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Mole Richardson LED Fresnel


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Does anyone have experience with working with Mole Richardson 150W, 200W and 400w daylight LED Fresnel or know good any reviews on them? BHphoto says there CRI are 90 which I find odd for being so expensive and being Mole Richardson lights?

 

I am looking to invest in daylight led equivalents to 650-1000w Fresnel.

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CRI figures are close to useless for cinematography. You need to look at the spectrum plot to see how close it's to actual daylight or quartz and what wavelengths are missing. And the single most important thing - skin tone rendering - you should ideally test, especially if have to shoot on video.

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I rent the Mole LED tweenie and baby models on occasion (from Wooden Nickel in LA) and although relatively inexpensive (to rent) and cool running, they have their quirks. It may be because the particular lights the rental house carries are early or first generation models that have seen a lot of hard use; the newer units may be in better shape and more refined.

 

In the field I often find myself adding plus or minus green to them, depending on the particular lamp. I ran one next to a Dedo 400 HMI recently and the color was a bit greener and a little warmer to my eye. And for whatever reason when you dim them at the head you get a flicker or pulsing effect, rendering that function fairly pointless, so I usually just scrim them.

 

I've seen better results from the Junior and Senior models, but those were released later and possibly with better quality LEDs etc. The Baby/Tweenie types are well built and handy though and I do use them, just be prepared to deal with the above issues. Hope this helps.

 

Tristan

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The new mole LEDs are NOT the old moles. The old LEDs were awful. The new are excellent, the color is as good/better than advertised and the power output is not inflated. I put my color meter on the 400 and was floored - about as good as LED's get. I know people are losing their minds about the sky panels, but a number of other and cheaper units exceed the color quality of the sky panel if not the flexibility. The 400 and larger moles are all that good. I have not measured the smaller units, so I can't speak to them.

 

As for power - LED watts generally about equal HMI watts - so a 250 LED should have about the same output as a 1k tungsten. The new moles also use their own LED emitter, so you won't find it anywhere else to my knowledge. Everything is worth testing, but I'm quite impressed by the 400 and find it to be every bit as bright as an HMI 400 fresnel, but more flexible (dimmable) and more color consistent (HMI lamps age with big color shifts).

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For anyone local? Your more then welcome to stop by our shop here in Sun Valley to check out our LED FRESNELS! Perhaps even demo one.

 

We will have most of our LEDS at The Digital Cinema Society Lighting Expo at IATSE Local 80 stage this Saturday, March 4th, 9am-5pm Besides DCS membership, event open to locals 600, 728 and 80.

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I don't understand skypanels. They're enormous, outrageously heavy, and hugely expensive.

 

How much time have you spent test driving one?

A combo stand, stirrup hanger or junior pipe clamp handles the modest weight with no problems.

Buy? Rent, that's what rental houses are for. Will you be using it every week, three or more days a week? Doubtful.

Edited by JD Hartman
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Not a sky-panel fan. I use it a lot these days, but man, the design of the thing leaves a lot to be desired.

 

Specifically what would you change?

Have you considered sending feedback to ARRI?

Edited by JD Hartman
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Specifically what would you change?

Have you considered sending feedback to ARRI?

For me I want a longer ballast cable standard and I want controls on the ballast for the light. Having them on the head is useless.

They really aren't designed for location work but they are brought out very often because of their versatility.

And i know they now have a "remote" which is just another thing to rent/buy/loose/break.

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No. sorry that's not a solution on what is a $6000+ light. Why can't we just have it on the ballast? Why do i have to use my phone? Why dmx when I just want to easily dim the unit, or even switch from 32 to 56K?
There is no reason to make this more complicated than it needs to be by default, it's a bad design choice to have the controls on the head which are far out of reach for adjustments and it's even sillier to deal with other technology and smart phones and all that crap when you can easily put the controls on the damned power supply.

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No. sorry that's not a solution on what is a $6000+ light. Why can't we just have it on the ballast? Why do i have to use my phone? Why dmx when I just want to easily dim the unit, or even switch from 32 to 56K?

There is no reason to make this more complicated than it needs to be by default, it's a bad design choice to have the controls on the head which are far out of reach for adjustments and it's even sillier to deal with other technology and smart phones and all that crap when you can easily put the controls on the damned power supply.

 

DMX control would give you a lot more options than just color temp or intensity. Duplicating a small subset of the functions on the ballast doesn't make sense from a cost and benefits perspective.

 

Adrian, if I could re-engineer the thing for you would. You feedback and that of others really needs to be made known to ARRI. If there's going to be a more user friendly Mark II version, that's the sort of input that will drive that change.

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BTW, I'm surprised to see quite a lot a Skypanels going out to shoots with modest G&E budgets. It's the most uneconomical thing to rent. Rental prices are crazy high, at least here in Moscow and now in 2017.

Take a set of 3 bigger Skypanels. For their price I could get an Alpha 4K, a big-lens 2,5K Daylight, two 1200s, two 575s and a genny - much more useful for location work. Or a 18K with a genny for an EXT. Or 200kW worth of tungsten fresnels, zips, parcans and whatnot if we're on a soundstage.

Edited by Michael Rodin
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I fear I've completely derailed the initial post by bringing up the myth vs. reality of sky panels. Oops. If you currently use 2k zips or small chimeras and wish they drew 1/4 the power or were color-adjustable and slimmer, then boom- skypanel.

 

I forgot to look before, Alexander (op) is located in LA. Go to mole and play with their fixtures. They'll lend you a meter and happily stand behind their product. Some of the nicest people and they have nothing to hide with their fixtures so any questions regarding their performance they'll answer. Always best to see for yourself if something's going to work for your needs.

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