Led lights and white balance/chroma phase

X

XSVpro

Well-known member
Hi all, does anyone have any advice when white balancing to led lighting? Is there a particular type of white card I could use or adjustment to the scene file I should make, I.e. chroma phase or fluo colour matrix? (I don't think the matrix is that important?)
 
LED lighting is frequently kind of awful. I would say to never, ever use a preset when trying to shoot under LED lighting. Expensive pro LED lights can be good, but cheapo LED lights just don't represent the full spectrum very well.

So always white balance manually, and the whiter and purer the white card, the better your results will be. DSC Labs makes a CamWhite card for proper white balance, that's what I use.
 
Barry_Green said:
LED lighting is frequently kind of awful. I would say to never, ever use a preset when trying to shoot under LED lighting. Expensive pro LED lights can be good, but cheapo LED lights just don't represent the full spectrum very well.

So always white balance manually, and the whiter and purer the white card, the better your results will be. DSC Labs makes a CamWhite card for proper white balance, that's what I use.
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Thanks Barry, ill look into that, do they do a set with a warm card included?

Is there any need to shift the scene file around at all for working with LED lights in varying degrees of quality?
 
Get your white balance right and leave the scene files alone. There are too many variations in LED lighting to be able to dial in a LED scene file.
I have a dozen or so different LED units (mostly the cheapo ones) and none of them have the same colour.
 
XSVpro said:
Thanks Barry, ill look into that, do they do a set with a warm card included?

Is there any need to shift the scene file around at all for working with LED lights in varying degrees of quality?
Click to expand...

If you have a scenefile you like, I'd recommend sticking to that unless you have some other method to change it (against a CamAlign or something).

But indeed, some of the CamWhite cards do have CamWarm on the back (mine does anyway.)

Good luck!
 
I'll go against the typical wisdom and say LEDs can look good, even cheap ones. Been shooting with them for a few years now and think they look good. I'd dare anyone to look at various interviews shot with either LEDs or traditional light sources and pick out the LEDs - of course I mean well shot interviews. But also I do agree that different LEDs will look different. I only hav experience with Cool Lights and Lite Panlels.

Oh, and I use the 5600k preset with my AF100 and Cool Lights LEDs. I find the preset to work best believe it or not.
 
Rowy said:
Get your white balance right and leave the scene files alone. There are too many variations in LED lighting to be able to dial in a LED scene file.
I have a dozen or so different LED units (mostly the cheapo ones) and none of them have the same colour.
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Thanks Rowy, ill leave the chroma shift alone, I use a cheaply LED for bounce when interviewing subjects against a bright sky. Easier to carry a small light stand in my tripod bag than try and have someone use a reflector. Just wanted to see if I am getting the most out if the camera.
 
Petros Kolyvas said:
If you have a scenefile you like, I'd recommend sticking to that unless you have some other method to change it (against a CamAlign or something).

But indeed, some of the CamWhite cards do have CamWarm on the back (mine does anyway.)

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Pretty much have my preferred scene file based on cine-d and raise/lower the chroma and pedestal depending on post time allowed or if its a local live cast, definitely wanted to play around with a warm white card.
 
EidolonFilms said:
I'll go against the typical wisdom and say LEDs can look good, even cheap ones. Been shooting with them for a few years now and think they look good. I'd dare anyone to look at various interviews shot with either LEDs or traditional light sources and pick out the LEDs - of course I mean well shot interviews. But also I do agree that different LEDs will look different. I only hav experience with Cool Lights and Lite Panels.

Oh, and I use the 5600k preset with my AF100 and Cool Lights LEDs. I find the preset to work best believe it or not.
Click to expand...

Go with what you know, I use Fluorescents inside and a cheaply LED outside, I love how simple it is! I manual white balance as I got it terribly wrong once. I also need the reminder to black balance!


Thanks for the kind advice everyone.
 
I've used the cool lights led's and if I use the 1/2 minus green they provide with the kit you will get pretty good color. With the cheaper fancier 1000 chinese led I use 1/2 minus green gel and I get good results as well. I've used the light panels 1x1 bi color light and measured with a color temperature meter, in 3200 mode the color is pretty spot on, when you swing to daylight it needs 1/2 minus green. I don't really like the way panasonic cameras in general white balance. I always compare the way white balance and preset look, and usually preset looks better to me and my clients.
 
I've given up on LEDs and cheap CFLs. I was getting awful results whenever there was the tiniest bit of real daylight that need balancing against - all sorts of yucky greens and yellows in skin tones that proved very difficult to grade out. So I reluctantly dropped a sizeable amount of dosh on a Kino 401 Diva light and 2 Dedos. I've also got lovely results on the AF101 going back to my 3 redheads recently.

Tungsten is back in favour again with me, when it comes to even colour rendition - and the Diva balances beautifully with tungsten when using their daylight bulbs with CTO.

Ben.
 
I've never been that impressed with LED technology insofar as colour rendition and therefor never bought into it. That is until I got the Dedo Feloni.

- Very nice colour rendition
- Can be powered normally through a socket, v mount or sony battery (all are standard on the unit itself). Large Sony battery gives you around an hour. Power draw is very low.
- Built in dimmer and also dimmer extension cable - meaning you can pop the dimmer off the light and attach via cable.
- Very minimal heat on the unit.
- Very light weight.
- Nice gradation from centre of reflected light outward.
- Light goes forward, very little light gushing out sideways like other units. Easy to control - think everyone expects that from Dedo anyway.
- Overall a great little unit.
 
XSVpro said:
Go with what you know, I use Fluorescents inside and a cheaply LED outside, I love how simple it is! I manual white balance as I got it terribly wrong once. I also need the reminder to black balance!


Thanks for the kind advice everyone.
Click to expand...
What's your email address, mate?
Got something to send you.
dtzfilms@gmail.com
 
i Have been using daylight Flo lights for a while now and their CRI is 93. These lights match well with daylight divas and I love the ability to shoot an interview in a confined space without roasting the subject with IR from tungsten lamps. I have a set of CC gels cut to size for each light but that is mostly to match into location lighting situations that i can't control when need arises, or to correct to tungsten. I find that I rarely use my tungsten lights these days.
 
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