Lighting

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Heard of Comer LED Video Lights? It's a damn good LED Video light with a damn good price tag attached of over $300 dollars and doesn't even come with a battery. The design of the Comer lights are also much different than just a flat square panel full of LED bulbs. The second generation of Comer LED lights has a newer design with 10 LEDs on the front panel.

If you wanted a Comer, you had no choice but to buy one. Well, up until now I guess. There's a new LED light floating around recently that looks similar and claims the same 1800 Lumens output, so could this 'other' LED light be a Comer Clone? It sure does look like it through the limited amount of the photos I could compare online. From design, features, position of buttons and switches, it's pretty close. This 'other Comer-like is coming in about half the price and unlike Comer, comes with a Sony style Rechargeable battery + charger. Anyone sporting a Comer now, or experience with these Comer-like lights?

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find-price-button 1800 Lumen LED Video Light Rechargeable Battery + Charger

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I've had the chance to work with Arri's 650 and 1000 watt lighting kits a few times and they are beautiful. The fresnels allow the lights to be adjusted in Flood or Spot which makes them easier to throw the light where you need it. Of course, they are a bit pricey. Just a few months ago I posted an article about certain lighting kits that claimed to be 'As Arri' found here: http://cheesycam.com/arri-blueline-jietu-fresnel-lighting/

As Arri light kit review samples

These 'As Arri' lighting kits sold at less than a third the price and claimed to be an exact 1:1 replica of Arri lighting kits. So close in fact many of the replacement parts can be ordered from Arri such as the bulbs, Fresnel glass lens, ballast, barn doors, scrims, etc. They are available in 150, 300, 500, 650, 1000, and 2000 watts. The most common kit being a 3 pc 650w should cover most situations.

Not much information is available on the web, so these still aren't very popular, but just recently a brave soul (Vimeo Member) Josh Donnelly took a chance and posted a video review. Looks like it's time to bump this one back up on the wish list.... [Thanks Josh]

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find-price-button 150w - 2000w Fresnel Lighting Kits 'as Arri'

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Question in the comments area about these two new CREE LED Video lights. These LED video lights are fairly new, i've only been pointed to them a few times in the last few weeks. They claim to have housed 4 CREE Q5 High power LED's into an aluminum housing (which supposedly helps dissipate heat). CREE is a US company that makes the best LED's in the world and is carefully color balanced to exact specs. This LED video light comes with a rechargeable 7.2V Sony style battery + battery charger + LED light + cigarette lighter adapter for charging.

There are two different models of these CREE LED Video Lights. First model is called the VS800. Two of the LEDs are 3200K and with a single switch you're running tungsten. Two more LEDs are 5600K so you can toggle to Daylight. Turn ALL FOUR of the LEDs on, and you have mixed lighting around 4500K.

The second model is called the VS1400. This version uses all 4 CREE LEDs in 5600K, but still has two switches for half power and full power. The light is rated at 16W (could be 4W x 4 LEDs). Burn time is a really short 45 minutes on a single battery, and the beam angle (area of coverage) drops down to a narrow 60 degrees. Anybody use these things or have seen them in person?

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find-price-button CREE LED Video Lights VS800 + VS1400

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Odd color or not, people are finding the cheap UFO camping lights pretty useful. You can't beat $5 dollars shipped I guess. So remember the idea of using Halogen shop lights from here? http://cheesycam.com/diy-halogen-shop-light-mod/

Here's another one that might get the hamster wheels in your heads spinning. Cheesycam reader Pawel writes in and links me to some inexpensive outdoor high power LED flood lights. These LED flood lights are designed to take abuse with a weatherproof housing and come with a positionable mounting bracket. The bracket should make it real easy to mount to a traditional light stand. Available in 10W [might be too little] - all they way up to more than 100W, there's plenty of light power to go around. These are commonly used to light up parking lots, street lamps, and buildings. I'm finding that the higher power lights go to a more bluish temp, while the lower 10-20W LED Flood lights are a warmer tone around 3200-3500K (about Tungsten). Around 65W is said to have a 5600K color temp.

LED flood light

A further search even shows that these lights are available in both AC power and 12V DC and some listings show a 160 degree beam angle. That's pretty wide. 12V DC would be pretty nice to run right off battery power at remote locations. Keep in mind that these high power LEDs will still generate a little bit of heat, but nothing compared to what Halogens would be putting out. I'm in on this idea and maybe i'll check my local hardware stores to see if they have any on hand. Oh and if you're the colorful type, somewhere i've also seen that they make color changing versions.. Another idea for color changing backgrounds..
[Thanks Pawel]

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find-price-button High Power Outdoor LED Flood Lighting

Some additional search results for High Power LED Lighting below:

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High Power LED Outdoor Flood Lighting

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Remember this article: http://cheesycam.com/48-led-ufo-camping-ring-light/? Vimeo member RAYPERENIA throws up a 48 LED Camping light video sample and it looks pretty good. Not quite the bluish output I thought it might have, and it actually looks pretty good. Total light output looks strong for a $5 dollar light and the area of coverage looks pretty good too. I asked Ray what white balance setting he had, so hopefully we'll hear back. [Thanks Ray]

