On Camera LED

J

Jim Simon

Veteran
Sorry if this is an overasked question. I had some troubles with the forum search.

So the bottom line question is, are there any on-camera LEDs that have a decent spread, at least 120 degrees or more, maybe even up to 160 degree spread? Seems like most LEDs are faaaaar too directional to be of any actual use for event videography. (But I reeeeeally want a self contained unit. I'm tired of carrying around lighting batteries.)
 
120 degree spread is pretty wide and and the 160 degree spread is approaching fish-eye territory. For event ???. I know that many panel light leds are natively in the 30 to 45 degree ballpark and by adding the usual supplied diffuser may let them reach around 60 BUT at a loss in brightness level. In event work, you will need all the light you can get. I do not think there are 110 degree spread leds out there unless they are the bare emitter without any reflectors or encapsulated lens over them. The only way I believe you will get the spread you desire is to put a hemispherical translucent dome over the led unit, something like a half globe frosted cap. Some studio lighting strobes may offer that as an accessory. Then again, your brightness drops . I have custom made a few power led on-camera units that deliver the native 125 degree spread without any diffusers , just 4 power leds mounted up close to the outside rim. Very bright to look at directly.Only a fish-eye lens would be too wide as to vignette. The wider the beam angle, the lower the brightness, hence a lot of leds used to brighten up all that real estate. In my opinion a 70 degree spread is more than enough for almost any event work with the camera's zoom at the widest setting. At 120 degrees or more, the led unit is extremely bright for the eyes, especially at normal working distances like 10 to 20 feet. Are you sure you need that wide ?
 
I want the entire dance floor covered when I'm zoomed out. 60 degrees is definitely too narrow to cover that. It'll spot and look unnatural.

My current tungsten handles the spread nicely. But nobody makes an on-camera tungsten (or HMI) that runs of AAA batteries. All such lights require carrying around a separate (and cumbersome) battery pack.
 
AAA like them triple A's, you gotta be kidding. Have you been believing them Chinese ads that say led on camera light that consumes 20 watts and is equivalent to a 500 watt halogen ?
Tungsten on AAA's will last a few seconds or less, that's if they don't explode with the amp draw you will need.
HMI's on AAA's will require a ballast, same story here.
Leds on AAA's will only light a few feet in front of you, ant that too for a short period.
That is not even taking into account the diffusion material to get them for the large spread, and when that happens, the light level will drop, I mean really drop.
Easier to ask the maitre d to dim up the reception lights a bit.
 
iirc the zylight led camera lights go the width you require but they are very expensive.
 
the z96 lights are pretty good, i grabbed two of them and they have probably the widest spread for the lowest dollar. my only complaint is that when i tried to gauge their kelvin, my EX1 was reading over 10,000..... other than that in practice they give off some good even light with almost no green fringe
 
He wants to light up the ENTIRE dance floor. Do you realize what level of lighting he's talking about ?
I myself have attempted that feat fot a bar mitzvah opening dance with well over 16000 (that's 16 thousand) lumens of light using an on-camera led light of 4000 lux and two off camera led units of 6ooo lux each, and that was just getting enough light on the entire dance floor as not to introduce grain in the video. I can just imagine with just a single on-camera led light, even the most powerful one out there that is commercially available will do. Jim, unless your dance floor is 6 feet by 6 feet with 4 people dancing, you will not light up an average size event dance floor with a single on-camera led, and even if it is powerful enough, the foreground will be much brighter than the background, unless of course have the light and camera mounted directly above the dancing crowd, like with the chandelier. You did mention lighting up the entire floor at full out-zoom. That bar mitzvah event I did was with a .45X wide adapter lens which gave me about a 120 degree spread.I was on a step ladder looking down. I hate to discourage you, but events are dark and you will need to do some light intensity calculations. Just remember that 1750 lumens is equivalent to the lowly 100 watt tungsten kitchen bulb. That most led units are overrated. That native beam angles rarely get over 45 degrees. That light falls off at the inverse square of the distance ( physical properties of light, double the distance and you will need 4X not 2X the amount of light for the same brightness)That using a yellow color correcting filter will lower the output considerably, unless you want to white balance for blue and the background will go red.
 
He wants to light up the ENTIRE dance floor. Do you realize what level of lighting he's talking about ?
Click to expand...

That's a bit of on overstatement. What I meant is that when my camera is zoomed out, and I can see the entire dance floor from my vantage point, I don't want the camera light to be covering only the center portion of the image. That would definitely happen with only a 60 degree spread. I need something with a normal spread like you get from tungsten. I want it in a self-contained package, without carrying around a 5lb battery.


native beam angles rarely get over 45 degrees
Click to expand...

That's the problem. Most LED's tend to spot, and do not light the entire field of view. I was hoping someone out there knew of a model that behaved more like tungsten and had a normal spread. At this point I'm not worried about how far out it goes, only that it doesn't spot.
 
