]

i'm pretty sure the zylight uses a combination of R, G and B leds, to allow mixing of virtually any color. The downside being that when you dial in pure blue, you have 1/3 the lights on. If thats true, for maximum brightness you'd want a bank of leds natively cranking 5600k.

This is what I was talking about in my previous post. LEDs are chipped... and more chipping means more light. Think of it as the size of a pie... you can put as many flavors as you want in that pie... half apple and half cherry, but there's no free pie. When you want ALL apple you'll still have half as much as if you'd had a whole apple pie.

Chipping LEDs isn't a matter of cost so much as a matter of physics... you can't just load up on chipping each LED for more light or you'll burn it up. I've seen some very good 5600k leds coming out of China that are triple chipped... and they are outputting a lot of lumens per dollar (or per LED).

If Zylight has what appears to be a color changing LED... then I guarantee that you can put it up against something else, using the same LEDs in a single color (chipped the same amount) and the pure light will win. All you have to ask yourself is what costs more light? A variable 3200-5600k light, where the sum of total output adds up to 5600k, and some fraction of it yields a dimmer 3200k... OR a 5600k light simply gelled with CTO.

What people really want, for our industry, is the most lumens per dollar in a quality of light that is easily usable. They will make concessions on various aspects of convenience beyond that. Some will pay the top dollar for a total solution, but by and far the masses want the most lumens per dollar. People talk about a lot of pie in the sky features and SAY that they'll pay X dollars more for the options, but then when somebody else offers your light with a few less bells, for $50 less... watch what they end up buying. How do you think Walmart built an empire? LightPanels offers really expensive lights with all the bells and whistles already... if people really don't have $$$ issues and are willing to pay for such and such, then they'd already own some of the LP fixtures. Most quality lumens per dollar... focus on that and you can't lose. If you can imitate the LP fixtures in the low hundreds then that would also be a sure winner.

The ring light? I don't think it HAS to mount on the camera. I'm talking about a beauty light... not so much an ENG tool. I'm talking about a real light with significant punch... to do what a ring light does, but IF NEEDED, from a greater distance, so that rather then being strictly a gimmick in the kit, it can work alongside another LED-500 type light when you need another "real" light. Consider it a flat key, rather then a ring light. I'd be FIRST in line for one...

Oh man... I almost forgot! Beware the push-button dimmers! AT LEAST be sure to check them out thoroughly! I've bought SIX different units like you mention and the dimming action creates PULSING in the light. It's not visible to the eye, but it's UNUSABLE on camera! There is a big difference in dimmers... so save yourself some $ and check them all at various shutter/frame rates before you commit to a production run.

 

[Zander]

Think of it as the size of a pie... you can put as many flavors as you want in that pie... half apple and half cherry, but there's no free pie. When you want ALL apple you'll still have half as much as if you'd had a whole apple pie.

Thanks for clearing that up and using a delicious analogy. (Pun intended) I was thinking there was a miracle technology that allowed the LED to change color without losing output. I stand corrected. Thank you.

 

[dsleep]

wow, this thread has gotten interesting. seeing those 'other' LED has made me wish richard would offer his own solution, and here we are.

I do feel that an LED fresnel type solution would be very interesting even though it's fairly obvious a softer source similar to the LED500 is a good first product.

I am really anxious to see how the LED thing pans out this year as I am looking o buy lights and LED's make a whole lot of sense for me.

 

[Cool Lights]

wow, this thread has gotten interesting. seeing those 'other' LED has made me wish richard would offer his own solution, and here we are.

I do feel that an LED fresnel type solution would be very interesting even though it's fairly obvious a softer source similar to the LED500 is a good first product.

I am really anxious to see how the LED thing pans out this year as I am looking o buy lights and LED's make a whole lot of sense for me.

Well last year was the HID/metal halide year for us and this year is shaping up to be the year of the LED. We're taking a short break from new development on the metal halide front right now while we look for good 250w and 400w bulbs for our other CDM fresnels.

Actually the light out of the "theoretical" LED fresnel would be very hard with super well defined shadows based on the sample unit I have seen. The 100w LED is a single chip not an array. The size of the light emanation area (like the picture I showed a few posts back) is about 1/2" x 1/2".

In fact, the LED panel we are producing will be fairly hard too given that we will use a small degree spot angle led like something between 10 and 30. Its a bigger source than the 100w LED though as the LEDs are more spread out so its a little more soft than a single small and brilliant point source like the 100w LED.