I'm now 100% LED (no tungsten or flo at all) for interviews -- which covers about 95% of what I ever have to light. So, having some very nice lights is more important to me than saving a few bucks on Chinese knockoffs. No regrets going with genuine Litepanels -- plus they have the fresnels that I also needed to round out the kit.
OK, let get back to basic. One of the reasons that after 42 years my phone rings more than ever is because I never let convenience or technology effect the quality of my work. Although I’m a certified gadget freak, if it has an on/off switch I probably own it, and I have at least 2 dozens of LEDs lights, my priority has always been and always will be, is what the camera sees and not how easy or fast it is for me to do it. Granted there are times that we have to fight the clock but my theory has always been of why hire and pay the high price of an award winning chef when all you need is somebody to cook scramble eggs.
It really doesn’t matter if the LED light you use cost $300 or $3000, the physic of light doesn’t change, it is still a one foot by one foot light source and for interviews it’s the very last thing I would want to use, unless is for the 6 o’clock local news and I don't do those. Even the sample of interviews shown on the Litepanel web site in my opinion suck, I told this to the Litepanel people at NAB but those guys are salesmen not artists.
We are reversing the principle of quality in favor of technology and convenience, and that's a dangerous process.
One foot by one foot light is the size of the subject head, meaning that you don’t have the wraparound that gives interviews and portraitures the quality they should have. You can take the cheapest Lowel open face, spread the barn door at the widest, attach one or more layer of diffusion and for about $150 the visual result will be almost identical that those obtained with a $3000 Litepanel. Again, the physic of light doesn’t change, you still have a one foot by one foot light source, what you are buying for the additional $2850 is convenience; important I must admit but with either 1'x1' lights hardly and not even close to the quality we are capable to achieve.
The only reason I chosen the Cool Lights over other LED fixtures was because it was, and I believe still is, the only LED light available with a soft box, and that makes a world of difference. Granted, it cut the output way down, but that’s very good too because it forces me to use the largest aperture in my lens and that’s exactly what I want in order to create depth and separation.
The lights that I use the most for interviews are the Kino. A 4ft fixture for key, two 3ft Vistas (one for fill and one for edge) and 200 Barfly for backlights, and as many Arri fresnels that I need for backgrounds.
Yet, with all this technology and this investment in lights my favorite light hasn’t changed in my 42 years in this business. This is actually what we used in art school almost 50 years ago.
A simple open face light shining thru a large diffusion. When you can control the distance of the light to the diffusion and the distance of the diffusion to the subject source, you have total control over the light and there's no technological substitute today that will achieve the same results, no matter how much you spend. And if quality is more important than convenience, all this will cost about $800 or even less.
If the ambient allows it, meaning the room is not the size of a closet with white walls, this is still my favorite light and what many of my clients love.
