LED Light recommendation

N.Klaeser

N.Klaeser

Member
I'm looking at purchasing a led light(s) for interviews. I'm not looking for recommendations for on-camera lights but light stand instruments. Portability and price are important factors.
 
The Lightpanels Sola Fresnels are nice. The Sola 4 has a motor that moves the bulb inside the instrument, which is a little odd at first, but it's not a problem. The Sola 9 is really nice, but the yolk has a 1-1/8 Junior pin on it. The instruments themselves are all plastic, so they are incredibly light.

The Dracast LED 1000 daylight panel lights are nice. The housing is metal, which gives me peace of mind. I have them with Anton Bauer plates so I can run them off batteries. I don't have the barn doors. Those are sold separately. I've never really needed them.

There might be better stuff out there, but that's what I got after doing some research a few years ago.

Edit to add:
Don't get cheap junk like the Bescor LED lights. They will be a source of frustration and leave you wishing you had something better. One of my coworkers opted to go the cheap route.
 
Last edited:
I have four Litepanel Astra Bi-color, full-power panels and I love them(or the light, anyway). I'm a tungsten-man, but I do love these lights and I've shot interviews for features with them and the Sola ENG kit I have. I do recommend getting the Chimera's(or some other type of soft Box) for the Astra's, though.
 
Run&gun
Do you really see a difference with the soft box on the panels. Honestly I do not see any difference at all. What are you seeing? Very curious, maybe I'm doing something wrong.
 
Big difference with the Chimeras, in my opinion. I wouldn't light a person inside without them, unless you are bouncing them or otherwise shooting them through some other type of diffusion like a frame/silk. They are fairly harsh even with the diffusion panel they sale for them. We have used them without the Chimeras outside when we needed all the punch we could get(HMI wasn't practical because there was no power), but honestly we will still use them with Chimeras a lot even outside when we're using them for fill in conjunction with an HMI as the key for standup and LS's. They do make a soft version, but I prefer having the "regular" full power version and being able to add and remove the soft box as I need it. Versatility...
 
I do read a lot of glowing reviews of the Litepanels product but unfortunately I'm purchasing for my self satisfaction because I care about my final product. My shop doesn't have the budget for better lights.
I do own a lot of tungsten instruments but will not have time or the power to use them.
I think I will probably end up going with bi-color Dracast product.
Thank you for the input.
 
If you do a search on here, you will see nearly everyone recommends the daylight balanced lights, rather than the bi-color. I got the daylight balanced Dracast lights, and I love them. I have never wished for them to be tungsten. There have been a few times where I have taped a sheet of CTO to one, but that was when I was shooting in my house with lots of regular light bulbs in my home lighting.
 
I recommend bi-color. 9 out of 10 times I'm running them in a 4300k-4700k environment. The huge advantage of a "bi-color" light is being able to quickly and easily adjust your lights to work with the ambient/environmental light without having to use gels. It's not the "old days". You're not sacrificing like you did five years ago for a bi-color unit vs. a fixed color temp one.
 
I maybe wrong but I thought if you adjust the led towards tungsten your video with have a warmer look to it. I thought was using daylight balanced lights would produce a cooler/bluish cast.
 
You are correct. Daylight balanced lights are bluer, and tungsten is more orange. I find it advantageous to use the daylight balanced lights to work with light coming in from windows, rather than fighting it.

I usually dial in my white balance manually, between 5500-6300K.
 
Run&Gun said:
Big difference with the Chimeras, in my opinion. I wouldn't light a person inside without them, unless you are bouncing them or otherwise shooting them through some other type of diffusion like a frame/silk. They are fairly harsh even with the diffusion panel they sale for them. We have used them without the Chimeras outside when we needed all the punch we could get(HMI wasn't practical because there was no power), but honestly we will still use them with Chimeras a lot even outside when we're using them for fill in conjunction with an HMI as the key for standup and LS's. They do make a soft version, but I prefer having the "regular" full power version and being able to add and remove the soft box as I need it. Versatility...
Click to expand...

litepanels_903_1013_1x1_ls_bi_color_1001007.jpg


Are we talking about the same light here. This is the one that I use.
 
