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micro light panels, and ikan led panel help
- Thread starter travismo
- Start date
Pat Hughes
Member
As you have experience in using your 20/40, think about these few specs in leds. Leds are really not measured in watts but in lumens as a yardstick of brightness. The standard is lumens at a distance of 1 meter or approx. 3 feet from a white surface. If your 20/40 was at the 40 watt setting, it only means that it CONSUMES 40 watt of juice from the battery and not 40 watt of light produced. Almost all incandescents (filament) bulbs are measured this way. For a led to have the rough equivalent of a 40 watt bulb, it would need to be rated at approx 500 lumen. Even at that, most leds are rather cool in color and need that yellow/orangish filter to warm things down a bit, further reducing the output. Add to that , as most leds have spread angle of about 60 to80 degrees ( which is not really wide enough to cover a full zoom out of your typical DVX lens without some sort of darkening at the edges. To widen it up a bit you also must use a diffuser in conjunction to that warming filter, and voila, that 500 lumen suddenly became a 300 lumen. Those led lights with hundreds of multiple leds in them look cool and fancy, but consider that the really good ones are those that have 6 to 12 high-output lighting class leds in them, as I really haven't seen them flat panel ones that would be equivalent or greater that a 100 w light bulb (1700 lumens) . My suggestion, try the actual light(s) you plan on getting or have a side to side comparison if possible. As an improvement for your 20/40, look for something in the 900 to 1800 lumen range, preferably with a dimmer. They are out there, just make sure you read the specs properly.
wow thanks a lot for all of that...so basically your saying find a light with few high powered leds in it rather than ones with hundreds of leds? the thing i don't like about my 20/40 is the inconvenience of having to haul the battery everywhere. i don't like to have to put that bulky battery in my back pocket every time i want to film in low light situations
Pat Hughes
Member
The reason I suggest those high lumen output leds rather than those teeny ones is that in order to get a high lumen output by those smaller leds is to cram hundreds of them in a manageable size (hardly possible). If you would be happy with the same brightness as your present set-up, there are many to choose in the 400 to 800 lumen output.Now you wouldn't want a 1800 lumen unit that measures 6 inches high by 12 inches wide( or thereabouts) on your camera, it would be much larger than the camera it sits on. The beam angle on those teeny lights are really useless unless you put a diffuser on it. Those 1800 lumen teeny led units would have a place on studio tripod mounted setups as size is not an issue. Just see if you can find a compact mega led unit that has a respectable lumen output, and chances are there isn't any.The majority of them out there are probably not much brighter than what you presently have. But those lighting class larger leds can really dish out the light in a very small size. Also most led units out there allow the battery to be mounted either directly behind the unit or powered by the camcorder battery.Just keep in mind that leds use about 1/4 to 1/5 th the power of bulbs. In my setup, I have the led powered by a separate battery ( identical to the camera battery) mounted on the camera handle. As I only need 1 charger type. If you really need more light, look into something in the range of 1800 lumen with a dimmer.