LED color quality: F&V, Ikan, or ?

K

Ken Hull

Well-known member
I'm planning to buy some LED panel lights. I was thinking of the F&V K4000 series, but they have just barely enough power for my needs. It would be nice to have some power in reserve. The Ikan 576 series has that extra power, but I can find absolutely no indication of color quality, such as CRI. At least F&V states a CRI of 85; fair but not great. Also, a recent poster here mentioned Dracast, which I had never heard of, boasting a CRI of 95. Impressive, if true. Any info on color quality for these brands would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
-- Ken
 
I do video work for Fotodiox and I like their LED panels. I use them for all of their product videos that I shoot. I graduated from a super old-school film program that used 16mm film and big old rusty hot lights from the 60s, so suddenly being thrust into the world of LED lighting was pretty confusing to me at first. That being said, I really enjoy them now, their cool temp, how much faster set-up time is and being able to lug them around anywhere with the battery option. I haven't used other brands yet, but so far I have no complaints with the Fotodiox brand. Obviously I do work for them, so that helps (employee discount) : ) I also just bought a box of old hot lights from a photographer down the road who's retiring, so my old-school roots are still there. As far as I can tell from both shooting and editing with the Fotodiox LED lights, they have great color quality. I have to do very little color correction in post. Their LED lights are rated at CRI 92.
 
If you want high colour quality from LEDs, look into remote phosphor lights. They're expensive, but on another level to your regular hundreds-of-diodes style panels.

CRI is partially helpful, but not all that useful as a measure of discontinuous spectrum lights like LEDs. TCLI is a more thorough measure and the few remote phosphor lights that currently exist rate above fluorescents and on par with HMIs for colour reproduction.
 
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