LED light panels suggestions from China?

vonkuttenberg

vonkuttenberg

Well-known member
Anybody has some experience with LED light panels from ebay? i found CN-1200HS Bi-Color LED Video Studio Light With Sony V Mount around 800USD and i am bit affraid of loosing 1/2 power by having BI COLOR switchable 3200K-5600K leds... i want most powerfull beast, softer better for outside shooting without electricity (so vmount needed).... what did you bought or picked up and why? i had on commercial location from panalux some philips led lights same design bicolor, same system probably much more expensive...

any reason to move to some IKAN, PHILIPS brands which would be probably 2x more expensive? any suggestions or what to take care about?
 
I'm looking at the F&V's as well. By all reports they are very solid and put out a lot of light and are half the price of even the 'good' Chinese models.
 
I have bought quite a few LED lights. The problem with the Chinese LED lights is a complete lack of consistency. For example, I have bought 7 YN-300 lights - none of them are identical in performance or built. In general, just because one light is good - or someone had a good experience with a given model or re-seller, doesn't mean that the next time, or the next person buying another unit will have the same experience. It's a complete lottery. The other thing: you cannot rely on the specs the seller specifies - in my experience, the only thing that will match is the number of LEDs, but any characterization of CRI, or angle, or brightness is mostly off the wall. The most fundamental problem: you never know what you're getting, you might get something shockingly good (my first YN-300) or completely unusable.

I have purchased the F&V lights (the 3 light K4000 kit and the R-300). They're quite decent. But I bought the daylight only lights - I personally don't like the bi-colors, because every bi-color I've seen is simply 50% as bright in either tungsten or daylight mode as their daylight version - because they simply switch off half the LEDs; that to me is pointless, because you lose too much in brightness, and you are paying a premium for the bi-colors... half the light for much more money - no thanks. YMMV.
 
No problem. I'll pipe up when mine gets here. If all goes well I'll probably get a few more. I have been doing a few more shoots where these V-mount LEDs come in handy.
 
I've been very happy with this 900 LED from ephoto:

http://www.ephotoinc.com/900-led-dimmable-photography-video-pa900.html

It's 5400 only and the plastic color gels actually work properly to get you close to tungsten- many others I've seen are way off. Its very slightly green so I add a 1/8 M and its been fine. I'm very picky about color. I love having barn doors and if you put some velcro on them they perfectly fit an extra small Chimera front so it then can be reasonably soft and its easy to gel for color precision. For an extra $70 you can get a remote wireless dimmer which I use often when its a backlight for interviews and I can adjust for each person without getting away from the camera.

I had a problem where I broke the connector for DC in and after sending it in , they repaired and sent it back in 2 days - I was astounded figuring they were just a front for a Chinese company - so there are real people there and they are just outside San Francisco. The price is great also. I also prefer 5400 only for the same reason BTW. As I recall it uses 54W.

I looked into a 1200 LED for the same thinking you had, but everyone I saw was either AC only or 24V. What do you do with 24V? Those were also 72W. The one you found on ebay is the only 1200 I've seen that uses a V mount but its specs read 36V , so maybe that's because its bicolor and you'll never get the full power.
BTW the guy at photo told me he didn't like the 1200 LED they sell. he thought the 900 was simply a better made product.

Lenny
 
To me lack of barn doors is a major step down.
What's negative for you on the ephoto LED's? aside from needing the 1/8 magenta I'm happy.
 
dont you worry about no ability to work with fv when no barndoors and not so much power? 400leds for their biggest light seems to be a bit small to me ... at least to paper information ~2800lx vs 10000lx on 1000-1200led ebay lights?
 
Lenilenapi said:
I've been very happy with this 900 LED from ephoto:

http://www.ephotoinc.com/900-led-dimmable-photography-video-pa900.html
Lenny
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I bought some 1008 LED panels from ePhoto but I had to return them. I did a lengthy review on Amazon and an unboxing on Youtube. I would not trust anything these knock-off manufactures tell you. There are a variety of problems with these knock-off LED's, my main concern is they are not really comparable yet with HIM, Flo's, or Tungsten. Especially in terms of the throw of the light over longer distances and the quality of light.
 
The ephoto salesman I talked to steered me away from those basically implying they were junk. Sorry about your experience. All I can say is I've been very happy w 900LED and I'm very critical about color.
LED's of course just don't compare to Tungstun or even flo's as a light source, but it is what it is - they have great advantages when you want portable. Mine were a little green around the edge of the light source but when diffused its fine. Build quality is good enough for the price.
 
Every factory makes excellent LEDs and junk LEDs. The reason why you see such a huge disparity in LED prices on seemingly exactly looking units is because one unit maker opts for cheaper LEDs (and thus crap color rendition) while another one using the same housing for more expensive one. How can you be sure which model you are getting - well, you can't really. That's why a brand standing behind their product is so important. Used 1x1 LitePanel in great condition can be had on ebay for around $500-750. You know they are the top brand so they will give you what you want. There are other brands such as Dedolight and probably a few more. With LEDs, the saying "you get what you pay for" was never more true. Frustrated with the current disarray of LEDs on the market (and lack of reliable reviews) i went the ebay route and got me a few 1x1 LitePanels and this is the route i would recommend.

