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Led vs Kino fluorescent / Quality of light in 2022


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Hi all, 

With the rise of Leds in recent years, i would like to hear what differences do you see between Led tubes in 2022 (like Astera Titan) and Kino fluorescent tubes in terms of quality of light.
Does Kino have its place in the industry right now? Why would someone reach for Kino tubes over Led tubes when Led is more convenient (with integrated battery and full RGB spectrum).

I'm building China balls and softboxes for a shoot and i'm trying to decide whether should i put Kino or Led tubes inside.
When going through diffusion, what quality difference is there between Led tubes and Kino fluorescent?
I will shoot on film,

Thanks!

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It helps that a kino Flo is currently much less expensive than a rival LED of a similar nature in terms of spectral content and arguably build quality. 

However, LED tech is still, to a certain degree, in its infancy and soon they'll equalise. 

A more fun answer is...

I should emphasise most/all LED fixtures are different.

Even a full white light LED doesn't have full consistent 'RGB' spectral content - in the terms of an even coverage over the visible light spectrum in relation to its apparent color temperature.  

Generally when trying to achieve a certain RGB colour (in most cases mixing multiple frequency bands) the spikiness/unevenness of the spectral content is more pronounced even with RGB... insert more diodes here... WW LED's. An RGB LED has a discontinuous spectrum and RGBWW LED I believe all frequency bands overlap when emitting variations of white (a mixture of warm white and cool white with minor correction to remain on planckian) however, when achieving certain colours is discontinuous. 

A fluorescents spectral content while spiky is not discontinuous. 

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one of the disadvantages of LED technology is that the leds will age relatively quickly and because they are pretty much built into the light you can't usually change them (even if this would be possible, it would cost A LOT and it may be more practical to just purchase new light instead) . 

With traditional fixtures like tungsten, hmi, fluorescent the bulbs are affordable and field swappable and you can just change them whenever you want... but with leds you generally can't fix anything and when the led fixtures age you often need to just live with the increasingly bad colour cast, lower light output and other drawback of the aging without any possibility to fix them (or you can try to sell the old led lights hoping that the buyer does not notice or care about the colour cast and bad output power).

For example I have been on  sets where almost every led light was more or less greenish and it would have cost maybe 50k or more to replace them so one just must live with the colour cast. on some units one can counter it with green/magenta correction but it just works to a point and more severe cast cannot be corrected anymore

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I personally would reach for kino for some applications. The light quality from good LED fixtures is pretty impressive, many can do color temperature adjustment and other things and are arguably rebuildable and a little more environmentally friendly due to the lack of mercury.

LEDs are also expensive and most interest is there so my reasoning for kino is more to hunt for costs that have dropped than anything else.

What the use plan, budget, and level of build involved would be the determining factors for me moreso than bulb technology. Some LED makers do offer repair services as well if you're not committed to the fluoro bulb style LED.

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  • 1 month later...
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I’m going to buck trend here and say I wouldn’t ever reach for a Tube over an LED simply because of how EASY it is to control the LED with dim and offset. We are moving towards a more digital world, and it is becoming increasingly important to have fine level control over your lights. The cat is out of that bag and anymore you have more money than you have time, it seems, so the speed with which you can adjust LEDs really pushes them forward. 

Quality is a funny word. If we only really wanted spectral quality we would be all tungsten with Dichrotics or Carbon Arcs when we need daylight. But sometimes it’s quality of life that is more important, and as you go towards LED you really do simplify a lot on set. 

Hell It’s hard for me to order an M18 anymore when a (rented) 1200D is as bright as it is (though flimsy and will certainly break, but it’s a rental..)

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  • 3 weeks later...

fluorescent (Kino and such) are still an easy way to match an environment that HAS fluorescent...think grocery store or hospital.   jst use the same tubes.  Of course many such environments are now being upgraded -or downgraded : )  - to led.  

it seems that even middle of the road (Aputure etc) Led color is better than fluorescent now, in a general sense.

This is aside from the aging problem 

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