Continuous LED Video lighting for STILL photography???

[fooddude]

Wow... so 343 = 3700 lux? So that little headlamp is def brighter than the 144 light i just got today (which is 2354 lux). And, I assume its better? Since mine is only 60º spread and older round LEDs. That headlamp uses a better SMD type led, most likely more color accurate, and also has a wider 90º spread.

The Cineroid looks to be the best currently..too bad it's expensive.

 

[fooddude]

Not like I can afford it...but, what's the difference b/n the Cineroid L10C vs the more expensive L2C? They both have the same light output of 325/380lux (lux or lum?? ..i think it's a typo and they meant 325/380 Lumen which is 3500/4090lux, no?)

Is the price difference because of the L2C being able to switch/swap front LED plates from daylight to tungsten lamps?

i am starting to get really attracted to those Cree/SMD LED powered Zebralights the more I read reviews and see YT reviews. 343 lumens in that little package sounds soo powerful and even the YT videos prove it. 1 of them is already close to as powerful as one of those 209as video LEDs, and 2 of them would be stronger than a 312as and only 1000lux shy of a big 508 video LED panel..wow.

As for mounting...I can see many good ways to gain a nice 1/4" female hole for it, for mounting on ballheads, swivel arms or hotshoes: Gaff tape it to a manfrotto table top extension arm (Manfrotto 259B Extension Column for 209 Tabletop Tripod - 259B).... or maybe even super-glue/epoxy a plate/adapter that has a female hole onto the Zebralight's battery end-cap, like this (Manfrotto 120DF Converter Plate to Male 3/8" Thread 120DF + Manfrotto 148KN Reducing Bushing Set - 3/8"-16 to 148KN B&H)


BTW: i notice there is a Zebralight H600, H600w, and H600fw... what's the "FW" one stand for?? Does it mean "frosted" and "warmer white"?

 

[fooddude]

So that little H600fw (343lumens), at $90, has roughly the same light output of the expensive Cineroid (325/380lumens), correct?

If so, Dang... 2 H600fw gaff-taped together would be awesome. Maybe even use it with an shoot-thru or reflected umbrella.

I am GASing for that H600fw now, hehe.

The SC600 looks nice too..but it states it's a bit colder temp, narrower beam, and I don't know if they offer a softer Frosted lens.

I also like the beam-perpendicular-to-grip design of the H600, as compared to the flashlight-style beam-parallel-to-grip of the SC600, since I can see easier ways to mount the H600 than the SC600

 

[fooddude]

Hahaha

 

[fooddude]

Lumens/Lux comparison data: ZEBRALIGHT H600FW (frost white, diffused/no-spot) vs. ebay/fotodiox/chinese LED panels‏

H600Fw Floody 18650 Headlamp Neutral White

H600FW:
343 lumens (3692 lux)
90º beam spread
4200k (a nice bridge between daylight and tungsten; nice and warm. And color accurate)
CRI (color repro index/color quality): 85-90
Better SMD type leds made by Cree

2x gaff-taped together: 686 lumens (7384 lux)



Fotodiox/ebay/chinese/bi-color ED panels:
144as: 219 lumens (2354 lux)
209as: 367 lumens (3950 lux)
312as: 611 lumens (6580 lux)
508as: 790 lumens (8500 lux)
All:
60º beam spread (more spotty and narrower than the H600FW)
2600-5600k (but it is reviewed/proven as inaccurate and actually colder by 500k, and also al have green-tinge/hue)
CRI: 82 (but proven to be false advertised)
Crap leds, chinese quality, false advertised color accuracy and CRI
[also, keep in mind that these "bi-color" lights can only reach their full output levels when Both tungsten AND daylight LEDs are ON, only when the temp-setting is in the middle; at either full-tungsten or full-daylight, cut these lumen and lux data in HALF, as only half of the LED's are actually ON at full daylight or tungsten settings.]



