Led Fresnel VS Panel lights for Two Person Interviews

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Ken1212

Well-known member
Would like your opinions and suggestions. I am looking to update my lighting kit and debating between Led Panels or Fresnels. At the time being I can only afford one or the other. Need them primarily for interviews, for two person setups. The panels will give me more broad soft light and should be ideal but occasionally I run into setups where clients want to shoot with open windows in the back to capture the background and Fresnel would provide more punch. So far I have been using tungsten and led's only for backlight. I am looking for something with the following in mind:

1. Good color rendition.
2. High Output
3. Solid build.
4. Under 15lbs a fixer
5. Budget under $2000


Right now I am considering these two models:
Dracast LED1000 Silver Series Foldable Bi-Color LED Light
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...rsf_1000b_silver_series_led1000_bi_color.html

Dracast LED1500 Bi-Color LED Fresnel with Wi-Fi
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...drwf_fl_1500b_led1500_fresnel_with_wi_fi.html
 
It's not misleading. Dracast says the 1500 uses 150 watts, which is definitely good for being equivalent to 1000w tungsten. I have a different 150W LED that is equivalent to about 1200W tungsten.
 
Paul F said:
It's not misleading. Dracast says the 1500 uses 150 watts, which is definitely good for being equivalent to 1000w tungsten. I have a different 150W LED that is equivalent to about 1200W tungsten.
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Which model is yours and are you happy with them? I am using tungsten for interviews now and need to move to led.
 
Can't comment on those fixtures themselves, but for dealing with open windows in the background I think you really want something that's equivalent to the punch of an HMI (like a 400w or 800w joker). . .maybe I'm wrong but I'm not even sure a 1000w tungsten equivalent would do that -- I recall I used to hear that HMIs were about 3-5 times as powerful/bright as an equivalent wattage tungsten, and consider that you'll likely be diffusing that guy hard for beauty (cutting out at least a stop).
 
Ken1212 said:
The Fresnel is listed as a 1000w equivalent in tungsten, is that misleading?
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Hard to say. They haven't released any photometric specs on it on their site, so you'd have to take their word for it.

To get a sense of what a 150w LED set up would do, I specced a different 150w LED light (Godox SL_150w). It's an open face and they report 7200 lux at 1 meter. By comparison an Arri 1k flood open face light spits out 11,700 lux at 1 meter. So apples to apples (open face to open face) the 150w LED is not as powerful as a 1k tungsten.

if you're going to compare fresnels to fresnels, then an Arri tungsten fresnel 650 pumps out 10,750 lux at 1 meter. An Arri T1 1k fresnel spits out 17,000 lux at 1 meter. So throw a fresnel lens on a 150w LED and you might get that 7200 lux up close to the Arri 650's 10,750 lux level. Not bad, but again certainly not 1k.

My math trick for figuring out what an LED light can produce is to multiply the LED wattage by 4x to get an equivalent tungsten power for the same form factor. A 150 watt LED fresnel will be roughly the same output as a 600 watt tungsten fresnel. Decent, but not enough to compete with a window, IMHO.
 
Josh Bass said:
Can't comment on those fixtures themselves, but for dealing with open windows in the background I think you really want something that's equivalent to the punch of an HMI (like a 400w or 800w joker). . .maybe I'm wrong but I'm not even sure a 1000w tungsten equivalent would do that -- I recall I used to hear that HMIs were about 3-5 times as powerful/bright as an equivalent wattage tungsten, and consider that you'll likely be diffusing that guy hard for beauty (cutting out at least a stop).
Click to expand...

That's exactly my concern, how about using led panels on a boom arm form a short distance say 4 feet?
 
Ken1212 said:
Which model is yours and are you happy with them? I am using tungsten for interviews now and need to move to led.
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The unit I have is no longer made, but is similar to the Alzo 3000 https://www.amazon.com/ALZO-Intensity-Video-Photo-Light/dp/B00EUDM6K0. The unit I have has no CRI rating. But in a side-by-side comparison with a 650 tungsten Fresnel, it was one stop brighter with the reflector on. Even without a CRI rating, the colors were good. It rendered blues more correctly than the tungsten Fresnel and it had less red (a good thing). All in all, it had as good a color rendition as the tungsten. Each has a trade off on how they treat colors. Skintone was no better/worse than tungsten.

