What to look for in LED lighting?

A

AveCeasar

Member
Hey!

This is actually my first post on this forum. I've been lurking here for quite a while and have enjoyed the discussions and debates. Hopefully, you could come to my aid.

First off, a little bit about me: I'm starting a small film studio that's hopefully going to work on some simple commercials, music videos and documentaries, and independent shorts from time to time. I have recently received EU-based funding but the amounts we're talking about are relatively small. I'm from Warsaw, Poland.

Why I'm writing this: I've already made some hard equipment-related choices. However, I must admit that I'm at a total loss when it comes to lighting. I've worked on several films and know a little bit about the basic positioning of lights, colour temperature etc. With that said, I really have a hard time picking the right lights. I've watched and read a few reviews and noticed that LED lighting is getting increasingly popular. Their advantages (the relatively low power consumption, the ability to use the lights with batteries and the fact that they don't emit heat) seem to sell the LEDs for me. Unfortunately most of the reviews describe lights that are unavailable in my country. Also, LED lighting can still be quite expensive, and I REALLY don't want to make a bad initial investment.

The questions that I'd like to ask you are:
-What makes a good (or bad) LED light?
-Should I go LED all the way? (i.e. three lamps from the standard three-point setup)
-I'm mostly worried about lack of brightness. Do you think it's a problem for LEDs?
-What are the currently available lights that you would recommend? (perhaps I could find them in my country too)

My current funds oscillate about $3000 but I'd like to invest more in lighting in the future. For now, I'm looking for a basic set.

Thanks for reading! My messages have always been sooo long. Sorry about that!
 
I am biased because I loathe LED light and LED lighting units.

I would build a tungsten lighting kit. Starting with an Arri 2k (Arrilite 2000 plus) and an Arri 750 watt open face unit.

Flexible , reliable and a great base to build up from.
 
The units you mentioned are indeed well within my price range.

I'll take that under consideration, thank you!

If I might ask - why don't you like LED lighting? Frankly speaking, until now I've only heard positive opinions on the subject.
 
I have tungsten lights, HMIs and LEDs and the LEDs are used ONLY as accent lights (BTW, i'm not dissing as they ARE useful in certain situations).
Start with tungsten, expand with HMIs (used as they are expensive) then augment with LEDs.

Since your breath of works will be wide there is no way that LEDs will be your most useful light. Good old trusty tungsten will. There is crap load of peple who work with LEDs are are happy about it but in general their work shows - they are neophytes that bought LEDs and then due to lack of funds for other lights tried to make the best with those. No pro will tell you that there is a magic light great for everything - well, tungsten kinda is but it draws lots of power and gets hot.
 
You have listed a wide variety of project types. While LEDs may suffice for 'simple commercials', they will have limitations for other projects. You will quickly find out that you want/need a big bag of tricks.

I use LEDs for broadcast field work. The advantages are obvious. But they are not my first choice for other work. I use tungsten in the studio.

I agree with Shooter. I would start with tungsten.

Another way to go is to rent some lights before you buy and see what each type of light does and then decide what works for your needs.
 
I have to say that I honestly did not expect that. But that's great - I finally get to see the other side of the coin.

I've found the ARRI lights Shooter recommended. They're within my budget, so that's quite nice.

Patryk (a guy with a name that sounds awfully Polish ;) ) said that LEDs can be used as accent lights. Perhaps I could use one this way.

Renting the lights seems like a decent enough idea. I'll take it under heavy consideration.
 
Shooter and patryk are giving some sound advice. There is nothing wrong with doing studio work with tungsten units. Im with patryk. My LEDs are accents and eye lights not much else. Regardless of camera considerations I almost always start with 5ks when doing even simple setups. The last studio interview type setup i used 12K HMI, 4k HMI, and 1.2K hmis and no heat issues. Another thing to consider is your lights will be almost useless without grip equipment. As much as i hate dragging around all the grip crap I believe you can do a shoot without lights, but you can't do one without grip.

