LED lighting

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Eddie1

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Is anyone using the small cheap (£ 25) Led panels for portraits with good results ?
I am trying to I as like their size and portability but so far am not happy with the results, colours a bit off, doesn't look great,
But curious to see if anyone'e getting better results.

Thanks
 
You will need to be more specific, do you have a pic of said lit? Or link
 
You said it, the cheap LED panels unfortunately have atrocious colour rendering.

You need to spend big £££ to get into the league where there is consistency.
 
The CRI is usually quite poor so the colour rendition is bad. I have some £50 ones for emergencies, but they can't really portray green items properly - they have a very narrow green spectrum. Skin tones are OK thankfully.
 
any reccommendations for LED's that are reliable quality appreciated, thanks
 
I have used some of the cheap (£25) LEDs and as others have mentioned, the colours they produce are awful and inconsistent. I personally prefer my continuous softboxes in the studio or an off camera flashgun with some light modifiers when on location.
 
The reality is that although LED lighting designed for photography is available, it isn't cheap - think in terms of the price of a new car for the quality and power used in pro video production, much more for movie production... and, if anything, still photography is more demanding than video in terms of quality.

ALL of the affordable ones are basically made from componants designed for security lighting and, despite the claims that are made by their sellers, they are totally unsuitable for any kind of photography.
My advice is to use flash instead - flash produces perfectly good colour rendition and even the cheapest hotshoe flashguns have far more effective power than any affordable LED light.
 
Garry Edwards said:
The reality is that although LED lighting designed for photography is available, it isn't cheap - think in terms of the price of a new car for the quality and power used in pro video production, much more for movie production... and, if anything, still photography is more demanding than video in terms of quality.

ALL of the affordable ones are basically made from componants designed for security lighting and, despite the claims that are made by their sellers, they are totally unsuitable for any kind of photography.
My advice is to use flash instead - flash produces perfectly good colour rendition and even the cheapest hotshoe flashguns have far more effective power than any affordable LED light.
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This is very true, I work in Industrial Machine Vision, typically we use LED lights on small target areas on production lines, and it's not uncommon for us to supply lights costs up to £4000 for certain applications.

Anything coming out of the CCTV industry is usually cheap and cheerful.
 
Eddie1 said:
Is anyone using the small cheap (£ 25) Led panels for portraits with good results ?
I am trying to I as like their size and portability but so far am not happy with the results, colours a bit off, doesn't look great,
But curious to see if anyone'e getting better results.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Some wedding and events photographers use LEDs for a dash of fill-in and shadows lift, and they work well for that - low power and poor colour are much less of an issue.

But for anything else, flash is far better. A lot of people have a fear of flash, not really knowing how it works and taking comfort from the WYSIWYG of LEDs. But flash is not hard (Garry Edwards manages okay :D) and once you've got over that initial hurdle it opens up a whole new world :thumbs:
 
Ah but... I'm looking for a light source that will work with Stills and Video.
I have flash ( Lumidyne, Elinchrom, Canon and PW's) am looking for something that will also work with Video
 
Eddie1 said:
Ah but... I'm looking for a light source that will work with Stills and Video.
I have flash ( Lumidyne, Elinchrom, Canon and PW's) am looking for something that will also work with Video
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I don't know if it has been mentioned above, but it crops up so often here it might have been missed.

The simple fact is that cheap LED lights do not provide a full colour spectrum, it's not a case of WB, colours will always be 'off' so if you need a continuous light source, you'll need good quality lamps, whether CFL, halogen or LED. There's no shortcuts or alternatives, the colour consistency us simply down to quality and compared to the cheaper versions, they look expensive, no matter which type (though LEDs have the greatest difference)
 
Eddie1 said:
Ah but... I'm looking for a light source that will work with Stills and Video.
I have flash ( Lumidyne, Elinchrom, Canon and PW's) am looking for something that will also work with Video
Click to expand...

Oh... LOL
 
Phil V said:
He might mention that you'd want more than 85 - but I think I'd want something over 90.
The rotolight looks good in this respect, but as a light source it still lacks the control we get with flash modifiers.
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From what I've seen, the Rotolite is just a highly priced, well-marketed cheap light. Just my personal opinion based on a very close look at the specs.
 
Garry Edwards said:
From what I've seen, the Rotolite is just a highly priced, well-marketed cheap light. Just my personal opinion based on a very close look at the specs.
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I haven't tested but they claim a CRI over 95% which is good enough for me if its true,
 
Phil V said:
I haven't tested but they claim a CRI over 95% which is good enough for me if its true,
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There's more than one way of measuring CRI. CRIT(ransmitted) is particuarly useful, but can produce different readings for different subjects or colours. It's very possible that the same light source may produce a reading of (say) 67 for one reflected colour and 97 for a different one - although of course I'm not saying that they are cherry picking their figures, or that the figures may not be correct.

As for this particular product, I do have the actual figures I think - but not on my home computer.
 
If you want high CRI or the tv equivalent LEDs, ARRI, ETC and the like will work.

Expect to pay 4-5k for a 3 light setup.
 
Garry Edwards said:
From what I've seen, the Rotolite is just a highly priced, well-marketed cheap light. Just my personal opinion based on a very close look at the specs.
Click to expand...

They are exception lights, not all LEDS are the same, only about 1 in 100 make the grade for premium lighting, the rest end up in the cheaper panels.

Look at your average household GU10 we get them from china for the studio at about £1.70 for 9-12W my friend owns a home automation company and he installs £15 ones, I go through loads of them, he doesn't.
 
Traditionally LED's have a very poor CRI, typically <70Ca. Problem is, the higher it is, less output, that's the trade off. Flash is by far the way to go in every respect.
 
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