Sorry, At the scene, if I wasn't clear. I was referring to the LitePanel Astra's, not the older 1x1 panels. The Astra's are much stronger(about 4x the output) and their light quality/accuracy is much better, as well. But I prefer the design of the old square panels. Vitec has really screwed up the designs of a lot of the gear of the companies under their umbrella. Very toy-ish/consumer-ish, like they're only trying to appeal to the young millennial kids that have come up on DSLR's and other toy cameras. It's one of the reasons I've dumped Anton Bauer after all these years and have moved on to Switronix(now Core SWX). Out of 16 batteries, only four are A/B, now, and as they die off they'll be replaced with more Core SWX batts. There's not a single camera that I put an A/B batt on anymore. Two of them I use on the Astra's and the other two smaller ones are in the rotation in the audio bags.
 
you know what I believe you were clear. I'm the idiot for not paying attention. I agree with your analysis 100%. I also prefer the older type 1X1 panels. In fact I just swapped a new Astra for another old 1X1.
 
Run&Gun said:
I recommend bi-color. 9 out of 10 times I'm running them in a 4300k-4700k environment. The huge advantage of a "bi-color" light is being able to quickly and easily adjust your lights to work with the ambient/environmental light without having to use gels. It's not the "old days". You're not sacrificing like you did five years ago for a bi-color unit vs. a fixed color temp one.
Click to expand...

I was not aware of this. To the OP, I would listen to Run&Gun. He's one of the last few people around here who really knows his stuff. I made my purchase in the old days of LED when there was a sacrifice to be made.

Run&Gun said:
Vitec has really screwed up the designs of a lot of the gear of the companies under their umbrella.
Click to expand...

Regarding Vitec, their stuff is terrible since they have become a mega conglomerate. Quality control is abysmal. I've had nothing but problems with the redesigned Anton Bauer batteries and OConnor heads and legs. And another guy I worked with got a goofy looking Astra, and it didn't work right out of the box.
 
tschelle said:
Regarding Vitec, their stuff is terrible since they have become a mega conglomerate. Quality control is abysmal. I've had nothing but problems with the redesigned Anton Bauer batteries and OConnor heads and legs. And another guy I worked with got a goofy looking Astra, and it didn't work right out of the box.
Click to expand...

At the risk of sidetracking this thread...

QC on A/B batts is what pushed me away(I can make an entire post on just the problems I had with their batts the last few years) and then the crazy design of the new ones (and the chargers)was the last straw. And that's a shame about O'Connor heads. Their performance has always been legendary and I've been contemplating adding one for years, now. The one good thing I can say about the Astra's, at least in my experience, they do perform well. But the design is hideous, all around. A 1x1 type panel should not take up as much space as they do. All they need to do is re-package it back into a "square". I started looking at the Dracast units, because I have lots of friends with them, most people seem to like them and they have a line with a really interesting idea that I like, but the output just isn't as high as the Astra's. As a matter of fact, that's part of the reason I went with adding more Astra's over Kino Celeb's and LED Diva's.
 
I like a mix of spot and flood so in my case it is Draecast for soft light, Nile for hard when I need something far out lit up or the kind of directional output you would expect from a hmi or spotted Fresnel. Though these days I am intrigued by the Zylight F8.

Overall I am happy seeing Light manufactures starting to produce Fresnel type units again There is just something about the control you can get with a Fresnel that its hard to do without.
 
While not a fresnel, I was told that LP is about to bring out a spot/flood Astra, but it will be single color temp, only. Half the LED's will be spot, half flood and they will alternate every other one, in the same fashion that the bi-color units work. I believe their original spot/flood adjustable unit actually moved the LED's.
 
A bit late for this thread..

I also have the Astra,s.. for the out put.. agree the design is pants.. esp the locking K N O B S on the sides.. really annoying ..
Agree the soft box.. but it only enlarges the front (source ) by a small amount.. thats the only thing thats making a light soft.. size of source in relation to object.. not the actual diffusion material itself.. I put them through an expandable diffusion frame as close to the interviewee as possible.. on the old ones that diffusion screen only knocked the intensity down.. didnt actually make the light any softer at all.. same size as the light source itself .. trouble is they are too weak to get through a decent diffusion screen.. if you can bounce it you,ll get a softer light..by making you source much bigger..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top