And of course, the mighty nice and high-quality Cineroid:
2 versions (tungsten and daylight):
3000k version: 325 lumens (3500 lux)
5400k version: 380 lumens (4090 lux)
120º spread (the widest ever, but expensive)
CRI: 90-95 (best, but expensive)
Better SMD type leds


...I think I will order a Zebralight as my next purchase

 

[fooddude]

Hey 0dbm, is the H600w brighter than this 100 flood lamp?

Lowel ID-Light 100W Focus Flood Light, 4-Pin XLR (12-30VDC)

 

[fooddude]

This one looks interesting too:
DSLRKIT WALLI LED VIDEO Light 2000LM 5600k for Camera Camcorder 2x CREE XML U2 | eBay

2 Cree XML US LEDs
A whopping 2000 lumens
5600k (accurate and no green-tinge, since it uses SMD/Cree leds and not cheap round t1 led's)
80º
CRI 92
Has a dimmer
Aluminum housing and metal hotshoe plate (no cheap clastic)
Sony camcorder batteries (F750 lasts 75mins, F960 110mins)
Includes everything

...what do you think? Seems like a good light. Actually just found it today when I searched "cree video light" on ebay.


EDIT:
n/m...I saw some bad reviews that the rear plastic battery holder and also battery melted from the heat. As well as falsely advertised CRI, watt output, lumens and it also has a nasty yellow/blue/green halo-edge light fall off. Typical cheap ebay chinese product. I'll stick with the Zebralight

 

[fooddude]

^^^ nice...

btw, have you seen/heard of this?

Promaster Duolight 250 Hybrid Lighting System review: studio strobe / hot shoe flash / LED video light @ PHOTO-TIPS-ONLINE.com

Seems like junk or a gimmick perhaps...as it it doesn't even state all kinds of important specs/info you need to know when shopping for a good light - beam spread, what kind of LEDs, lumen output, color temp, etc. Seems like a gimmick more than anything.

It's only equivalent to 18 watts too.

I think the Zebralight would be better no? ..as it appears to be much tougher built (solid and milled from a block of aluminum), higher quality, SMD/Cree Led, 4200k, brighter (343 lumens or 23 tungsten watts), cheaper in price and also fits in your pocket.

 

[pake]

No newer threads?! WTH? LEDs have evolved A LOT in 8 years and no one has had anything to say about them? Let's fix that right now!

So... I had already decided to buy a Godox AD200 when I started thinking... Maybe I should buy a decent continuous light first? I had also thought about giving macro with focus stacking a go and that would require continuous lighting.

So that lead me to my starting spot: Lume Cube 2. They have fixed the issues with the first version and now the color temperature is closer to natural light. Great. The battery life is waaaay better. And so are many other things. However...

Enter Litra Torch 2.0. Smaller, 2x brighter, magnetic holder, better in many other ways. Same price (roughly). Sign me up!

What I'm thinking is creating a rig to me E-M5III and adding one Litra Torch 2.0 on each side of the lens. I think running them both at half power would provide enough light for my extreme macro shots and last for hours. If not, then it's full power and maybe 1-2h of shooting. Sounds good, but...

How about studio and portraits? I have decided to up my game and start shooting dogs & horses (not with guns though). I haven't been shooting other peoples' pets that much so I don't know how many dogs/horses would react to flashing lights. I suspect that could be an issue sometimes so I thought I'd try to get by with continuous lighting instead. If you think that's a baaaaaad idea, please let me know now before I made a big mistake.
Besides shooting pets I could try to use continuous lighting for freezing motion (e.g. photographing dancers). I know an AD200 would allow me to shoot slower bursts with good lighting but I doubt that the continuous lights would be bright enough to allow 1/1000s exposures "anywhere"... Right?

I already have a Neewer SL-101 LED with the following specs: 60 bulbs, color temp.5500-6000K, 1800 lumen, waterproof (for diving). Unfortunately I haven't given it a proper test run yet but I've planned on doing that this weekend. BTW, this Neewer should be 2x as bright as a Litra Torch 2.0. The Neewer is VERY bright if you look directly at it but once you put a sofbox (e.g. 60cm Sundisc) in between, the brightness goes down a lot. I'm pretty sure one LED isn't enough for portraits but I reckon I would be using 2 LEDs (with softboxes) for normal portraits (one camera left, one camera right). And for moodier, darker portraits one should be enough. And since I want my setup to be portable, only battery operated LEDs are an option.

