Looking for LED color light for background

F

firehawk

Veteran
I'm looking for some type of adjustable multi-color/brightness LED light that I can light the background of interviews. Sometimes you just have a boring blank wall and I want to be able to spice it up. Ideally if it could be battery powered and flicker free that would help too.
Any suggestions?
 
Have you looked at the Hive 100C and 200C fixtures? They can accept lots of attachments/modifiers, like fresnel lenses, soft boxes and pattern projector barrels(otherwise known as Lekos or Source Fours).
 
Just went through this a month or two ago.

I ended up picking up some Yongnuo RGB fixtures, 2 yn360's and 2 yn600's

I've only been messing around and testing for a shoot I have next month, but so far I really like both.

The yn360 wands are incredibly bright and cool for what they are. The yn600 panels are really nice too.

Both feel plasticky and are essentially cheap enough to be disposable.
 
homestar_kevin said:
Just went through this a month or two ago.

I ended up picking up some Yongnuo RGB fixtures, 2 yn360's and 2 yn600's

I've only been messing around and testing for a shoot I have next month, but so far I really like both.

The yn360 wands are incredibly bright and cool for what they are. The yn600 panels are really nice too.

Both feel plasticky and are essentially cheap enough to be disposable.
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How long do batteries last on the wands? Any downsides you've noticed?

@firehawk, there's also the luxli timpani, which also has effects. Also consider a single 4 foot QS rainbow tube, which you can use in a number of other situations. Huge amounts of spill may be less of an issue if it's for a big wash on the wall.

Run&Gun's Hive suggestions could be the best choice. Too many options!
 
Run&Gun, I think you've posted your thoughts on the 200c but can't find it. Now that you've used it for a while, how do you like it?
 
Thanks everyone. Some great options there! I wasn't familiar with any of them.

Since I don't need one immediately I'm going to resist G.A.S and watch those expensive ones (hive & luxli) for a possible future price drop and maybe get a yn360 to give me some color in the meantime. Those built-in effects such as fire and lightning are really cool!
 
rob norton said:
Run&Gun, I think you've posted your thoughts on the 200c but can't find it. Now that you've used it for a while, how do you like it?
Click to expand...

Actually, I'm still waiting on my 200C's(over TWO months, now), BUT I do have a set of 100C's. The "preset" 3200K is lacking to my eye, on camera, a bit green. But it can be "tuned" to look good on camera and can be done with the app with minor fuss. The higher kelvin color temps appear better. Where they really shine is the RGB colors, though. The control app is very good, allowing you to create pretty much any color of "white" and "RGB" light and store them in the fixture and a set in the app. The weak point of the 100C's with the app, is that the range is pretty poor. More than a few feet and it loses connection. I'd love to be able to stand at the camera/monitor and tune the light while seeing it on the monitor, since as we know, especially with some colors, how they look to our eye and to the camera can be quite different(i.e.: purple with my F55). Supposedly the range is much better with the 200C's. The 200C's also have more color emitters(7 colors vs 5 colors) than the 100C. Which may be why it supposedly has better "white" light, too(can't verify that myself, yet). The 200C's are also supposed to have lighting effects built-in, a la Sky Panel's and Gemini's. Although Hive has done something that really rubs me the wrong way by charging you to be able to control the lighting effects from the app. They made them 'In-App Purchases'. This really needs to change, especially at this level. Arri doesn't charge for lighting effects and neither does Litepanels. I've been a supporter of Hive for a while and they have good customer service(John communicated with me directly many times during and after the launch of the original 100C's), but they need to understand that charging for the lighting effects in the app is a very poor idea. We're talking about lights that are ~$1900/each(200C's) and then they expect you to pay an extra $20 to be able to control certain features from their app.

But anyway... I give my 100C's a B+. They lose points for the slight green in the lower preset kelvin range and weak BT range for the phone app. I have high hopes for the 200C's.
 
Run&Gun said:
Actually, I'm still waiting on my 200C's(over TWO months, now), BUT I do have a set of 100C's. The "preset" 3200K is lacking to my eye, on camera, a bit green. But it can be "tuned" to look good on camera and can be done with the app with minor fuss. The higher kelvin color temps appear better. Where they really shine is the RGB colors, though. The control app is very good, allowing you to create pretty much any color of "white" and "RGB" light and store them in the fixture and a set in the app. The weak point of the 100C's with the app, is that the range is pretty poor. More than a few feet and it loses connection. I'd love to be able to stand at the camera/monitor and tune the light while seeing it on the monitor, since as we know, especially with some colors, how they look to our eye and to the camera can be quite different(i.e.: purple with my F55). Supposedly the range is much better with the 200C's. The 200C's also have more color emitters(7 colors vs 5 colors) than the 100C. Which may be why it supposedly has better "white" light, too(can't verify that myself, yet). The 200C's are also supposed to have lighting effects built-in, a la Sky Panel's and Gemini's. Although Hive has done something that really rubs me the wrong way by charging you to be able to control the lighting effects from the app. They made them 'In-App Purchases'. This really needs to change, especially at this level. Arri doesn't charge for lighting effects and neither does Litepanels. I've been a supporter of Hive for a while and they have good customer service(John communicated with me directly many times during and after the launch of the original 100C's), but they need to understand that charging for the lighting effects in the app is a very poor idea. We're talking about lights that are ~$1900/each(200C's) and then they expect you to pay an extra $20 to be able to control certain features from their app.

But anyway... I give my 100C's a B+. They lose points for the slight green in the lower preset kelvin range and weak BT range for the phone app. I have high hopes for the 200C's.
Click to expand...

Thanks, awaiting your review.
 
For lighting a BG why use cine lights when skin rendering is not important.

Id raid the local hardware/amazon for interesting fixtures, or worklights if you just need power.

A side note..
I bought two of these recently and am finding them most excellent for hair and accent lighting.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Dim...2269686&sr=8-2-spons&keywords=led+panel&psc=1
THey are very solid build and work well with 5/8 standard grip equipment unlike the cheapo LED panels with plastic spigot interfaces.
 
What are your criteria? Price? output? Beam angle? Control functionality?

Personally I usually use a Chauvet Slimpar Pro H ~100W RGBAW light. I call it my poor-man's digital sputnik since it's somewhat similar in beam angle and power draw to a Digital Sputnik DS1 at about 1/20th the price. It's silent and I think I spent around $150 on mine plus an $80 Wifi DMX/Art-Net adapter I use to control it with my phone. I actually built a whole studio for an Ad agency with a dozen of those lights. That's the cheap fairly bright option. Worth noting they have 1200Hz PWM dimming so they don't flicker at most common framerates (48/50/60/96/100/120) but could flicker at higher or intermediate framerates that aren't divisible by 1200.

You may want to look into Yongnuo YN600RGB YN360 YN360II or Luxli lights, though the RGB output on those is somewhat low and the beam quite wide. I find my Par pretty handy for doing things like putting a soft round beam behind a subject's head.

Obviously if you have the budget, Skypanels, Gemini, DS1's, etc are amazing for this purpose as well...
 
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Yes I agree the lupo color 30 does look interesting.

The luxli has a $100 discount (at B&H) that started after this thread started. Code must be applied. That brings it to $899
 
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