LED Video Lights

[stevensally]

Hi, Sorry to keep on about video lights but the more I read the more confused I get. Firstly, apart from the burn time, I'm not sure I understand the advantages of high colour temperature HID lights. Surely if we are trying to "fill in" the missing red during daylight video it would be better to have a lower temperature halogen light (which I presume has more red). Also isn't the added burn time kinda negated by the fact that you need to leave the HID's on most of the time. Now to confuse me even more I have been reccomended some Fi&MA 3.8-PL50V LED lights. These are 4x3watt Luxeon LED lights. These sound great since they are supposedly very robust, have long burn time, can be switched on and off, can be used above water. However I can't find any info on them or reports if they are any good. Has anyone used these lights, are they really as bright as 50 watt halogens (this is what they say). I would be grateful if anyone can help. Also I have been reading Boyles video book and it says you need two lights, does eveyone agree with this.

 

[MarkH]

Usually when you use video lights, you're only a few feet away from your subject. This is not enough water for all the "yellow" to be filtered out if you use halogen lights (I should know. I use one). It's still better than nothing though. I think I'm going to try to use a blue filter on my light to see if it makes the light more "white". It will cut down on the overall light though.

 

[peterbkk]

The problem with "warmer" lights like Halogens and LEDs are that, if you are using them for filling in close-subject color during well-lit conditions, you will have two different color areas: those impacted by the light and those too far away from the light. The impacted areas will look reddish and the distant areas will look blueish. This is hard to fix in the editing stage as color correcting filters affect the whole image area. In some cases, it will not be so noticeable but in others it will look strange.

HIDs, because they match the color temperature of sunlight, don't have this problem. If there is an overall color cast, it can be fixed with a color filter in the editing stage. It tends to look more natural.

Your other points are valid. When videoing with HIDs, I usually leave them on for the whole dive, so I only get 2 dives from one battery charge. A second set of batteries and/or a fast charger will keep you going even on a 5 dive a day liveaboard trip.

You can video underwater with one light but then you will probably have either a shadow problem or a backscatter problem. If you bring the light in from the side, backscatter is reduced but you have strong shadows on the other side (sometimes this looks good so I often experiment with moving one light out of the lens coverage area). If you bring the light in from above the lens, the shadow is reduced but backscatter increases. With two lights, you can set them at different directions and angles to provide different lighting effects, even back/rim-lighting macro subjects.

Regards
Peter

 

[stevensally]

Thanks, the FAMi LED lights are dual head so this would sort out the shadows. Also according to the spec sheet they have a 5000-6000K colour temperature which is comparable to the HID's. Have you had any experience with any video LED lights?. They sound good but without some reccomendation or reviews I'm a bit worried about parting with my hard earned cash.

 

[drbill]

I hope I'm not mistaken in this, but it is my understanding that LED lights only emit discrete colors of specific spectral type along the range of ROYGBIV rather than a spectrally-continuous emission. If I'm correct in this, LED's would not make good video lights since there would be substantial parts of the spectrum missing from the emitting source. If I'm wrong on this, please feel free to correct me.

 

[stevensally]

Thanks for the input. Looks like i'm a bit stuck. If I dont have the LED lights I could have either a single 100watt halogen Ikelite pro II OR a single Kowalski Xenon OR two underwater kinetics light canon 100's. Any ideas which of these would be the best. I'd really appreciate some help.
Regards Steve

 

[HÃ¥kan Bernandersson]

I own a Power Led 40 it´s excellent

 

[stevensally]

Hi, thanks for replying, do you use your power led 40 for video?. Do you know how its light output compares with a 10 Watt HID (colour/intensity). Has anyone else used these LED lights?. I would be very grateful for some more input.
Many thanks Steve

 

[ronrosa]

The problem with "warmer" lights like Halogens and LEDs are that, if you are using them for filling in close-subject color during well-lit conditions, you will have two different color areas: those impacted by the light and those too far away from the light. The impacted areas will look reddish and the distant areas will look blueish. This is hard to fix in the editing stage as color correcting filters affect the whole image area. In some cases, it will not be so noticeable but in others it will look strange.

HIDs, because they match the color temperature of sunlight, don't have this problem. If there is an overall color cast, it can be fixed with a color filter in the editing stage. It tends to look more natural.

Your other points are valid. When videoing with HIDs, I usually leave them on for the whole dive, so I only get 2 dives from one battery charge. A second set of batteries and/or a fast charger will keep you going even on a 5 dive a day liveaboard trip.

You can video underwater with one light but then you will probably have either a shadow problem or a backscatter problem. If you bring the light in from the side, backscatter is reduced but you have strong shadows on the other side (sometimes this looks good so I often experiment with moving one light out of the lens coverage area). If you bring the light in from above the lens, the shadow is reduced but backscatter increases. With two lights, you can set them at different directions and angles to provide different lighting effects, even back/rim-lighting macro subjects.

Regards
Peter

You make some interesting points.

I have halogen lights, but only use them at night. All of my shooting has been wide angle and flat port.

My next trip I plan on using a diopter and do macro with my lights during the day. I think I'll start off with 1 light and switch to 2 if I have problems with shadows or backscatter, but I think I'll have my hands full with keeping things still and in focus.

Now that you mention it, I do have a decent amount of backscatter on my night footage using 1 light.

 

[HÃ¥kan Bernandersson]

Not for video. My buddy has a Hid 10W the light looks the same.Runtime with 4 AA NiNM is 1,5h after what the light starts to loss light .