Need a backlight. Is there something new out - affordable LED light?

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daktulus

Well-known member
I have 2 LED softlights as key and fill and need for a 3 point lit interview a good backlight. Until now I used a small 300W Tungsten fresnel that can be focused, but I wonder if there is anything new out that doesn´t use as much electricity, maybe even with a battery.

These LEDs are too pricey (and too strong) for me:
http://www.newsshooter.com/2017/03/...he-rayzr-7-daylight-300-and-lupo-dayled-2000/

Is there anything more affordable out that has good/acceptable CRI (I tested a real cheap LED from China: the skin looked ugly greenish, unusable) and the possibility to attach barndoors?
 
Ahh, welcome to the club. Many of us already have decent sized, price and output panels for key and fill sources (I don't know many who try to light BGs with panels, too many microshadows, not very controllable, etc.) who are looking for the exact same thing. The CAME Boltzen 30 and 50 watt fresnels had some promise but they seem kind of junky with not very high output. If you have an Arri 300, you can buy a Visionsmith LED relamp, http://visionsmith.com/shop/relamp/relamp-300-led/?v=3e8d115eb4b3then you get to keep your killer Arri fixture, barndoors and your beautiful Arri fresnel lens, which is better quality than any fresnel lens I have seen on any lower cost LED fresnels. But it costs $495.00. But that doesn't reduce your weight or bulk for travel, airlines, etc. and the 300 is great for a hair, rim, or cheek scratch but it is probably physically larger than it needs to be to fulfill those roles.

With LED fresnels, you kind of get what you pay for. The Aputure COB 120D isn't bad but once again, it's pretty large compared to an Arri 150 or 300. I have an older Coolights 256 LED panel, it has barndoors but definitely has more of a green spike than my Aputure LS 1S key and fill sources. Aputure was supposed to introduce a really nice Tri 8 smaller metal panel but that was months ago and no sign of it and it's a panel when I would rather have a fresnel to utilize in that role because if you don't need a hair or rim light, it's nice to repurpose a fresnel for doing BG lighting, throwing patterns, slashes, etc. I woud say at this point, a high CRI, quality LED fresnel replacement for Arri 300 at around the same price or less doesn't yet exist
 
check this out

It checks all the boxes, and the price seems good enough to try without a major hurt on the wallet. I like how ii's like a small Dedolight size can.
 
edithouse said:
check this out

It checks all the boxes, and the price seems good enough to try without a major hurt on the wallet. I like how ii's like a small Dedolight size can.
Click to expand...

I looked at these a few weeks ago, they don't look bad, they look intriguing. But keep in mind though, these draw 50 watts. Since comparing photometrics on LEDs is tricky, at best, one can surmise that the actual output of these will behave roughly like my Arri 150 tungsten fresnel. Which is not a very powerful light. It's actually a pretty wimpy light, even though I love mine. So if you mostly work in black box lighting environments, in other word, you get to start with a dark room and truly light it all, as the guy in the clip does, these may be great. If you compete with lots of ambient light, sunlight through windows, you may find these lights probably don't have much horsepower, possibly quite a bit less than the Arri 300 watt fresnel and I often swap out the 300 for one of my 650s because they seem to hit the sweet spot when lighting in ambient lit environments. So I think a lot of it has to do with your particular lighting requirements, everyone is different. My trend, especially in buying a couple of the Aputure LS 1S was that I want my LEDs to have really almost too much output when turned up all of the way. I've used my Aputures full up, with no modifiers, just the barndoors, outdoors on a full sun day on people of color as fill and they kicked butt, it was so nice to use an LED panel outside. That kind of output you can work with, just dial them down as needed. But as many of us have experienced over the years, if you are turned up all of the way and still don't have enough output for your situation, it can be frustrating.
 
MR-16 "birdie" lights are much more efficient than fresnels, if you get a 100w narrow bulb you may very well end up with a similar output to a 300 at full spot.

That said, I find it hard to imagine a scenario where the 2.5 amp draw of a 300 would be too much electricity, or would even approach that. But if your backlight just has to be an LED, I would pretty much eliminate anything that can't run off a battery since if you have to plug it in anyways you might as well have just saved the money and kept using the 300.

The litepanels on-camera brick lights have a pretty good color and strong output, chimera also sells a small soft box designed to mount on them. You could use some honeycomb or even a piece of plastic egg crate for overhead fluorescent fixtures to focus it. Will it match the output of a 300? Not really sure, never done a side-by-side comparison of the two, but the new generation is definitely stronger than the older model that employed dozens of through-hole emitters.
 
these are pretty cool, but not sure on the flexibility in real life with color, mounting, etc., but they make a heck of a track light
 
Curious if you guys have tried using a larger source vs a fresnel or similar for interview backlight? I used to use 4 ft. kinos, now Litemats or similar--I prefer the less kicky/sourcey look myself. Certainly gentler if someone is follicly challenged.
 
CharlesPapert said:
Curious if you guys have tried using a larger source vs a fresnel or similar for interview backlight? I used to use 4 ft. kinos, now Litemats or similar--I prefer the less kicky/sourcey look myself. Certainly gentler if someone is follicly challenged.
Click to expand...

