On camera LED light

OK here's my test unit.

unlit.jpg


So for the test, what I did is set my camera (Nikon D70s) to manual settings (about 45mm at f4 and 1/30 of a sec at 800 iso). I did not tweak white balance. The lights in the room where i took these a particularly yellowish hence the colors. anyways. This is strictly for comparison purposes as these pics don't really tell how much light this thing gives.
I did the test several ways
1 - with LED panel with 9V battery that's way past its prime
2 - with a StreamLight TwinTask 2D flashlight in low and high settings
3 - with LED panel with standard DVX battery (D54) fully charged. *NOTE* since I use no resistors on the board (the pot you see in the pics was bypassed), after a few secs in this configuration it started to get warm so odds are i am overdriving the LED's in this case.

This is the pattern of LED's on the board:
lit2.jpg


Here is the subject w/ only ambiend lighting - I was sitting about 4 - 5 feet away

nolight2.jpg


Here it is with 9V battery

withled9v.jpg


Here it is with Streamlight on low and high settings[/img]

stlow.jpg

sthigh.jpg


Here it is overdriven w/ dvx battery

[img]http://www.controlgenie.com/led/withfull.jpg

Conclusions:
I definitely need to find the proper resistor to put on here so the lights are not overdriven. Once I can do that, I will do a longevity test with a DVX battery. I also think some sort of diffusion is necessary since the spot is pretty narrow. The LED's I used, I got on ebay about 2 years ago in a big lot (About 100 of them). I don't know the specs or color temp on them but they look to be a bit towards the blue side.
I'll be happy to answer any other question. Next step for me is to also mount this into some sort of case.
 
FiddlerMD said:
some sort of diffusion seems to be a MUST.

I use a couple of the sima lights for 25$ ea. AND I use a small peice off a white plastic grocery bag taped to the light for diffusion. It lets just enough light through and spreads the light out nicely. More diffusion= more layers. I figure if I get four of these guys it will only cost $100 which is way cheaper than anything else I have seen with 36 leds(9 LED's each). The battery will last 3.5 hours on a full charge.

No on cam light camera set at open iris 3200K
abc.jpg

One sima light at 4' away no diffusion.
a.jpg

One sima light at 4' away with 1 layer white plastic shopping bag diffusion.
ab.jpg
 
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