Lumapad on Kickstarter

KurtF said:
For folks interested in LED lighting - here's a recently spotted Kickstarter project:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...a-bright-led-light-pad-with-wifi-a?ref=search

If there's enough interest in this it might be a useful and decently priced unit.
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That's pretty cool, but a couple things concern me:

1) The electronics seem complicated. I'm sure I could understand them, as I know some programming, but call me old fashioned. As cool as all those options are, it seems like the possibility of an electronical/computer failure/glitch is very high. Our lighting now, is plug in and light.Additionally, programming a light to do a sequence might be cool, but many people even know what Arduino is, so I doubt very many filmmakers or electricians will be diving into that custom programming option. Prodding around programming code seems like a good way for things to go wrong. I've coded enough websites to know one error can disable a whole page. If this has a well developed CMS like program for average joe filmmakers, I think that would be the best option.

The uses are only limited by your imagination and ability to write simple software code.
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I don't know many people who can. I'm sure there are. Just saying...

2) The exposed fan. Considering our HMI's and Tungsten units run hot as hell, we don't use fans. LED's and fluorescent run relatively cool per watt usage. But this still needs a fan? This goes with my feeling toward point number one. Clearly it's to protect the computer side of the light. Also, a fan is just another moving part that can break, imo. Being exposed and whatnot, I can't see these living on a grip truck very long before the fan is damaged or quits. Going back to noise level, it is a little concerning but perhaps not bad. I don't know. Something to think about. Sound already hates our Red Cameras, HMI ballasts and dimmed tungsten hums. I doubt they will like these.

3) They clearly don't know how lighting works or are stretching facts for advertising, which is not cool.

Measuring only 6.75 inches wide X 4.50 inches high, this tiny light pad uses only 88 Watts of power while delivering almost 1000 Watts of tungsten equivalent soft light.
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Equivalent soft light?!

Do they know soft light comes in various amounts of 'soft'? If those two lights are the same brightness, the LED will be 10x harder in light quality than the tungsten with the chimera. Chances are, the open face or fresnel lens of the 1k is likely around the same size as the surface area of the LED light. Put a small amount of diff on the face, and then let's see the output of equivalent soft light. Small sources aren't soft light. Sorry mate, only if it's incredibly close to the subject.

That said, YES, LED is more watt-to-light efficient than tungsten, which turns about 70% of provided wattage to heat energy (versus light energy). However, boasting that it is 1/10th the size, but the same brightness in equivalent tungsten soft light is complete bulls*%t fact. It would have been simple to say that LED puts out more light per watt than an equivalent tungsten unit and runs much cooler. <--- was that so hard? That is a perfectly honest statement.

4) Not a BIG deal, but it's 6400 Kelvin color temperature. Sure daylight can vary quite a bit, sometimes on a cloudy day it can be 10,000k! However, if trying to match daylight Kino lights, or other daylight sources, you'll find they are typically 5500k or 5600k with small variations in HMI's. Something to think about. It's not typical daylight unit color of 5500 or 5600k.

That said, good for them! I hope they keep trucking and don't let my criticism (if they even become aware of it) stop them. In fact, I hope it helps. This looks ok for the traveling shooter, novice, or hobbyist. However, on a professional set, having the lighting be so dependent on exposed electronic boards with running fans along with the complication of the electronics/programming/control, I don't see this being a fast or reliable product. I don't want my gaffer holding up production because his i/phone won't wifi connect to the light to change it's color and it's due to someone screwing up the computer programming... also, in narrative work, lights are on for long periods of time. Apparently the fans can be off but seem to kick on when the temperture of the LEDs gets over a certain point. Again, I don't want fans running on my lighting, especially if there are many of them.

my .02
 
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Hehe you nailed it Patrick, they sure did state some "interesting" things and that K choice of theirs... ehm... well.

You probably couldn't even make this light a proper soft if you wanted to due to light spillage, and even if you did put a piece of diffusion in front of it you'd still not get the same amount of soft light that a Chimera produces without messing up the small form factor which seems to be one of the key features.
 
Don't know why both of you are talking that negative about the Kelvin of this thing, HMIs are around 6000K as well. Also, these kind of LED emitters need cooling at some point, other much more expensive pro LED panels have cooling devices - and it's been said that the Lightpads can be used without the fan. And you don't need to be able to program, these come with presets, I think the lightning preset for example is great.

If these are a valuable option for lighting video/film is another thing. CRI is very low for the 6.4K version and not much better for the tungsten emitters.
 
Looks like he's got his funding, so now we'll get a chance to see this materialize. As always, until it's built and folks have a chance to try it there will always be questions.
 
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