What do you guys think? Should I rethink my plans? What's the (minimum) lumen you'd go for for such use? Can you recommend LEDs with great quality/price ratio? I think I could invest 100-400EUR/USD if the lights were really good. And I guess I could try those Litras first since I want to test such a setup for macro work anyway and who knows, maybe I can catch 2 flies at one try? That would be great but I have my doubts so please educate me if you know good lighting solutions that would work with my plans.

 

[fredlong]

1800 lumens isn't very bright. I found some household LED strip lights similar to fluorescents. They are 25w each and the output is claimed to be 2400 lumens. If I use two of them at about 2-3 feet I get an exposure of 1/80s f/2.8 at ISO200.

With two of the units you're talking about you can certainly learn a lot about lighting. Or you could get two Godox 860s with transmitters, light stands and a few umbrellas for the $400 budget you're talking about. You would have a very versatile wireless kit. You don't get to see the light like you do with continuous lights, but with the instant feedback we have with digital cameras it's not the hurdle it used to be.

Fred

 

[archaeopteryx]

What's the (minimum) lumen you'd go for for such use?

For (extreme) macro I'd suggest calculating lux, rather than lumen, based on your required subject light value as function of illuminated spot size, expected diffuser transmission, and effective apertures. The maths are simple and you can acquire some baseline data with the SL-101. In general, video lights are inefficient as they're intended to light areas larger than ~22mm diameter or less. They may also be insufficient depending on the interactions among desired bracket fps, desired ISO, available EA, allowable diffuser-subject proximity, and diffuser implementation. It's often also wise to give some attention to potential for interactions between PWM frequencies, shutter speeds, and curtain speeds.

Can you recommend LEDs with great quality/price ratio?

In video panels there's rarely, if ever, a choice. For a single LED, rather than multi-type blending as done on panels, I'm not aware of any 90+ CRI 5700K competitor to Nichia 219C. Luminus SST-20-WxHs have 95 CRI bins but didn't go above 4000K last I checked.

 

[roelwillems]

A typical speedlight can provide 400 full power pops from its battery. A full power pop lasts about 3ms. If it were able to output the same amount of light continuously the battery would last 1.2 seconds.

That gives you an idea of the relative light output. If your LED light battery lasts an hour it is going to be about 11 stops darker than a flash with similar size battery. Just saying

Exactly, not to say a LED light can't be used for portraits.
Biggest plus of continues light source is that it's very easy to work with. Although the basics of using flash is a lot easier than it seems at first* (even full manual flash, or especially manual I would argue).

The downsides of continues light sources are that they no where near as powerful as a flash. This makes them way more limiting.

• can not over-power natural light which may be present
• less useful light modifiers available (softbox, umbrella, beauty dish)
• not able to over expose a background to get a nice clean white backdrop
• potentially you also need the LED close to the subject (as it's less powerful) which changes the dynamics of the light/shadows on the model and can be less flattering.

Not to say a LED/continues light is bad perse but if it is suitable it depends if you can work around the limitations. So for instance you may have to darken the room a lot to work with a LED panel. But these downsides can also be completely not applicable for a specific situation.

With two of the units you're talking about you can certainly learn a lot about lighting. Or you could get two Godox 860s with transmitters, light stands and a few umbrellas for the $400 budget you're talking about. You would have a very versatile wireless kit. You don't get to see the light like you do with continuous lights, but with the instant feedback we have with digital cameras it's not the hurdle it used to be.

Agreed, shooting with flash is so much easier than you would expect if you learn some basics (don't bother with al the automatic stuff it mostly complicates more than it really helps).

In some specific cases a continues light source could well be the beter option. But I guess some people opt for them as it seems easier (and in fact due to the limitations is more difficult in my view)

* Strobist.blogspot.com - Lightning 101 is a superb resource for learning the basics of flash photography. Very fun assignments to learn basic to advanced lightning techniques (no previous knowledge about flash needed). It also teaches to use fairly cheap gear (just regular speedlights and simple triggers) and get to amazing results. I learned 90% of using flashes with this free resource and am now as comfortable using two speedlights as a professional 5+ light Broncolor studio flash setup.

