Mole Richardson LED Fresnels

T

T-1000

Active member
Hi guys, I asked about the new Mole LED Fresnels ( http://mole.com/lighting/led/mole_led.html ) over at Reduser and didn't get much of a response. I haven't found any reviews on them, which is strange, because as soon as I saw them I said "Man, people are gonna go nuts over these things." Maybe I was wrong, LOL.

Photometric data shows the 150 to have slightly more output than an Arri 650 tungsten fresnel, the 200 to be like a 1K, and the 400 to be a 2K replacement. The 100 looks like it has a bit less output than a 650.

Has anyone reviewed these? Anyone using them?
 
I'm definitely interested in them too, especially the 400, since it's a huge deal to be about to put out 2k of light, but not have to overly worry about overloading a circuit. I called about ordering the 400 and was told that it still hasn't come out yet.

rjp85 said:
Hi guys, I asked about the new Mole LED Fresnels ( http://mole.com/lighting/led/mole_led.html ) over at Reduser and didn't get much of a response. I haven't found any reviews on them, which is strange, because as soon as I saw them I said "Man, people are gonna go nuts over these things." Maybe I was wrong, LOL.

Photometric data shows the 150 to have slightly more output than an Arri 650 tungsten fresnel, the 200 to be like a 1K, and the 400 to be a 2K replacement. The 100 looks like it has a bit less output than a 650.

Has anyone reviewed these? Anyone using them?
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What I would love to see is an LED retrofit for some of their Tungsten lights.

For example... Imagine an LED insert for a 2K Junior Frenel that would be a simple drop in replacement.
 
Madness! Nine hundred dollars for a lamp for a Fresnel that costs less than that! Apart from reduced electricity consumption and the occasional lamp replacement, what exactly is the point? Would you put a brand new engine in your car that costs more than an entire vehicle because it uses less fuel? On top of this, the claim that it went just as fast and had the same torque seems to be unsubstantiated? Light output is not just brightness, it's light quality, and so far, I'm unimpressed by led. Am I the only person who finds it odd that to colour an led light source you have to use gel that to the eye is the wrong colour? What comes out the front of these things even needs new measurement systems to quantify it! With $900 you could buy some really useful stuff, but one clever globe, forget it.
 
paulears said:
what exactly is the point?
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Well, that's what I've been trying to find out, lol. I understand where you're coming from, as I stayed away from LEDs because of the horrible color rendition, however, these really shouldn't be called LED lights, IMO.

First of all, it's not a lamp or a globe, but an array of quantum dots on an LED module/chip that were developed by OSRAM specifically for Mole. They last 50,000 hours. The technology is not used in any other film/broadcast lighting device on the planet, and the color has been fine tuned and tested by OSRAM, Mole, and the A.S.C. to match tungsten and HMI fixtures exactly. The daylight fixtures have a CRI of 90, and the Tungsten fixtures have a CRI rating of 95, but I wouldn't know what that really means until someone shows me what comes out of these things.

Yes, of course they're expensive. But I could have a daylight fixture in any of the powers mentioned above, that lasts virtually forever, and can be used/plugged-in anywhere, with dimming, and no ballast to carry around.
 
Show me an LED fresnel that has as much output as a 20k and then I'll be really interested. These ones, not so much. I can plug in any of the original tungsten equivalents to those lights into a wall as it is, I don't need the power savings for that steep of a price.
 
Moseph said:
Show me an LED fresnel that has as much output as a 20k and then I'll be really interested. These ones, not so much. I can plug in any of the original tungsten equivalents to those lights into a wall as it is, I don't need the power savings for that steep of a price.
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excuse me, but what are you shooting that requires 20K of light? and are you shooting it that frequently to merit it as a purchase instead of a rental?

or did you mean 2k?
 
and what will be interesting is whether these proper fresnels will draw people away from the panel style led lights. sure has me waiting to see the verdict
 
We use 20k's for big night exteriors all the time.
The way I worded that may have been misleading; I wouldn't be interested in purchasing one, but it would be more useful to have a highly powerful tungsten balanced source that consumes less a third of the electricity of an equally bight quartz light than with smaller ones like these, where your power savings are only in the order of a few amps.
 
