RGB LED strips as lighting source
- Thread starter eco_bach
- Start date
clang
Veteran
The main limitation for film-making is the very small amount of light produced, which will be drowned out by any serious lighting nearby. So probably best for 'low light' situations like night scenes, where some subtle coloured glow can indeed be very useful.
I've been experimenting with them for my Lego animations - a tiny desktop 'set' can get much more benefit from LEDs just a few inches away.
I've been experimenting with them for my Lego animations - a tiny desktop 'set' can get much more benefit from LEDs just a few inches away.
starcentral
Veteran
Not as lighting source, but definitely as accent lighting in terms of the colored LED lights you can buy.
From a music video I shot a few years ago. Especially useful when you're shooting against white walls
From a music video I shot a few years ago. Especially useful when you're shooting against white walls
Samuel H
Major Contributor
I've used white LED strips as the main light source for a shoot. Some comments:
* I used 6 cheap strips of 300 5050 warm white LEDs, to simulate someone walking on a big window. That's >$200 of lights, for a total of 432W of LED power. Sounds like a lot, right? Well, not so much. At home, with a white ceiling, it was indeed a lot of light. At a studio, with a black ceiling, the light got lost really quickly, and we had a bit of a struggle (we had to take away all the diffusion we had planned to use on top of the LEDs, add a bit of fill from a big softbox, and shoot ISO 800 at about f/2 or f/2.8).
* Cool white was >9900K (they said it was 6500K, it's really really blue). Warm white was around 5000K IIRC (around 3200K with 1/2 CTO). I don't know about the CRI, but it has to be relatively low.
* After use in that shot, I installed some of them permanently in the kitchen. I would say they lost about 70% of their light output in 3 months. They are really dim now. This may be an issue only for the IP65 weather-proof strips that I bought (I think the warm epoxy is damaging the LEDs)
So: if you need them for a specific stunt, go for them: we couldn't have got that kind of lighting with anything else at a reasonable price, so, they got the job done. But I wouldn't build a light kit around these cheap LEDs.
* I used 6 cheap strips of 300 5050 warm white LEDs, to simulate someone walking on a big window. That's >$200 of lights, for a total of 432W of LED power. Sounds like a lot, right? Well, not so much. At home, with a white ceiling, it was indeed a lot of light. At a studio, with a black ceiling, the light got lost really quickly, and we had a bit of a struggle (we had to take away all the diffusion we had planned to use on top of the LEDs, add a bit of fill from a big softbox, and shoot ISO 800 at about f/2 or f/2.8).
* Cool white was >9900K (they said it was 6500K, it's really really blue). Warm white was around 5000K IIRC (around 3200K with 1/2 CTO). I don't know about the CRI, but it has to be relatively low.
* After use in that shot, I installed some of them permanently in the kitchen. I would say they lost about 70% of their light output in 3 months. They are really dim now. This may be an issue only for the IP65 weather-proof strips that I bought (I think the warm epoxy is damaging the LEDs)
So: if you need them for a specific stunt, go for them: we couldn't have got that kind of lighting with anything else at a reasonable price, so, they got the job done. But I wouldn't build a light kit around these cheap LEDs.
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starcentral
Veteran
^ I also read some production diaries somewhere about stringing christmas lights up along the ceiling of a room to boost ambient and provide a nice warm color from the tungsten based bulbs.
I agree with Samuel, do what's easy and what works. In the christmas light example, think about how much more work and equipment you might need to do the same thing with several c-stands and arris.. not to mention avoiding them in the shot and the increased number of setups if changing shooting angle, etc.. etc..
I agree with Samuel, do what's easy and what works. In the christmas light example, think about how much more work and equipment you might need to do the same thing with several c-stands and arris.. not to mention avoiding them in the shot and the increased number of setups if changing shooting angle, etc.. etc..
RyanT
Veteran
Have you heard of the Phillips Colorblasts?
http://www.colorkinetics.com/ls/rgb/colorblast12/
Not sure if you're just talking about the LED RGB ribbon, but this is in the same vein and very cool. We did a kawasaki commercial a while back where we lined a tunnel with about 60 of these. Since they were RGB we had the ability to change the color of 60 units at just the click of a button. After this I'm pretty sold on LED's as accents, as I don't know any other fixture that would have the ability to do what we were able to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hJHS2tf69s
Here's the commercial I was talking about. If only they had edited it a bit better!
http://www.colorkinetics.com/ls/rgb/colorblast12/
Not sure if you're just talking about the LED RGB ribbon, but this is in the same vein and very cool. We did a kawasaki commercial a while back where we lined a tunnel with about 60 of these. Since they were RGB we had the ability to change the color of 60 units at just the click of a button. After this I'm pretty sold on LED's as accents, as I don't know any other fixture that would have the ability to do what we were able to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hJHS2tf69s
Here's the commercial I was talking about. If only they had edited it a bit better!