LED-only lighting kit

Just mix them up. Forget the gobbeldy gook about always perfectly matching color temp. Use hotlights inside for big lighting and at the same time, LEDs close to your subject for accents and effect + fills. Outside, grab some HID's at 5,000 or 4300 to harmonize with daylight and also use LED's close up for accent, fills and effect.

Not too off topic but anyone know of a good Color Temp and Cine meter combined that's under $1000?
 
Zephyrnoid said:
Not too off topic but anyone know of a good Color Temp and Cine meter combined that's under $1000?
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Color meters are completely different devices than light meters, I don't know of any that are combined.
For color meters, the old Minolta ones (Color meter II and III) are still widely used. Look on ebay for them, I usually see them going for around $3-400.
 
Moseph said:
Color meters are completely different devices than light meters, I don't know of any that are combined.
For color meters, the old Minolta ones (Color meter II and III) are still widely used. Look on ebay for them, I usually see them going for around $3-400.
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I know. I think Sekonic has a fancy touch-screen one out just wasn't sure if it included color temp. No reason why they can't be combined. Just two sensors, two circuits one screen.
 
Zephyrnoid said:
I know. I think Sekonic has a fancy touch-screen one out just wasn't sure if it included color temp. No reason why they can't be combined. Just two sensors, two circuits one screen.
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Does anyone really use a color temp meter on a regular basis? I mean, shoot, all you have to do it look at the monitor, or take a still photo, and see what the light looks like.
 
They're good to have on location scouts, or when checking out HMI's. Yes, a still photo can work, but a color meter will give you the exact amount of filtration you need for color compensation (they're not too accurate for color temperature).
 
Moseph said:
They're good to have on location scouts, or when checking out HMI's. Yes, a still photo can work, but a color meter will give you the exact amount of filtration you need for color compensation (they're not too accurate for color temperature).
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That is what I thought, that the biggest advantage is the mired shift calculation. They are so expensive, for the most part, that I really could never justify springing for one.
 
I just saw another Minolta Color Meter II go for $200. That really isn't bad, and even though it's older, it's still widely used.

And I think mireds refer strictly to color temperature. For color compensation (green and magenta), they just give you a number. On the II I think it's anywhere from 0 to ±15 and on the III it's from 0 to ±30. I'm not positive but I know the III has twice as many possible values as the II. This number corresponds to a certain filter or gel, it doesn't really mean anything else.
 
I'm thinking I'll just start out getting three 650w-equivalent CDM fresnels. What other accessories do you recommend? Scrims, filters?
 
In truth, any advanced DSLR or video camera should be able to store colorimetric data from a manual WB reading and spit out that reading in ºK in a screen. But I bet the boys in Canon/Nikon/Panasonic/Olympus haven't figured that out yet. After all, the camera makes the necessary adjustments to a manual WB reading using that data, so why not display it? I'm an old guard stills shooter and was weaned on Color Meters and Spot meters. Now that I use a lot of mixed lighting it would be nice to know where I stand- never trusting my eyes or monitors.

Here ya go. Next week I'll ask them if it actually displays color temp.
 
blommer said:
I'm thinking I'll just start out getting three 650w-equivalent CDM fresnels. What other accessories do you recommend? Scrims, filters?
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why Fresnel ? What's the distance between your subjects and the lights? Outside in broad daylight? Inside ?
 
I thought it would allow good flexibility. I would have hard light, and then I could bounce or diffuse if I need soft light. Both inside and outside, probably for medium and close shots but I'm not sure for what exact distances I'll need them.
 
blommer said:
I thought it would allow good flexibility. I would have hard light, and then I could bounce or diffuse if I need soft light. Both inside and outside, probably for medium and close shots but I'm not sure for what exact distances I'll need them.
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Reasonable arguments to an extent. yes. popping a diffuser, particularly a domed one turns a spot beam into a flood. primarily for outside use where you are trying to balance artificial with strong natural light.
Inside you can simply bounce them (very effectively) off ceilings, walls and flats, or shoot through pop-up diffusers and scrims. Personally , unless your budget is not an issue, I'd buy one and use the rest of the money for a couple of cove lights. I use two Omni's (with & without 3/4 & Full CTB filters) and two V-Lights for almost all interviews and medium sized rooms. For Big rooms, more lights or rent those HMI's...unless you're capable of recovering the cost in a year.

A design studio local to me seems to really groove to big arse HMI's on set.
Have a look at the lights on this location shoot starting at about 2:16
http://youtu.be/HgPKz9eS6ms
 
blommer said:
I'm thinking I'll just start out getting three 650w-equivalent CDM fresnels. What other accessories do you recommend? Scrims, filters?
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If you get a fresnel you should always get a scrim bag and full scrim set with it. A full scrim set is 2 doubles, 1 single, 1 half single, 1 half double, and a gel frame. Might also want to get some cuts of diffusion and CTO and CTB for it as well.
 
RyanT said:
If you get a fresnel you should always get a scrim bag and full scrim set with it. A full scrim set is 2 doubles, 1 single, 1 half single, 1 half double, and a gel frame. Might also want to get some cuts of diffusion and CTO and CTB for it as well.
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Add some color compensating gels too (particularly minus green). Pretty much all discharge sources will have a spike in the green output of varying severity depending on the type and age of the lamp, this can screw with your skin tones.
 
Cool Lights said:
And it doesn't have a daylight bulb choice like ours does, they only have a 3000K bulb. We have 3000K or 5400K choices. The CDM 150 fresnel will be back in stock within a week or so.
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Richard,

Wouldn't your globe fit the DeSisti CD15F? They look almost identical.

Thanks,
Bern
 
Someone posted a review somewhere but can't remember where I saw it. Basically from looking at it though, extremely misleading. Its not a fresnel if there is no fresnel lens (which there isn't). And, its not bicolor either if there is one color of LED inside and the "other" color comes from a filter. In other words, there should be two colors of LEDs which can crossfade or an RGB LED setup of some kind which can change colors at user's whim and control.
 
David G. Smith said:
Does anyone really use a color temp meter on a regular basis? I mean, shoot, all you have to do it look at the monitor, or take a still photo, and see what the light looks like.
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i've always just used the camera and monitor, but an experienced lighting director can pretty much light a set with a pair of meters.
 
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