LED vs Fluorescent panels for interviews

R

Rain Man

Active member
Which do you prefer? The more I work the more it seems that tungstens are the best for skin tones. Which do you prefer though between LEDs and Fluorescents? I'm just getting into these types of lights, I have a couple LED panels and looking into Fluorescent panels. Thanks for your input, and if this has been discussed before, just link me in the right direction!
 
Fluorescent are great if you want that broad and soft lightsource. LEDs are just more directional. With that in mind I could see one way of combining these with a fluorescent as key and a LED as backlight. Soft from the front and hard backlight to give nice separation. You could use LEDs as key also with some sort of diffuser to make them softer. The main advantage of LEDs are they draw so little current so that you often can run these on batteries and don't have to mess with cables and balasts. But I would recommend to only use bi-color LEd panels. I never like the one color ones and when you need to deal with bulb lightsources or incoming daylight the bi-color is a God send feature.
 
LED have a CRI that is too low for proper color. Not to mention the cost.

Kino flo's true color bulbs have a CRI of 95. 90 is acceptable.
 
CRI is different from color temperature. CRI refers to the "color rendering index" and is a measure of the light's ability to accurately render colors. Also, a hundred years ago I don't think they had color film yet... so probably no gels ;-)
 
I do own Kino's, just saying there are times when an LED makes sense.
Just like tungsten & HMI's have there place in a fully rounded light kit.
 
Peterberg said:
A distinct advantage to Kino Flos over LED
panels is that their discontinuous color spectrum can be
easily corrected with gels, LEDs cannot... Once corrected for their green spike, Kino Flo True
Match tubes provide a nearly full spectrum source capable of
rendering flesh tones realistically.
Click to expand...

According to the product description for the True Match Tubes on B&H (link), "Using this lamp negates the need of having to guess at the color temperature or scramble for the proper lighting filtration."

I haven't used these but wouldn't that description imply that no correction is necessary to display colors accurately? Or am I mis-reading it? Or is it simply a mis-leading product description?
 
Supposedly kino tubes are "tuned" with phosphors specific to their ballasts, which slightly overdrive the bulbs? I think I remember reading that somewhere. SOOOOO some people think that you do get a green spike when you use a kino bulb in a non-kino ballast.
 
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