Good/Cheap solution for 1x1 Led panels for interviews (3 point lighting)

S

Stelvium

Well-known member
Hallo friends,

wanted to hear from you suggestions about Good/Cheap solutions for 1x1 Led panels for interviews (3 point lighting). Documentary style setup
Many thanks
 
I'd venture a guess that - unless you need a battery powered solution or something you can airline check - biax flo's may be the best cheap solution?

I'm not an LED expert, but it seems the technology is still in some flux and you have to go fairly high-end to get something with really clean color. But the biax tech has trickled down to the low end of the market.

I do a lot of interviews with a dual, a quad, and a 300 or 500 small tungsten fresnel with 1/2 CTB, and some diffusion or a 4x4. Usually just the quad is used, I think "3 point" is usually knee-jerkey and too much light.

The super-portability of the 1x1 panels is attractive though...
 
I use Yongnuo YN600 daylight and bicolor panels and umbrella softboxes. The LEDs are $120 plus $20 AC adapter and $10 1/4-20 tilt stand/umbrella mount, so $150 each and more powerful than a 1x1. I recommend sticking a piece of tape in the fan so it never turns on. I've lit many an interview with these. Often I'll travel with two bicolor YN600's and one bicolor YN300II and two umbrella softboxes ($30 on ebay). I recommend leaving 1/8 minus green on them.
 
Cheap is extremely relative. Consider that even the $1500 F&V K4000 3-light kit will need three very pricey V-mount batteries with charger. If you're just planning on AC power, there are cheaper and better options than LEDs, IMHO.
 
I'll second the YN600. I just got them and have only used them for 1 shoot.. but they are small, cheap, bright and can run on AC or sony np style battery. I tried with a 1X1 Airbox softbox - but it was too big and did not spread the light, so I just bounced it off a 4x4 board... but I'm looking for another softbox or umbrella option as 4x4 boards are a pain to travel with. I put a stick in the fan... ran for 3+ hours straight with no apparent problems.
 
Third on the YN600's - the best bargain in lighting today. I often don't even bother with the minus green .

Noah, i've avoided the bicolors because I like the output of the daylight only's, but also because they have separate dimmers for each color, instead of one knob to control the mix of daylight and tungsten, and a second just for dimming. That latter type of arrangement makes it easier to dim the light without changing color temperature. Do you find it difficult to adjust the level without screwing up the color?

Lenny
 
Michael Carter is right about fluorescent kits getting super cheap. The downsides are of course very clear - fragile, a pain to set up, no battery operation. But you get a ton of light for very cheap, and they give nice light for interview type situations. Here's something that I just picked up, simply because it was so cheap - StudioPro 6400W Triple 5 Socket Photo Studio Continuous Portrait Video Lighting Kit with Light Stand, 85 Daylight Bulbs, and Softboxes; the cost: $240. The kit is quite decent, ordinarily, you'd pay that much or more just for the 15 85W daylight spiral CFL bulbs, and here you also get 3 softboxes (24" x 36"), 3 stands, 3 of the 5 socket heads which have several switches for turning bulbs on/off to control light levels and also have umbrella receptacles, so you can easily add more light controls for interviews and the like. All of that for $240, pretty amazing.

For 1x1 LED panels, take a look at the Aputure HR672 - they are not very expensive and come in several versions. A member of this site, Erik Naso has reviewed the HR672S. The other options are OK too, but have downsides. For example, I have the F&V K4000 3-light kit, but the battery solution on this is brutally expensive, the diffusers are a pain to put on, and I wish they had more light output. The YN600's have a very clear green cast, and the fan is really pretty loud which is not good news for interview setups... yes, you can disable the fan, but it's there for a reason - you will no question severely limit the lifespan of the LEDs and have them fail prematurely if you keep doing it. The Aputures are more money than the YN600 - almost F&V K4000 price - but they have excellent CRI; on the downside, the power cord that goes into them has a proprietary connector which is apparently junk and breaks very easily, so you have to be extremely careful.

