LED Lighting for photographing interiors?

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PeterF80

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Hello. Apologies for the re post. I did put this on another thread, but it is slightly off topic, so I figure it should have its own.

Curious to know what sort of F stop can be achieved with small LED lights. I do quite a bit of work for estate agents photographing interiors, and use speedlights (580ex's) with off camera triggers and gels. This approach gets me nice results with (smallish) domestic interiors, but is quite slow, and the job is time pressured.

I was looking on eBay and noticed these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/7dayshop-5...item5aefd3c810

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/7dayshop-1...item5aefd3c888

Must admit I am not a huge fan of continuous lighting (prefer flash) however I did wonder if using something like this would speed up the workflow. I don't know how they compare with flash as flash is rated by guide number whereas these seem to be rated in lumens (I don't know how these convert). Obviously, the camera is on a tripod for this type of use.

Just curious to know if anyone has tried this approach, and whether you had any success with it? What sort of power would an led light need in lumens in order to be effective on interiors?

Thank you.
 
PeterF80 said:
Hello. Apologies for the re post. I did put this on another thread, but it is slightly off topic, so I figure it should have its own.

Curious to know what sort of F stop can be achieved with small LED lights. I do quite a bit of work for estate agents photographing interiors, and use speedlights (580ex's) with off camera triggers and gels. This approach gets me nice results with (smallish) domestic interiors, but is quite slow, and the job is time pressured.

I was looking on eBay and noticed these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/7dayshop-5...item5aefd3c810

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/7dayshop-1...item5aefd3c888

Must admit I am not a huge fan of continuous lighting (prefer flash) however I did wonder if using something like this would speed up the workflow. I don't know how they compare with flash as flash is rated by guide number whereas these seem to be rated in lumens (I don't know how these convert). Obviously, the camera is on a tripod for this type of use.

Just curious to know if anyone has tried this approach, and whether you had any success with it? What sort of power would an led light need in lumens in order to be effective on interiors?

Thank you.
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My gut reaction is that you couldn't use them to balance daylight (unlike flash) because they'd not be bright enough.
 
Phil V said:
My gut reaction is that you couldn't use them to balance daylight (unlike flash) because they'd not be bright enough.
Click to expand...

That was my concern. The only thing I came back to however was that tungsten lights (redheads) are sometimes used for interiors, which sort of work on a similar basis.
 
PeterF80 said:
That was my concern. The only thing I came back to however was that tungsten lights (redheads) are sometimes used for interiors, which sort of work on a similar basis.
Click to expand...

Generally though, they would either be large high powered (as in film / TV production) or lower powered ones as the only source (when there's no competing sunlight).

I could be completely wrong - but that's my quick thoughts.
 
Phil V said:
Generally though, they would either be large high powered (as in film / TV production) or lower powered ones as the only source (when there's no competing sunlight).

I could be completely wrong - but that's my quick thoughts.
Click to expand...

I came across someone a while back who was using 800ws lights on fairly large interiors (much larger than the ones I do for the estate agents). Havn't done it myself in practice however, so don't know how successful they are.
 
I can bet they are nowhere near powerful enough, and too narrow angle. Those 580s pop at full power and even then the ISO may need to be up at 200 or 320 to balance the light.
If you want better power I'd look at studio strobes.
 
daugirdas said:
I can bet they are nowhere near powerful enough, and too narrow angle. Those 580s pop at full power and even then the ISO may need to be up at 200 or 320 to balance the light.
If you want better power I'd look at studio strobes.
Click to expand...

I'm not really interested in more power (for this particular type of shoot) as my existing set up works fine.

Mine work fine at 100 (bear in mind the camera is on a tripod, so slow shutter speed to compensate for a dark interior isn't necessarily an issue - the lights are mainly for styling and to prevent the windows burning out too much). If anything, if you are trying to balance ambient, lower iso is better.

Lack of power in the lighting I have is not the why I'm looking at this. What I am looking at is whether there is any way to speed up the use on the job.
 
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