BTW, gelling ANY light source other than tungsten produces unexpected results even if using high quality LEDs or even HMIs:
http://patrykrebisz.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/time-to-throw-out-the-tungsten-lights/

Also barndoors on large LED array (such as 1x1) is nonsense and almost totally useless. If you need to add gels you can simply tape those to the unit as they run cool. And anyone with basic understanding about soft light will tell you that flagging off the soft light at the source is pretty useless in controlling that light. That's why none of the expensive units (used by pros who understand the principle) come with barndoors - you have to buy those separately because you will use those so sparingly.
 
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Lenilenapi said:
The ephoto salesman I talked to steered me away from those basically implying they were junk. Sorry about your experience. All I can say is I've been very happy w 900LED and I'm very critical about color.
LED's of course just don't compare to Tungstun or even flo's as a light source, but it is what it is - they have great advantages when you want portable. Mine were a little green around the edge of the light source but when diffused its fine. Build quality is good enough for the price.
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ePhoto was good on their customer service, so it was more a lot of frustration and a learning experience for me. Up to those I had only used the Lightpanels so I had no idea what could be so wrong with some of these LEDs.
 
"Also barndoors on large LED array (such as 1x1) is nonsense and almost totally useless..."

I beg to differ and suggest you think twice before typing things that insult other people on the forum.

I don't like barndoors because they flag the light or make it easier to gel.

But "anyone with a basic understanding about soft light will" understand that clipping diffusion on the spread-out doors of an LED will make it a larger much softer source than you can ever achieve by taping to the front of the unit. Personally I hate the quality of a 1x1 even if diffusion is taped on the front - The barndoors improve it enormously. I dislike Litepanels for that reason.

You may well be right about the consistency of cheap LED's but so far I've been happy and have tested mine with gels to surprisingly good results. I've certainly seen that the plastic hard gels many of these manufacturers supply are all over the map - though my ephoto light again was pretty good. Maybe the next one will be different.

My own experience and that of a gaffer friend is that everything besides tungstun seems prone to off colors whether you gel them or not - all HMI's, Flo's and LED's tend to fly a little green or magenta so I just carry a bunch of compensating gels. it gets me through the day.
 
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Lenilenapi said:
"Also barndoors on large LED array (such as 1x1) is nonsense and almost totally useless..."

I beg to differ and suggest you think twice before typing things that insult other people on the forum.
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You are getting angry over someone insulting a piece of metal...


Lenilenapi said:
But "anyone with a basic understanding about soft light will" understand that clipping diffusion on the spread-out doors of an LED will make it a larger much softer source than you can ever achieve by taping to the front of the unit. Personally I hate the quality of a 1x1 even if diffusion is taped on the front - The barndoors improve it enormously. I dislike Litepanels for that reason.[/COLOR]
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I don't know where your math comes from. In open face tungsten light the lighting source - the bulb - is like 1x1 inch, so taping diffusion to the barndoors you increase the lighting source exponentially - to something like 12x12 inches. That's 100x more lighting surface. On 12x12 inches litepanel when you add the diffusion to its barndoors it increases to what, maybe 20x20 inches if you are lucky. That's not even 3x increase in the lighting surface. Yes, you get tad softer shadows but the difference will be minuscule if comparing with how diffusion affects typical hot lights.
 
First - you insulted my professionalism and knowledge of lighting, not a piece of metal, and you followed it up by insulting my math. I don't want to get into a flame war with you, just pointing out that that kind of post gets people's hackles up and ruins the quality of discourse on the forum.

Second - No one said anything about diffusing tungsten. I stated a preference for barndoors as a way to diffuse a 1x1 LED over taping to the unit. A 3x's larger source is a lot in my book and I've been doing it a long time. If you think its miniscule that's a legitimate point of view, we just have different standards and taste.
 
My experience with LED lighting includes ePhoto/Fancier, LitePanels, F&V, Dedo, and another brand I'm drawing a blank on at the moment. None of them, repeat, none of them are there yet. There is so much room for improvement in professional application LED lighting, and I'm sure that things will only get better over time. But, even with LED lighting being in its infancy for video applications, I find it is still a valuable tool to include in my light kit. Is it the same as Tungsten lighting? No, but neither is any other type of lighting we use in professional applications, and quite frankly I have grown tired of the Tungsten only LED haters. And yes I own a truck full of Tungsten lights. As far as barn doors go on LED lights, my preference would be to include them. For example, placing a Opal Frost gel 10 inches away from an LED array gives a much better look than right against the LEDs in my opinion. And when closed the barn doors give a little extra protection to the LEDs. Would I use the barn doors to flag off the light? No, I have a truck full of flags for that. Bottom line, lights are like cameras, even the best Tungsten light you can buy, can look like donkey snot when used by inexperienced folks. And by the same token, someone who is on top of their craft can get pleasing results using just about any light source. For what it's worth, of the 14 national TV spots I have crewed on so far this year, 10 of them used LED lights.

All the best!

Dave
 
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