I don't think we are quite there as yet with LEDs, but getting there very quickly. However, if you need something today, I think any of these mentioned options are ultimately quite workable.
 
I'm very picky with color and have not seen a "very clear" green cast to the YN600 daylight . You could put a 1/8 magenta but I often don't. Different cameras react to green spikes differently though. My Sony's have been pretty good with it, RED might be worse and haven't tried Canons. I have oddly had different experiences with color on it though recently it seems to always be fine. One good idea with LED's in general is to always diffuse them which I think balances the possibility that off color might be worse at some angle of the LED- especially when used as a backlight or from a sharp angle.

As for the fan , as long as you don't put the unnecessary plastic gels next to the bulbs, it doesn't need the fan. I stick a toothpick in it and run all day. I guess its possible I am limiting the life of the light, but no one knows that for sure. I imagine the electronics are the issue not the LED's but I'm no expert on this. At first I tried disabling the fan with the plastic gels in and it started to smoke . Since then no problem. At that price if it lasts half as long... . The output is enormous and the barn doors make it easy to diffuse though its still not a large source for a key light so You might hang a sheet of diffusion in front. ( I don't like umbrellas but that would also work.) For backlighting they have wireless remotes which is very handy if you are by yourself. They're so bright I have used them outside as fill . Obviously i'm a big fan of that little piece of junk. They should hire me for commercials.
 
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Could you take a picture of your set up? I am curious about the softbox. Thanks


nyvz said:
I use Yongnuo YN600 daylight and bicolor panels and umbrella softboxes. The LEDs are $120 plus $20 AC adapter and $10 1/4-20 tilt stand/umbrella mount, so $150 each and more powerful than a 1x1. I recommend sticking a piece of tape in the fan so it never turns on. I've lit many an interview with these. Often I'll travel with two bicolor YN600's and one bicolor YN300II and two umbrella softboxes ($30 on ebay). I recommend leaving 1/8 minus green on them.
Click to expand...
 
Here is a job I used only YN600's on. The talking heads on the black background was one YN600 in a 2'x3' (90cmx60cm) selens umbrella softbox and another YN600 was used for the background light. I can't remember if the background light spill doubled as a backlight or if I had a separate backlight. Pretty handy to be able to tweak color temp of the lights remotely while sitting by camera since I wanted a cooler background light and backlight to help pop the color contrast of the skin tones.

http://noahyv.com/v3/portfolio/adobe-design-achievement-awards-2014/
Only the talking heads were lit, the rest is available light, so don't judge the color of those, it was mostly ugly office lighting and daylight through green tinted windows...

There was also another portion of the job where I put two YN600 units behind a diffusion frame in a location overlooking times square and used another YN600 as a backlight and one into the ceiling for ambient fill. Seemed to do the trick of balancing for the bright lights of times square alright. The remote control definitely helps when one-man-banding it on small, quick jobs.


The stand mount I'm using looks like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Flash-Hot-S...568?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c79c735b0
just unscrew the coldshoe adaptor and there is a 1/4-20 screw underneath that you can screw a yn600 onto.

Anyone tried the YN900 yet? I'd be more afraid of overheating or fan noise since it's about the same size but greater led density/output.
 
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I had an order for two Litepanels Astra but they are not cheap and the backorder on these are brutal so I cancelled the order.

As of now I have two 4x55w fluorescent with the same light quality as Kino Flo Diva 400's but without dimming. I also have a Litepanel 1x1 Bi-color. To me there's nothing that beats the 4x55w fluorescent. They are very bright with clean 5500k or 3000k tubes and when warmed up (3 minutes) they are very close to natural light. Downside is of course the fragile tubes.

The way I see it is to use the fluorescent whenever possible and when I really need to travel light and just can't bring the fluorescent lights I go for the Litepanel. It's still good with nice colours but light output is not that high. I really can't fight window light other than to provide a touch of fill.

