Philips hue? Useful for small budget lighting? Worth buying?

[mattfarkash]

http://www.meethue.com/en-US

I was wondering if this would be something that could be possibly useful for aspiring Cinematographers to use. If so, what would be a great use for it? I imagine it wouldnt be used as a key of course but possible as a back wall lighting? Fill light? Mood lighting?? Im trying to figure out if this is useful (and worth purchasing) due to my friend buying a couple and offering one of the packages to me for half price. If anyone has more knowledge/input on this- please speak up!!

Thanks so much!

Matt

 

[Tolin]

I want this tech in all my lights, pronto!

 

[Greg Smith]

At 50W incandescent equivalent each, the only use would be as practicals or very small background accent lights.

Maybe I'm too old or too stodgy, but this sounds like a classic "solution in search of a problem" to me. I could buy a whole lot'o'gels for the $199 they're charging for three of these.

- Greg

 

[Amr Rahmy]

the software interface part might be new, the hue part was in most LED lights all along(usually advertised as seven different colors, but without a dimmer in most offerings in the earlier days, at least not in the light board). so your just buying the software development.

are you interested in the hue part or the computer interface? if the hue part, ARRI has an LED Fresnel that has both hue and color balance controls that is powerful enough to actually influence the color, tone, mood of the scene.

i would not think these lights are strong enough or change fast enough to look like seizure inducing night club scene. or just strong enough for a mood changing fantasy/bizarre/dream sequence. but maybe could be used in a fantasy scifi prop/background/set.

 

[mattfarkash]

I actually been just kicking around the idea of making my own lights and stumbled across this and was curious to see if they could serve any purpose for me. I think im going to start a thread about making lights. I remember seeing a gaffer make a 3 bulb light board (they were three bulbs screwed into wood) with dimmers. I asked him what wattage each light was and I totally forgot the answer. It worked really efficiently when diffused of course as a main source light.

Sorry for going off topic hah