I would hire gaffers and equipment as much as possible. Their job is to put into the real physical world what you imagine something to look like and to bring the proper gear and only what is needed to do so. One job they will bring hard spots and the next big soft sources or a combination. Your body of work will look better and contain a variety of looks. it might only take one shot to catch the eye of a possible client and if your work looks all the same those chances are minimized.
 
I too hate LED (at the moment). It started a few years ago as an extreme dislike, and is now a milder dislike. By next year, it could be a simple choice, and the year after that I could start to prefer them.

They are evolving very quickly. For me there are two issues - price and light quality. It used to be that LEDs were also dim. Now, they are much brighter. The real issue is simply the LEDs themselves - they do not have a continuous colour spectrum, it's very peaky and has very odd colour rendition. Here in the UK they have developed a new method of measuring and comparing them because it's so difficult to predict. They are excellent at producing saturated colours, but a proper balanced white is very difficult. The Arris are pretty good, but still to my eyes, not quite right. The LEDs, especially in the cheaper units are also unpredicatble in terms of colour. It means that like me, if you have some you bought last year, you can't buy more the same and expect the white to be the same. LEDs are produced in huge batches, and no two batches are the same. The big names test the LEDs and match them up, but the price of these fixtures can be five to ten times the cost of a tungsten fixture. At the moment.

Current ones are streets better than 12 months ago, and they were better than the year before. However, if I had to buy new lights now - I would buy LED. I would NOT buy expensive LED. After all, even people like Arri make the LED engine replaceable - because they know next year a brighter and whiter one will be available. I think I'm now at the stage where buying cheaper LEDs make sense economically, but I'd try to buy more than I need, so you have a spare for bigger jobs and for when they fail. The LEDs may well have 50,000 hour life claimed, but dry joints and driver failures certainly don't. The only time I'd perhaps still not do it would be if my business required accurate colour balance across the range - like people who shoot art and fashion, where correct reproduction of subtle colours is critical. With tungsten, you can tweak colour balance overall, but with LED's uneven spectrum, you can find that maybe certain colours look more or less vivid, or other colours just look 'wrong'. If you have a Lee swatch book, look at their mauve 126 colour. It looks like a purply colour, and if you look through it, it looks purple - BUT look at anything yellow, and it appears to be bright red - all other colours just take the purple tint. This weird behaviour is how non-linear colour rendition impacts on colours.

The only real issue with tungsten lighting is heat, lamp lifespan, and fragility.
 
Ah, this forum is really something. I feel I'm getting the hang of it by the minute!

On a serious note, I think I should also clarify one thing - I'm not only going to do studio work. It's very likely that I'll travel with the equipment more than I use it in a studio. However, I am aware that tungstens are useful outside of a studio environment as well.

Fratis: Hiring people who know how to paint with light is going to be essential indeed. The HMIs that you mentioned seem to be beyond my budget, however. But maybe I'm wrong? Is there a cheaper (and not much worse) alternative to Arri HMIs?

I understand that the advantage of HMIs is that they are set to 5600K and that they have better wattage/light ratio and (possibly) emit less heat than tungstens. Am I correct?

Paulears - thank you for your valuable insight. The short history of LEDs is something that I was only vaguely familiar with. I must admit that I'm still worried about the heat coming out of the tungstens and the fact that they're relatively easy to break.

There seems to be a light type that nobody has mentioned yet - and that's fluorescent lighting. Unfortunately, kino flos are on the expensive side. What do you think about them?
 
It seems you question really is: what is a started lighting kit. If i was to start it all over again this is what i would get:

Arri Large case (with wheels) filled with 2x 300w, 1x 650w, 1x 1k. 3x chimera ring (300, 650, 1k), 2x chimera (medium and small), 4x stand, 2x extension cord.
Add at some point 2x c-stand with arm, 4x sandbag, 2x grip head, 2x cartolini, set of flags and nets.

Or instead of Arris go with Lowels (i don't know how popular Lowels are in Poland): Arri Medium case (with wheels) filled with 2x DP (1k), 2x Omni (500w), 2x Pro (250w), 1x Small Rifa (250w), 6x stand, 1x grip head, 1x mini boom, 2x extension cord.

This will get you started.