 

[JensM]

I`ll be reading this tread as I am interested in the topic and I haven't stumbled over it before, but before that, I must say this must be close to some sort of record in regards to Necroposting!

 

[Mike Wingate]

I use LED lights for macro.. 2 paperback sized multi leds, an Aperture, a cree torch at 500 lumens, and my Cateye 500 Ampp bike light. They all have their uses.

 

[pake]

Brought two of these: Viltrox VL-162T LED lights (https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07MBFPNSY/ref=pe_3044161_185740101_TE_item?th=1).

Turning on the first light after unpacking was a disappointment: not as powerful as I hoped. But once I compared the light to my Aputure Amaran AL-M9 I felt relieved. These Viltroxes are much brighter than those. I'll post an update once I get to use them in real photo shoot.

EDIT: 1250 lux per light (@1m). 45 EUR each with batteries. A bargain. Reviews claim the light quality is good. We'll see...

 

[retiredfromlife]

So that lead me to my starting spot: Lume Cube 2. They have fixed the issues with the first version and now the color temperature is closer to natural light. Great. The battery life is waaaay better. And so are many other things. However...

Enter Litra Torch 2.0. Smaller, 2x brighter, magnetic holder, better in many other ways. Same price (roughly). Sign me up!

I am thinking of a Lume Cube 2 for an on camera focusing light for night time spider shots and off camera flash. Do you think they would be bright enough for that? I cant work out what the light ratings mean for my intended use at 0.5 meter max

 

[Mike Wingate]

I have 2 similar LED lights, they are ok. I did by an Apurture light but am disappointed with its output. The Lume lights look good, but I have ordered a Godox flash and transmitter instead.

 

[0000]

I am thinking of a Lume Cube 2 for an on camera focusing light for night time spider shots and off camera flash. Do you think they would be bright enough for that? I cant work out what the light ratings mean for my intended use at 0.5 meter max

For focus assist you don't need much, my concern would be that some video lights don't get dim enough to use without messing up your night vision (the AL-M9s, for example, can't be dimmed enough for my liking). I tend to use a tiny AAA flashlight attached to my flash diffuser for this, and put a heavy stack of warming gels on the front of the lens for good measure. It seems like filtering out some of the shorter wavelengths makes the light less alarming to some spiders, but I haven't actually done a controlled experiment or anything.

 

[archaeopteryx]

It seems like filtering out some of the shorter wavelengths makes the light less alarming to some spiders, but I haven't actually done a controlled experiment or anything.

In general, color perception in species other than humans isn't well studied. I've only looked into the literature incidentally across a smattering of taxa but it seems like what's known about spiders suggests primarily dichromatic vision in ultraviolet and green. So red LEDs or similar seem a reasonable default choice based on what's known at the moment. However, Zurek 2015 found red vision in Habronattus pyrrithrix and might be good for initializing a citation search.

 

[0000]

Reviews claim the light quality is good. We'll see...

It would be great if you could do a comparison against the Aputures shooting a box of crayons or similar array of saturated colors.

In general, color perception in species other than humans isn't well studied. I've only looked into the literature incidentally across a smattering of taxa but it seems like what's known about spiders suggests primarily dichromatic vision in ultraviolet and green. So red LEDs or similar seem a reasonable default choice based on what's known at the moment. However, Zurek 2015 found red vision in Habronattus pyrrithrix and might be good for initializing a citation search.

This is the general impression I've ended up with empirically (particlarly with Latrodectus, being very nocturnal and very skittish) and from the one paper that was pointed out to me when I asked about this elsewhere. The extremely narrow bandwidth of a red or amber LED seems to work fine for autofocus, but I hate them for manual focus and whatever other visual tasks I might be using the light for, so mostly I've stuck with warm white LEDs filtered down to deep amber, at the lowest usable brightness. Of course, it's possible that the spiders in Australia aren't afraid of anything anyway...