Whenever I am lighting someone follicly challenged, their hair light magically transforms into a shoulder/rim light or it get's shut off. I have fought that battle many times and depending on their physical build, skin tone and skin reflectance, sometimes it's easier to just shut it off if you are crunched for time and don't have the time to troubleshoot it. I've done a few of those where in their first position, it looked fine but then in the middle of the interview, they shift their body position around and all of sudden huge flare on their forehead because there is little to no hair to flag it. A lot of the newer trends I have been noticing are stepping away from hair lights anyway. Of course it just depends on what you are going for and what the hair color is. I've had plenty of black hair against black Duvetine, that kind of requires a hair light to avoid the "floating head" syndrome.

Art Adams wrote this nice article on how his clients are rejecting the classic hairlight/backlight look in favor of a more naturalistic/organic look. Worth a read guys. https://www.provideocoalition.com/polishing-talking-head-interview/
 
Last one of these I did I used two 4x2 Quasars next to each other to make an extra wide backlight that would naturally wrap Keegan's head, dialed down low to keep it subtle. To the left (lamp right) of those I added a leko for Jordan to give him a little extra pop. Since there were practicals visible in the frame, it felt right to have some backlight. I don't use it often for narrative work unless motivated by a light source.

 
What about punching a 1x1 or 2 of them next to each other through a collapsible 4x4 frame with diffusion on it? A couple different companies make those frames and they don't take long to assemble. I say this having never dealt with that situation myself, but if I ever upgrade my lighting gear I plan to try it.
 
Charles- What is your suggested formula for the classic tv interview? - 2 individuals facing each other, 2 cameras cross shooting and a third camera doing a lateral 2-shot. And all stands / lighting units having to be out of the lateral 2-shot.

As in this photo:

dsc09698-1600x1600.jpg


My guess is that those key lights are LiteMats. With a custom-made core-plast "box" to contain the spill. The backlight on Leslie looks to be a 1x1 LED with a small soft box attached.

Nerve-racking having even a lightweight unit suspended over some President or Governor's head like that. You guys seen the clip where a light falls during an interview with Bill and Hillary Clinton?-

 
All too familiar with that Clinton clip...I knew the lighting folks involved from back east at the time, they were obviously mortified.

Below is a go at that type of lighting--background lights not included, this is just for the faces. And this is not particularly to scale. Last time I try to use Shot Designer for this sort of thing, it's a PITA. Anyway, I rarely do classic 3 point lighting where the fill is opposing the key, I prefer the fill to come from over camera or just to the same side as the key, and dial it way down. Essentially it's just a big wrap that starts from one side and fades towards the center. If it's not possible to rig from above (as is the case in a non-studio situation), the menace arms get the job done but it gets congested around camera. The quickie version of this I use for cross-coverage I've described and probably diagrammed here before--an 8 foot wag flag (ultrabounce material rolled onto a long steel pin) with lekos pushing into it, preferably one for the far side and one for the center. Same idea, just a bit quicker to get going. The nice thing with using units here is that you can use grids/egg crates to keep the units pushing forward and not down onto the subject. I do prefer to not fly the units over the subject--that picture horrifies me a little. If there was an emergency and they stood up suddenly, they'd bonk their head!

lighting2.jpg
 

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The 60 minutes clip reminds me of this. It's been around for YEARS. Never found out if it was real or not... it always seemed just too perfect.

 
I came across these recently. Most notable, they are all fanless and use heatsinks instead. No battery, but they use 12-15v dc power. You can find them on eBay for various prices.


Here's a review of the CN60F--

 
Menace arms and wag-flags. I do hate you for the toys you have at your disposal, Charles. :laugh:


Thank you much for the detailed response and suggestions!


More and more I am realizing that a difference between the lighting that ENG guy's do and more "cinematic" lighting is that ENG guys tend to have units lighting the subject directly ( even if through diffusion ) while a more "DP" method is to bounce light. Not always, but I think you get what I mean here. Another difference being the size of the sources. Not necessarily the size of the units, but the size of the source. Lighting through 4 x4 frames or even through much larger frames. Rather than just a unit with some diffusion on it. Now, in fairness to my ENG brothers, a reason we don't often use bounced light as a key light is that a sufficiently powerful unit isn't always available and the flagging necessary to control spill from a big bounced source isn't often available. That said, I have used a 200 HMI and even a 750w Tota-light into a 4x4 beadboard and it was enough light. And it also made for a lovely key light. It spilled everywhere, but the room was of large enough size that it didn't matter much. It is in the smaller confines ( little distance between subject and background ) where the spill kills you.

Lighting with bounced Lekos ( Joe-lekos in particular ) is an entirely different way to light than what is typically done by a small crew only possessing LED soft lights and fresnels. It facilitates placing the "source" just about anywhere you like without actually having the lighting unit in the position of the source or anywhere close to the position of the source.