(BTW, if talking in Polish is easier for you, you can email me)
 
Thanks Patryk, your help is much appreciated! Even though I might not be able to afford all of it at once, I'll make sure to bookmark your post.

My English is rather fluent, so no problem there (unless I'm horribly mistaken).
 
An alternate take on what's become the ever-popular "first lighting kit" subject...

If I were staring all over, I'd lean much closer to daylight sources - low heat, low power needs, and digital sensors (as far as I know) are all daylight-balanced (using digital gain to boost the blue channel for tungsten light).

I've got several chinese knockoff biax fixtures - a quad biax puts out a LOT of soft daylight. They've gotten so cheap, if they last a year it's a bargain (mine have lasted several and going strong).

For focused lights, I've been happy with the Cool Lights HID fresnels; used HMI is a possible option.

My tungsten kit consists of a lot of open faced and fresnel units I've found on eBay and Pyramid - I'll often use 1k fresnels or pars with 1/2 CTB or so when shooting daylight (I tend to use soft sources overall, with practicals like spiral flo's or the alzo bulbs, with warmer fresnels for rims and punch).

China has been slowly upping it's quality for HMIs in 575 and 1.2k fresnels and a few 1.2 and 2k pars... not for a rental operation maybe, but I'll probably pull the trigger on something in the next few months. Spoke with someone who's really happy with a 575 fresnel he paid about $700 for.

I do the occasional all-tungsten shoot, usually music videos or night time interior looks - but 80% of the commercial stuff I do, local mid-size businesses and smaller national corporations that won't pay for a grip truck - I'm generally using a lot of biax flos and HID fixtures. For soft light in particular, it's getting insanely cheap to go daylight.
 
Thank you for your reply, Michael. From what people are saying it seems that HMIs are the way to go. However, I'm afraid it might be difficult to get a cheap HMI in my country, though. The only cheap one I could find is called Fomei HMI-L. I don't know what to think about it. Has anyone used it?

You've mentioned an important issue - cheaper lights. I'm considering buying halogens produced by F&V - they look just like ARRIs and are much, much cheaper. Has anyone used them?
 
I think the prior suggestions have mostly ignored important considerations, which are why many people are turning away from tungsten.

1) In a studio you'll have plenty of circuits to draw power from, but in a house using more than three tungsten lights can cause issues with a tripped breaker or blown fuse. You may think you can run a stinger to another room, but that room may be on the same circuit. Florescent and LED draw much less power and almost never trip a circuit.

2) If you're shooting a little bit of everything, inside and out, the LED panels can often be had that can run entirely on batteries since LED bulbs are the most efficent, extremely low wattage.

3) When LED and CFL packages first came out they tended to have a green tinge and not be dimmable. These days LEDs can be dimmed and florescent come in banks so you can lower the intensity. They will change color slightly when dimmed, but tungsten changes color much more (yellow) while scrims to cut tungsten get HOT, really hot. Most LED and florescent have gotten rid of the green tinge and have a tungsten compatable diffusion filter.

4) Rental shops usually carry tungsten and Kinos. I only use tungsten in studio. Buy your LED panels and florescent and rent your tungstens for those occasions that you'll need them.

5) CDM and HMI can be expensive, have a wait time to restart them after they are turned off, sometimes a color spike, sometimes a separate transformer, and several other drawbacks.

6) All lights other than LED and Kino style lights will be closer (and therefore glare more) just due to their shape and heat. You don't want a 750 watt tungsten anywhere near a drape, wall paper, books, etc. An LED doesn't have the waste heat.

Personally I have two small (but bright) battery operated LED lights for hidden niches, in cars, etc that also work great outside at night. Then two more big LED panels with barn doors that are perfect for rim lights and houses because they can go flat against walls inside houses. Then 5 florescent units for diffuse lighting indoors. Then stands and sandbags. Anything else I rent.
 
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The Arri L7's are very nice LED fixtures. They took the time to do it right and it is noticeable. The only issue for smaller shooters or studios would be the price point. They are quite pricy but you do get what you pay for.
 
Duke M. said:
I think the prior suggestions have mostly ignored important considerations, which are why many people are turning away from tungsten.

