When it comes to LED lights there’s a direct relation between cost and quality. I’ve seen them all at NAB and also own at least a dozen of LED on camera lights. The most costly ones are also the least problematic. You walk the floor at NAB and you can actually see the different color outputs of the different manufacturers, and often even within the same manufacturer. BTW, a color temperature meter will not read the spectrum of LED.
The biggest problem is color, they all have a green spike and camera white balance do not remove it, you have to play with filters or play with the colors dials if you have a dual color adjustment. Once you put filters in front of it you give up a lot of output.
Some manufacturers, like Cool Lights, supply color filters for their lights including a minus green to remove the green cast. Although made for light stands, the small Cool Light 256 can be used on camera.
Even thou most LED are rated at 5600K for outdoor they are pretty much useless, unless you are on top of the subject and its backlit. Trying to fill the shadows under bright sun is pointless. For outdoor I still use my faithful AB Ultradaylight HMI, I actually have two that I use in tandem when necessary, I haven’t been able yet to find any LED that will replace the AB.
Indoor we open another can of worms. Let’s talk about my most hated type of shoot, the gang bang. Fortunately I don’t do many of those. There was a time when everyone had 3200K and if you set your camera at the preset you were OK, now colors of lights coming from all the present cameras is all over the place and most of the time there’s no time to color balance, result is awful pictures.
Needless to say I hate on camera light but it’s a necessary evil so I try to make the best out of it.
Nat color temperature indoor is usually all over the place, never 3200 or 5600K, this is one of the main reasons of why most shots taken indoor with the on-board light look awful. After testing just about every light on the market I settled for the Zylight Z90, it’s pricey but priceless. After giving it a good test I got two of them.
In addition of having preset 3200 and 5600K, it can digitally adjust the color temperature from 2500 to 9000K with 100K increments, plus it has all kinds of additional color control features. Once indoor I white balance the camera to the existing light then dial the same color on the light. The on camera light becomes transparent.
Home Depot LED bulbs rated at 3000K for video work?