I am a little confused with the Zylight Z90, i was looking at it myself, it says 60 deg half power but 131 deg spread ( i assume at full power ) ? Thats why i mentioned it jim as the reviews i had seen mentioned its 131 deg spread.
Theres also the minima light and litepanels new chroma light, but i wouldnt think they'd have much throw. Im in the same boat as you Jim but here in the Uk theres not a lot of places to go to actually see one in real life lol.
 
Tungsten lamps also exhibit the spotty characteristics. It's all in the reflector design they use when they manufacture the light. They all tend to have a spotty beam as it is brightest that way and it looks good on paper. like the specs that say very bright light only consumes 35 watts but is as bright as a 100 watter. Sure, the center spot is as bright BUT starts to get mighty dim farther from that hot spot area. Leds are no exception, ever wonder why the teeny weeney leds have like sort of a tiny encapsulated transparent lens on them? That is really a lens that NARROWS down the led flat phosphor native wide beam angle so that it will project a spotty yet bright area, like a common flashlight, the narrower the beam, the brighter it gets. Again it looks good on specs like hey, this led light is really bright BUT it has a spotty beam. No great feat to accomplish, everyone does it. Your vantage point to see the entire dance floor is somewhat ambiguous, as you can be 100 feet away or 30 feet away depending on your zoom setting. I still do not quite understand fully what you are explaining. From what I understood is that you want an on-camera light to light up the dance floor without battery packs but with AAA batteries. Please be a little more specific, what is the width of the dance floor in question and the depth along with how far will you be with the camera from the front edge of the floor ? Unfortunately you may have to settle for some serious battery belt packs for a one light operation from whatever vantage point you may be in. Z96's or Zylights may work...if you can stack 15 to 20 of them on top of your camera.
 
OK, let me try this again.

With the LEDs I've seen so far, it's pretty obvious that they are lighting up only the very center of the field-of-view. Using any average tungsten light, you don't get that. The spread is wider and falls off in a way that is not visible to the eye. I'm looking for an on-camera light (doesn't have to be LED) that will have that same kind of evenness to it's spread, and can operate without carrying a battery pack around.

The short version, I want a self-contained light that doesn't spot. LED's are self-contained, but many seem to spot. Tungsten have a nice spread, but they need separate battery packs. I want the best of both.
 
Evenness to spread is dependent on two main factors. 1- how well the reflector/lens/ was designed by the maker to give it an even spread either parabolic/hyperbolic/aspherical etc, all aspects of design choice taken into consideration as to achieve the final result (flat field illumination) not that easy to achieve but nevertheless possible. 2- Diffuser, primitive method, light robbing and somewhat effective but not perfect ( remember that light at the edges is dimmer because the distance to the edges is longer than to the center, hence the brighter hot spot). All this tech jargon is fine but , who makes them and where to buy ?. Good question. as a matter of fact I was looking for the exact same holy grail myself a while back. Couldn't find any so I prototyped and built. I don't endorse any company and I cannot even advertise them for sale here, but if you have been following my posts recently, you will see a unit with a single led and a rectangular computer designed reflector that projects an almost perfect (no hot spot) rectangular beam 75 degree horiz. by 40 degree vert. and a true 1600 lux @ 3ft. and another unit of same with 2 leds in it, same reflectors for 3200 lux at 3 ft. All can be battery powered from a clip on Sony NP-F960 battery or equivalent. The single led draws only 12 watts and the double less than 26. Dimmer control non PWM type, no banding or flickering, no yellowish greenish tint, no diffuser necessary.
Yes they do exist but you cannot buy them, at least not for the time being. I still have to brand them, meet conformity standards, package, establish distribution/sales channels etc.etc. things that take time. But for now a powerful unit with the ol' diffuser may be your only choice for a wide area coverage. Choose wisely.
 
I think the z96 is great.I got 4pcs and even could be used as studio lights.z96 hasn't flicker problems except with no enough power.

it's the best price/performance ratio.many folks look for big ones,in fact,z96 should not be ignored.
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Z96 is a nice light. Jim, what about getting two of them -- aimed at, I don't know, 20 degrees off axis of each other...
 
I guess the spread of the Z96 looks usable. The one thing that bothers me is the dimmer and power are on the same switch. I don't like that. If a light is going to have a dimmer, it needs to be separate from the power switch. This allows easy on/off operation at a consistent light output. Putting them on the same rotating dial means you'll never get the output exactly the same, and you have to ramp up as you power on. I just don't like that design.

Has onyone tried the F&V LED-60?
 
(On a side note, how the hell to I get the degree symbol to show up in these forums? Standard HTML isn't working.)
 
3 AA batteries for 80 watts of light. And if you use li-ions you get like 4 hours run time. Jim, if you seriously intend to use that light for any type of event videography, I strongly suggest you try one out on an actual shoot under tungsten illumination.. 110 degree spread is good and dandy but check out the brightness level with the 3200K setting in place, especially at average actual shooting distances that you would need.
 
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