So with the Astra panel out of the picture for now I'm looking at maybe another Lightpanels bi-color. As I see it there's no point getting cheap LED lights as the light quality is the most important thing. Lightpanels are okay and there are a few others but I wouldn't trust the cheap stuff. I've had so many cheapo things and I've learned to stay out of it.
 
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Osslund said:
I had an order for two Litepanels Astra but they are not cheap and the backorder on these are brutal so I cancelled the order.

As of now I have two 4x55w fluorescent with the same light quality as Kino Flo Diva 400's but without dimming. I also have a Litepanel 1x1 Bi-color. To me there's nothing that beats the 4x55w fluorescent. They are very bright with clean 5500k or 3000k tubes and when warmed up (3 minutes) they are very close to natural light. Downside is of course the fragile tubes.

The way I see it is to use the fluorescent whenever possible and when I really need to travel light and just can't bring the fluorescent lights I go for the Litepanel. It's still good with nice colours but light output is not that high. I really can't fight window light other than to provide a touch of fill.

So with the Astra panel out of the picture for now I'm looking at maybe another Lightpanels bi-color. As I see it there's no point getting cheap LED lights as the light quality is the most important thing. Lightpanels are okay and there are a few others but I wouldn't trust the cheap stuff. I've had so many cheapo things and I've learned to stay out of it.
Click to expand...

Seems a bit odd comment on and write off equipment you haven't tested. Cheap != Bad. Cheap is correlated with bad but there are many exceptions, which is where research and testing comes in. I've rented litepanels a few times and found them to be very green, but maybe those were older panels. And I can't stand the color shift of diva lights when dimmed. I'd take cheapo YN600 LEDs over either of those but then I've tested them more extensively.

As for biax fluorescents, I upgraded to my LED kit from 2x55w biax lights and found the 40w LEDs could more than keep up with the fluorescent units even at less than half the power consumption and <1/4 the size and weight, not to mention far better bulb durability and more power options. The fluorescent units worked well for me for years but I won't look back since it is much nicer that the LEDs are smaller and punchier than the fluorescents ever were and I can still diffuse them with a softbox that is still much lighter and easier to carry than the fluorescents were.
 
I've had many LED panels but only the Litepanel 1x1 Bi-color have been good enough. But I haven't tried them all it's just that my fluorescent panels, to me, have more and better light than any 576/1152 LED panel I've tried. I could certainly be wrong with the YN600 panels and that they are truly great with more light output than the Litepanels and show better colours.
 
Has anybody tried the YN900? I imagine that if there is an issue with the fan on the YN600, it must go double for the YN900, unless they found a much quieter fan. I'd still like to know the output and light quality of these YN900.
 
I love my little apurture amaran LED light. I plan to get this 2 light kit for under $360 soon since my little light has lasted years and perfectly.

2 light kit - http://amzn.to/1MOFtnL

Here is the little light I use now and I plan on using it as the back/head light once i get the other 2 lights.

Small light - http://amzn.to/18IS2DL


Here are some talking heads I filmed very quick with this small light only. (entire video filmed in under 1 hour lit with me hand holding the small LED light) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcf9jBHkfv8
 
I've used these Camtree 1000LED lights on a shoot recently, and was perfectly happy with them:

http://proaimshop.com/pas/2pc-CAMTREE-Shine-1000-LED-Studio-Light-without-Stand-CT-1-10015-WS.html

The construction seemed a little iffy, so don't expect them to last forever, but they seemed to work fine as long as you take care of them. They are cheap as hell. Also, I used them in an interview setting in a dimly lit bar, so I can't speak for their color temperature, which brings me to another question about all these cheep LED's...

In my experience, the "orange filter" that comes with most of these lights seems god awful, as in unusable. Are these filters universally bad, and I should just use pro gels?
 
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