One of the advantages of this style light is the Bowen's mount allows interchangable light modifiers. There is a lengthy thread about the Alzo 3000 from a few years back. I'm sure things have improved since then. http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?315845-Alzo-300-LED-light

I still use tungsten. I guess I prefer carrying spare bulbs rather than spare lights.
 
I agree with Keith, have been fooling around with 150W COB leds and they seem to be equivalent to a 650W tungsten, not a 1KW one. The thing about equivalent tungsten power is that if you want daylight from tungsten, you would using CTB and losing 64% of the light, so you could say that a 150W LED is roughly equivalent to a 2K if you are talking about a 2K gelled blue.
 
keithlango said:
Hard to say. They haven't released any photometric specs on it on their site, so you'd have to take their word for it.

To get a sense of what a 150w LED set up would do, I specced a different 150w LED light (Godox SL_150w). It's an open face and they report 7200 lux at 1 meter. By comparison an Arri 1k flood open face light spits out 11,700 lux at 1 meter. So apples to apples (open face to open face) the 150w LED is not as powerful as a 1k tungsten.

if you're going to compare fresnels to fresnels, then an Arri tungsten fresnel 650 pumps out 10,750 lux at 1 meter. An Arri T1 1k fresnel spits out 17,000 lux at 1 meter. So throw a fresnel lens on a 150w LED and you might get that 7200 lux up close to the Arri 650's 10,750 lux level. Not bad, but again certainly not 1k.

My math trick for figuring out what an LED light can produce is to multiply the LED wattage by 4x to get an equivalent tungsten power for the same form factor. A 150 watt LED fresnel will be roughly the same output as a 600 watt tungsten fresnel. Decent, but not enough to compete with a window, IMHO.
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Do you know what amp fuses do office buildings usually have compared to the 15amp residential? I was thinking led since they don't get hot and don't require as many amps, I might just stick to tungsten though or rent HMI's for those special shoots.
 
Ken1212 said:
That's exactly my concern, how about using led panels on a boom arm form a short distance say 4 feet?
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Sorry, not sure. I'm not THAT much of a gaffer. . .I only know about the HMI advice I gave earlier 'cause I grip on shoots where the DP uses HMIs whenever windows are featured prominently in the shot. Yes, you MIGHT be able to balance things by getting lights like that close enough, but then you deal with issues like how wide the shot can be before you see the gear, discomfort of the interviewee, things like that. Although I've been working on a TV show where interviews are lit with Divas just about right over the subject's heads (obviously a little in front), probably even closer than 4 feet, doesn't seem to bother them. Anything you can test before committing to is good. Maybe you can buy, do a fake setup at home with a window in the shot, see how it works out, return if no bueno.
 
Ken1212 said:
Do you know what amp fuses do office buildings usually have compared to the 15amp residential? I was thinking led since they don't get hot and don't require as many amps, I might just stick to tungsten though or rent HMI's for those special shoots.
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I would imagine most modern office buildings do not use fuses. They use breakers, and would typically be 15amp for normal outlets, while they might have 20amp or higher circuits for specialty machines.

When in doubt, check ahead of time if allowable. Don't forget that other things may be plugged into and being drawn from the same circuit.
 
LEDs from a short distance are not going to get you the detail of a blown out window. If the client wants to hire a single shooter with a small LED package and be able to preserve blown out windows, their expectations are unrealistic.

The way I see it, your options are:

- gel the windows, which is a pain and time consuming.
- work with the client to determine a shooting window (no pun) when the background outside will be in shade. This pre production cuts into their time and yours.
- change the client's expectations and either let the windows blow out or don't shoot into windows.
- hire a joker 800/some type of 1.2 PAR. This should clearly demonstrate to the client how much firepower is needed, which still won't be enough for full sun.
 
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