1) In a studio you'll have plenty of circuits to draw power from, but in a house using more than three tungsten lights can cause issues with a tripped breaker or blown fuse. You may think you can run a stinger to another room, but that room may be on the same circuit. Florescent and LED draw much less power and almost never trip a circuit.

2) If you're shooting a little bit of everything, inside and out, the LED panels can often be had that can run entirely on batteries since LED bulbs are the most efficent, extremely low wattage.

3) When LED and CFL packages first came out they tended to have a green tinge and not be dimmable. These days LEDs can be dimmed and florescent come in banks so you can lower the intensity. They will change color slightly when dimmed, but tungsten changes color much more (yellow) while scrims to cut tungsten get HOT, really hot. Most LED and florescent have gotten rid of the green tinge and have a tungsten compatable diffusion filter.

4) Rental shops usually carry tungsten and Kinos. I only use tungsten in studio. Buy your LED panels and florescent and rent your tungstens for those occasions that you'll need them.

5) CDM and HMI can be expensive, have a wait time to restart them after they are turned off, sometimes a color spike, sometimes a separate transformer, and several other drawbacks.

6) All lights other than LED and Kino style lights will be closer (and therefore glare more) just due to their shape and heat. You don't want a 750 watt tungsten anywhere near a drape, wall paper, books, etc. An LED doesn't have the waste heat.

Personally I have two small (but bright) battery operated LED lights for hidden niches, in cars, etc that also work great outside at night. Then two more big LED panels with barn doors that are perfect for rim lights and houses because they can go flat against walls inside houses. Then 5 florescent units for diffuse lighting indoors. Then stands and sandbags. Anything else I rent.
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1. You know your shooting environments better than me but in New York City area the only time i ran into issues was while shooting in my own apt that only had one 15A fuse. All other times the building, even very old building, have at least a few 15-20A circuits - plenty for any situation.

2. Batteries are only useful on really quick shots or to see what the light is doing until someone runs a cord to power the light off the outlet. Otherwise you WILL loose your magic moment because at the very same time the battery goes dead.

3. When tungsten is dimmed it indeed start looking warmer - but it only produces "warmer" - thus more inviting - image. So you can only complain about this issue if you are shooting something very specific because in most cases it will not matter.

4. I can't disagree with this statement more. Start with tungsten and rent LEDs or Kinos as you find it necessary in the future.

5. You can't bundle CDMs and HMIs in the same category. With CDMs you have to wait for the bulb to cool down - not so with HMIs. Totally different working experience.

6. This is common knowledge: keep heat away from flammable material.
 
You'll note I said in my reply that "soft" daylight is getting very affordable. Awesome if you're doing something very naturalistic.

A punchy light with some throw, though... when you need a fresnel or a par (and damn, Leko's can be handy in a tight spot)... things get more complex.

That said, Arri knockoff fresnels are great for your first couple years if you treat 'em well (and if you can suss out a bad switch, check for proper grounding, etc). A small step up gets you cool lights fresnels, with US delivery and 1st rate customer service. I freakin' love Richard's little 300's.

Shooting fashion stills in the film days, and wanting to differentiate myself (before there was any internet to learn stuff), I read cinematography magazines and learned to shoot tungsten film, using theatrical fresnel and open-faced lights - they are still in my daily kit, almost 20 years old. They're not Arris, they're stamped steel cans (or open-faced 'work lights" with proper yokes and solid barn doors) but they produce great light.

So: many, many of my setups are flo's or HID lights, bounced or scrimmed. When I need punch, it's a 150 watt HID fresnel (about 650 equivalent with no blue gels). I've got a converted theatrical 6" fresnel that's now an HID, and even a couple of those Alzo HID light fixtures (they're still alive, dammit!)

And plenty of times I'll use a 1k fresnel or a Leko with 1/2 CTB for my punchy light. A little warmer but not the huge full-ctb light loss.

I have zero idea why Arri or Joker or someone doesn't do a prosumer HMI; a 575 par for under $2k? It would sell like mad. But you can get by with a mix. You can find some really useful lights on the used market if you shop around. You can get a used mag-ballast HMI (or even an electronic smaller light) for around a grand, but buyer beware, etc.
 
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