LED Barndoors & Flags, are they necessary?

M

mraaron895

Well-known member
Because LED's give off very little heat couldn't you just Velcro the sides of a 1x1 and place black fabric over the front of the LED'S to control lighting, eliminating the need for a flag or barndoors?

Also I'm looking at the flolight 1X1's, wouldn't a 30 degree beam spread be more useful especially when you wanted to diffuse it?
 
Not really, That defeats the purpose of having a barndoor. Without the ability to move it back and forth to block the light, and control the throw is kind of a waste. If you velco the fabric on the light, your losing a lot of control. If Im understanding correctly, the only thing that would do is block light.
 
I guess I'm trying to figure out the difference between a barndoor and flag blocking light on an LED vs Velcro directly affixed to the fixture blocking light. I don't think there is a difference is there? In my mind the only reason we use flags and barndoors is because constant hot lights wouldn't be able to handle the heat buildup.
 
I think you are correct in thinking that the options for controlling cooler lights are vastly expanded compared to hot lights - if the market has caught up with that to be relevantt to todays shooter is a different question!

I shoot stills and the options for controlling light with strobe are totally different from dealing with tungsten

The classic strobe trick is the straw snoot! that would not last 10 seconds under a hot light http://strobist.blogspot.co.uk/2007/06/more-cheap-and-easy-grid-spots.html

Even the Elly grid set burns instantly under tungsten http://www.theflashcentre.com/elinchrom-21cm-wide-honeycomb-grid-set-i203.html

A large flag of course tends to create a sharper more controllable shadow (generally a good thing) than a barndoor due to the distance from the light source so large flags still have a place for some shots irrelevant of heat issues particularly on fixtures that are not point sources, 1X1s are not point sources

S
 
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Thanks for the replies. I totally agree about using flags for point sources. I seem to be doing a lot of interview lighting setups lately, and love using light througout the scene to separate the tallent from the BG. I'm just trying to cut back on hauling a lot of gear around. Thanks again!
 
mraaron895 said:
I totally agree about using flags for point sources.
Click to expand...

Lets clarify what I meant

-with a point source a smaller closer (to the fixture) flag can work - ie barn doors on the light

- with a soft source, like a 1X1 or a Kino the flag generally has to be bigger/further away otherwise the source light wraps round the flag

So with a hard source you can get away with barn doors, wheras a soft source will tend to need a flag

S
 
one big problem with the current LEDs that use the matrix of tiny bulbs is multi-shadow. when you interrupt the "beam" with any kind of hard edge (like a barn door) you will get resulting repeated shadows on your subject
 
wgzn said:
one big problem with the current LEDs that use the matrix of tiny bulbs is multi-shadow. when you interrupt the "beam" with any kind of hard edge (like a barn door) you will get resulting repeated shadows on your subject
Click to expand...

The new Chimera 1x1 LED softboxes appear to use a diffuser that acts like a lens, allowing you to focus the light output along with blending the light from the LED emitters.
 
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