50,000 hours is always claimed for LEDs - but it's rarely achieved because the things attached to the LEDs fail far sooner. Hundreds of solder joints mean a few will always fail, and if you look at any LED fixture you see faults after a while. I have 24 LED fixtures of various types. None more than 4 years old, none used every day. Two are totally dead. One has been replaced twice, but can't be used because the replacement has a different LED manufacturer, and the white isn't the same. One other has intermittent DMX control, and another flickers when it's dimmed. Out of the 24, I've lost probably around 15 individual LEDs. I still have some old tungsten Fresnels, including an ancient 1K Mole, and it still works reliably every time - and has beautiful beam edges and a nice fall off to the beam spread. The LEDs are harsh and difficult to control. A cluster of LED modules, a bit like the Arri, I suspect, doesn't look the same. I've been using one of these clusters in a special effect - a 6ft high magicians staff, with a big glass globe on the end. It is amazingly bright and intense, and can strobe and look like lightning - but it's damn unreliable. The users seem to bang the staff on the ground, and dry joints are a real pain. If I spend thousands on one light source, I really want it to have at least the lifespan of the old one it replaces - and NOBODY will guarantee that. Arri make their light source replaceable, because in a couple of years there will be a better one on the market. They know this, and have made it a feature! That much money for how many years life? 50,000 hours is a joke.
 
Has anyone had any real contact with these lights yet? I'm very interested in getting a couple of the 400w Studio Junior in daylight - photometrically they're basically equivalent to 575w HMI fresnels (without the bulb changes or worrying about ballasts) with full dimmability (without colour-shift) and no real issues with flicker for high framerate work.

So they should be a really useful light IMO. I'd love to hear some feedback from anyone who's used them (particularly the daylight versions).
 
I've been searching and searching and haven't heard anything. I'm also interested in the 400 Studio Juniors. It costs less than any of the Arri LED Fresnels, and puts out at least 4x as much light (compared to an Arri L7 DT, which is their most powerful unit right now), and of course, it's built like a tank. I do wish they had tuneable color/tint like the Arri units. They seem to really have created a real, full-spectrum light source.
 
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One thing I don't like with the Moles (by looking at specs) is size and weight.
At 11kg+ the 400w is almost twice the weight of a 575w Arri Compact head. And the lens is 25cm compared to the 15cm of the HMI. Lens size is probably related to the nature of the LED source. Also, LED fresnels seem to be difficult (wider spread) and less efficient to spot (again, probably related to issues with shaping the beam): spot photometrics are much weaker than flood photometrics (compared to a 575w HMI fresnel).
 
The Mole fixtures are the same housings as their classic tungsten fixtures, now with a Quantum Dot LED light source. In fact they even sell retrofitting kits so that old fictures can be converted over.

A big lens is a good thing, as it helps give greater spot-flood range. You are correct that the spot output is weaker and less spotty than the tungsten original, and this has to do with the Quantum Dot panel being a physically larger source than the quartz tungsten filament.
 
I like the bigger fixtures for the bigger lens. I have a pair of old Mole 416s that I have globed to 1K that have a 10" lens. I don't get to use them a lot but that is some beautiful light from those big old lenses.

I think getting a 2K or 1.5K equivalent in LED is really useful if it is daylight. Otherwise, I'm OK with the plain tungsten lighting night interiors.
 
hscully said:
I like the bigger fixtures for the bigger lens. I have a pair of old Mole 416s that I have globed to 1K that have a 10" lens. I don't get to use them a lot but that is some beautiful light from those big old lenses.

I think getting a 2K or 1.5K equivalent in LED is really useful if it is daylight. Otherwise, I'm OK with the plain tungsten lighting night interiors.
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Yeah, I don't see as much value in the tungsten LED versions (where you could still plug the equivalent tungsten fixture into a household socket), but in daylight balance - well that's where these things will shine (and why I think it makes more sense to describe them as 575w HMI equivalent rather than 2k tungsten - people 'get it' quicker).
 
The advantage in the Mole tungsten LEDs, especially the 400, would be that there's no heat, and obviously, it uses less power. No gels/scrims/diffusion fabric/curtains/talent will ever get burned.

But yeah, I'd probably just use the daylight versions. :)
 
Today i got to play with AAdynTech's JAB light (probably the clunkiest name for a company), Nila Boxer and converted Mole 1k. When i turned on JAB light i though i'm making a mistake of renting out the 575HMI as this LED is as powerful! I was WOW! impressed. Nila seems too spotty (obviously you can diffuse it) so even though on paper Nila is stronger than JAB, in practice i can see how JAB would outperform Nila. There was nothing remarkable about the converted Mole. The beam of the light was even but the shadow wasn't as smooth as you would expect. The 1k housing also didn't impress with the power of the light output. Here, take it with a grain of salt as i spend less than 15 min playing with those 3 lights.
 
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