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find-price-button 48 LED UFO Camping Lights

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find-price-button Light Stand adapter with 1/4 x 20 Thread

Two tripods to support a long camera slider is a good idea, but if all you need is just a little extra support you can get away with a simple Light Stand. One solid tripod in the center, and a Light Stand at the end should do fine. The Konova Camera Slider offered light stand adapters as an optional piece of equipment, so that you can use inexpensive Light Stands for additional support or to get some different slider configurations. I believe they sold for about $18+ shipping. You can actually find them for less than $10 bucks via B&H Photo. (above)

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Two light stands with adapters for sideways sliding

One thing that Konova does throw a deal on is collapsible Light Stands. This is one thing that I really hate about traveling even with light weight stands. They are just a bit too long to fit into your average bag. I carry three small stands with my 3pc. 500 LED kit and am forced to use a really long bag just to pack it all in. The Konova folding stands shave down quite a few inches from it's minimum folded length. There are other versions of these which they will call 'Reverse Stands' and you can find some here: Reverse Light Stands

If you feel my pain, these types of folding light stands do exist for a bit cheaper and they make packing things up (with your slider) a whole lot easier. Found below:

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find-price-button Konova Folding Light Stands

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[Update] Sorry guys, company isn't cool with the original post. States they have a completely original product designed from the ground up. You can contact them directly for more technical information about their product and all references (and comments) will be removed. If you don't know what i'm talking about, you're in good shape.

So instead here's another DIY video solely on the UFO camping light. In this video he's only showing off the 24 LED version, but there's another version with 48 LEDs. This thing has been around the block for years and has been used in DIY Macro photography lights to Cheap Video lighting. The video showed a 24 LED in use, but there's a 48 LED version too for under $5 dollars shipped. Useable? I'll leave that up to you.. Hey if you're in a pinch, i've seen more random stuff being used for lighting like say.... several iPads? You know where i'm going with that...

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find-price-button 48 LED UFO Camping Lights

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Vimeo member LoweRuno Productions adds a bit more reflective material into some inexpensive Halogen shop lights for a better spread. Aside from these lights running really hot and requiring a bit of voltage at your location, they can offer some really great results. The hardest part is diffusing the light output and color temperature to something more usable. Of course if this is your only source of light, you can do a simple white balance.

Take it all a bit further, here's another great DIY video left in the comments on adding Dimmer controls. This one comes from YouTube member aadailey. I've seen the simple inline DIY's but this in-housing is a nice mod that keeps the dimmer with the lights at all times. Don't forget that not all dimmer switches are created equal. Make sure you choose the right dimmer to handle the ratings on your shop light.

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Since I mentioned I had the 352 LED Ring light, I've had a few questions about it. So before walking out the door I took a few pics of what diffusion would look like with the LED ring light and compared it against the popular Z96 LED. This is not a test of color temperature, this is just a test on diffusion of the ring light. Settings on the camera were at 1/80th F/4 ISO 640. Keeping these settings, you can see how much more or less light there is compared to each other.

As a standard I first started out with the Z96 about 3 feet away from the subject. The subject (Yoda) was about 3ft. away from the white background. You can see the coverage of the light in the full image. In the closeup photo, you can see how much shadow the light casts along with how much diffusion there is around the face.

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Next is the 352 LED Ring light. I have this light powered up from my 12v battery that came with the 183 LED light. Besides outputting much brighter light, you can see how much more area of coverage this light has over the Z96. The light is also very well diffused around the face with soft shadows that wrap around the subject.

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So how well does this light work? It works great, but it requires an AC outlet or 12V battery pack. Even though this ring light is dimmable, it's a very bright source of light that might be uncomfortable for your subject to stare at directly. If you're not working with people then it's a great LED ring that provides very soft even lighting. So to be fair, this should be considered more of an option to the 500 LED panel over an on-camera LED light (even though it can be an on-camera light).

The light itself is extremely light-weight made mostly of plastic. There is an OFF/ON switch as well as a dimmer knob. There are no filters provided with this ring light. If it's too bright for your subject, you could put it off to the side with a light stand. Carry a few and it can serve as a portable lighting kit great for traveling interviews. The options already built in to run on AC power or through a 12V power source make it more flexible than a 500 LED without added cost (batteries not included). This would easily run on a portable jumper battery with built in Cigarette lighter adapter (like the one I have). Long lasting 12V rechargeables are easy to come by. You can even use the batteries from 'Power Wheels' kids electric cars found at Toys-R-Us.

Considering the price. The 352 LED Ring light is about the same price as the popular 500 LED panels. The Ring light also cannot produce the same amount of brightness as the 500 LED panel, but if weight and size is a concern, this Ring Light cuts that inconvenience down to half. Besides being smaller and lighter than a 500 LED, it can be mounted with your camera for mobile use (something you can't do with a 500 LED). Price might seem high when comparing LED count, but for some traveling types it might justify the cost. You can pack several of these into Airplane carry on luggage as opposed to one single 500 LED light panel.

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find-price-button 352 LED Ring Light with 12V input AC Adapter for Video