Having material rigged over the heads of individuals instead of a heavy lighting unit rigged over their heads- that is wise. Great suggestion there. It could serve well in many instances. Although all the spill might be a pita in a smaller room. For these sorts of sit-down interviews the clients typically want a large falloff, the background several stops under if not near black and with just a few hits of splash at a level close to the luminance of the faces of the subjects if not a stop hotter. Getting that falloff in a small space is, I presume, difficult when using a big piece of ultra bounce as a key and few to no flags available to control all that bounce.

Either way, I'm purchasing an 8x8 piece of ultra bounce today. And maybe an 8 x8 clay coat as well.


thanks again. Your sharing of your knowledge and experience is much appreciated.
 
These look interesting. But only buying from Ebay, for $400.00, hmm... I would be concerned about service, repair and long term reliability. Wish there was a dealer we could see them in person or rent them from. The specs look good, price isn't too rich. I would feel better if Amazon, Adorama or B&H had them, at least you could get returns and service. Interesting, it is listed on Amazon.co.uk but not on Amazon here.

Batutta said:
I came across these recently. Most notable, they are all fanless and use heatsinks instead. No battery, but they use 12-15v dc power. You can find them on eBay for various prices.


Here's a review of the CN60F--

Click to expand...
 
puredrifting said:
These look interesting. But only buying from Ebay, for $400.00, hmm... I would be concerned about service, repair and long term reliability. Wish there was a dealer we could see them in person or rent them from. The specs look good, price isn't too rich. I would feel better if Amazon, Adorama or B&H had them, at least you could get returns and service. Interesting, it is listed on Amazon.co.uk but not on Amazon here.
Click to expand...

You can find some of them on Amazon too.

https://www.amazon.com/Top-Fotos-Na...ie=UTF8&qid=1489774345&sr=8-2&keywords=CN-30F

https://www.amazon.com/Top-Fotos-Fr...rd_wg=WDrhc&psc=1&refRID=G2FHC2DFZDJ52Y29GMY8

There is also this model from the same company that is cheaper, seems like the same light.

https://www.amazon.com/EACHSHOT-CN-P100WA-Focusing-professional-spotlight/dp/B01KTGTTTW
 
JPNola said:
Menace arms and wag-flags. I do hate you for the toys you have at your disposal, Charles. :laugh:


Thank you much for the detailed response and suggestions!


More and more I am realizing that a difference between the lighting that ENG guy's do and more "cinematic" lighting is that ENG guys tend to have units lighting the subject directly ( even if through diffusion ) while a more "DP" method is to bounce light. Not always, but I think you get what I mean here. Another difference being the size of the sources. Not necessarily the size of the units, but the size of the source. Lighting through 4 x4 frames or even through much larger frames. Rather than just a unit with some diffusion on it. Now, in fairness to my ENG brothers, a reason we don't often use bounced light as a key light is that a sufficiently powerful unit isn't always available and the flagging necessary to control spill from a big bounced source isn't often available. That said, I have used a 200 HMI and even a 750w Tota-light into a 4x4 beadboard and it was enough light. And it also made for a lovely key light. It spilled everywhere, but the room was of large enough size that it didn't matter much. It is in the smaller confines ( little distance between subject and background ) where the spill kills you.

Lighting with bounced Lekos ( Joe-lekos in particular ) is an entirely different way to light than what is typically done by a small crew only possessing LED soft lights and fresnels. It facilitates placing the "source" just about anywhere you like without actually having the lighting unit in the position of the source or anywhere close to the position of the source.

Having material rigged over the heads of individuals instead of a heavy lighting unit rigged over their heads- that is wise. Great suggestion there. It could serve well in many instances. Although all the spill might be a pita in a smaller room. For these sorts of sit-down interviews the clients typically want a large falloff, the background several stops under if not near black and with just a few hits of splash at a level close to the luminance of the faces of the subjects if not a stop hotter. Getting that falloff in a small space is, I presume, difficult when using a big piece of ultra bounce as a key and few to no flags available to control all that bounce.

Either way, I'm purchasing an 8x8 piece of ultra bounce today. And maybe an 8 x8 clay coat as well.


thanks again. Your sharing of your knowledge and experience is much appreciated.
Click to expand...

I have been seeing more guys doing more bouncing and shooting through 4x4's, 6x6's, etc. My main audio guy/gaffer says he remembers when you never pointed a light directly at a person. They took the time and everything was flagged, bounced, bounced through large silks/diffusion or at the very least shot through large silks/diffusion.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions.
I like the idea of being able to also use a battery.

The CAME Boltzen 30 seems promising, although I´d like as little bit more power. Unfortuantely I´ve heard the Boltzen 50 has a loud fan-noise. STill even for the Boltzen 30 I have to wait a while, it´s not sold yet in Germany.

The Fotodiox PopSpot looks OK, but it´s maybe not a good idea to buy in the USA (I can´t find a fotodiox dealer in Germany) without being able to test it or reading a neutral test (of someone not from Fotodiox).

NanGuan looks good, but is the biggest light and I would also need an extra battery pack. If I can get it in Germany i will find out on monday.

Still open for suggestions and ideas :)
 
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