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Shooting Film and LED Lighting problems.


Bryan Becker

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Hello I’m shooting a feature I’m producing myself. I am considering buying the led Gvm 1500D 3 three light kit. Each light supposedly puts out 11,000 lux at 3.28ft. My concern is Color accuracy LED lights especially since I will be shooting on super 16 film. 

I heard handheld spectrometers are the way to check accuracy but I have never used one and it seems like just another expense when The whole point of me getting LEDS is to save money. 

The rotolight Aeos 2 was another option I was looking at since it claims it’s color accuracy is 99% but their price is 5x more for the 2 light kit.

My question is does anyone have anything good or bad to say about these lights for shooting on film, or any suggestions or comments regarding my choice to shoot film with LED lights?

 

 

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On 6/1/2022 at 2:20 AM, Bryan Becker said:

Hello I’m shooting a feature I’m producing myself. I am considering buying the led Gvm 1500D 3 three light kit. Each light supposedly puts out 11,000 lux at 3.28ft. My concern is Color accuracy LED lights especially since I will be shooting on super 16 film. 

I heard handheld spectrometers are the way to check accuracy but I have never used one and it seems like just another expense when The whole point of me getting LEDS is to save money. 

The rotolight Aeos 2 was another option I was looking at since it claims it’s color accuracy is 99% but their price is 5x more for the 2 light kit.

My question is does anyone have anything good or bad to say about these lights for shooting on film, or any suggestions or comments regarding my choice to shoot film with LED lights?

 

 

What is your power budget?

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Do you specifically need rgbw lights or would you manage with daylight balanced leds instead? 

Personally I try to always get different types of lighting fixtures with me when shooting something so that the kit is more versatile than if just having multiple similar fixtures and nothing more. You will get tons of more light output if the led light can be single colour balance and single colour which is why I asked. You can get from 2 to 4 times more light out of it with the same rated wattage if accepting single balance light depending on how the manufacturer rates it wattages

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Personally I would maybe have two cheaper daylight cob leds with bowens mount from 150 to 300w range and basic softboxes for them, one basic rgbw panel like those op linked and two higher power 2ft or 4ft rgbww led tubes. If you have some money left then a cheap 100w bicolor led mat.

This is if the op does not need rgbw on the highest power lights but likes to use them for closeups every now and then. The tubes are great for making subtle backlights and for closeups and for faking practicals. The panels are by my opinion the least versatile units and best suited for close quarters battery powered operation when you dont have possibility to use cob leds for some reason. The main issue with panels being that they are relatively low power compared to surface area and semi soft light which cannot be made to look like a hard source. I actually prefer led mats over panels if rgb is not needed despite it takes a little longer to setup the led mat

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Great points. No they don’t have to be Rgbw. I just wanted RGBW to make my kit more versatile. I don’t think I mentioned in my Original post, I am student and new to cinematography so my goal is to build a decent kit and I figured rgbw would be a good way to experiment with different colors.

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5 hours ago, Bryan Becker said:

Great points. No they don’t have to be Rgbw. I just wanted RGBW to make my kit more versatile. I don’t think I mentioned in my Original post, I am student and new to cinematography so my goal is to build a decent kit and I figured rgbw would be a good way to experiment with different colors.

Ok then it would be even more practical to have lots of different type of lights.

the way I use rgbww lights is to add accents to background or closeups and thus they don't need to be high powered or even if they need to be, one can usually manage with only one higher powered one and the rest of them can be smaller.

One generally needs the highest power at 4700K to 6000K colour temperature range and because high powered leds tend to always be expensive I would try to get one of the highest power daylight-only ones you can afford with the budget which would probably be 300w daylight cob led with softbox and high efficiency reflector options.

Low colour temperatures you can often be managed with tungsten lights and it might be useful to add a used 300w tungsten fresnel or two to your kit (perfect for small bounces or direct light) .

Semi soft top light is often time consuming to make with tungsten etc. traditional units and it is a perfect application for led mats (very easy to rig for them being lightweight and flat and the light already coming from relatively large surface so you don't need as much height to make it soft as with pointy sources like tungsten units) . So I would add some kind of led mat to your kit, even if it being the cheapest one like Godox etc.

Led tubes are kind of "semi-traditional" led units but they are handy because they are very fast to rig anywhere and they have built in batteries which last for hours. a 2ft led tube is my go-to light for making backlight for interview subjects and it is lightweight enough to handhold at the end of a microphone boompole if you need to make a very quick backlight in a movie shoot and have absolutely no time to rig anything:  just switch the led tube on, get the boompole into position and done! took 30 seconds instead of 10mins rigging something high up to get the same end result. (made the backlights for the actors for an entire feature film using this approach because we had very tight schedule. Worked pretty well and the 2ft tubes usually have battery duration of approx. 4 hours or so) .  Definitely get one or two of the rgbww 2ft tubes at least ?

If you want to experiment with rgbww you can purchase some of the approx. 10w really small ones with built in battery like the Aputure MC and do tests with it to evaluate how much you would actually need the colours in real life.

So I would maybe recommend something like this order:

- small 10w rgbww light with internal battery like the Aputure MC or similar. a 1ft led tube would work too

- one 2ft rgbww led tube. personally I use Cinetubes for interviews etc. as a low cost option but get ones available for you and affordable enough, preferable with a basic wireless controller which can at least adjust the output power

- one about 150w to 300w cob daylight led with a basic bowens mount softbox (you may want to test it before purchase because the cooling fans may be noisy on some models and you can't evaluate the fan noise based on user reviews) .

- one of the "normal style" rgbww led panels if you feel you need it based on your tests on the small rgbww light and the 2ft led tubes. If you don't specifically need this type of panel style unit with rgbww, then I would leave it out of the list for now

- the bi-colour led mat, either a 100w or 150w one. If you don't need the "normal led panel" then get this style of led mat instead

I would purchase the lights one at a time so that you can get used to the previous unit first and see what you can do with it. Then you will have a better idea what type of unit you will most urgently need next. As said the Leds are most useful if used on battery power or if the light needs to move fast and for semi-permanent rigging like when lighting the backgrounds you can often manage with traditional units like tungsten fresnels just fine. It is the foreground where the units need to be most versatile and there the leds are often most useful whereas you may not even need led for the backgrounds most of the time if the background lights more twice during the whole shooting day for example

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5 hours ago, Bryan Becker said:

Great points. No they don’t have to be Rgbw. I just wanted RGBW to make my kit more versatile. I don’t think I mentioned in my Original post, I am student and new to cinematography so my goal is to build a decent kit and I figured rgbw would be a good way to experiment with different colors.

Ok then it would be even more practical to have lots of different type of lights.

the way I use rgbww lights is to add accents to background or closeups and thus they don't need to be high powered or even if they need to be, one can usually manage with only one higher powered one and the rest of them can be smaller.

One generally needs the highest power at 4700K to 6000K colour temperature range on "normal lighting setups" and because high powered leds tend to always be expensive I would try to get one of the highest power daylight-only ones you can afford with the budget which would probably be 300w daylight cob led with softbox and high efficiency reflector options so that you can get the highest light output with the budget available.

Low colour temperatures can often be managed with tungsten lights and it might be useful to add a used 300w tungsten fresnel or two to your kit (perfect for small bounces or direct light) just to get more tungsten options which allows you save the leds on uses where you really need them like the foreground or overheads.

Semi soft top light is often time consuming to make with tungsten etc. traditional units and it is a perfect application for led mats (very easy to rig for them being lightweight and flat and the light already coming from relatively large surface so you don't need as much height to make it soft as with pointy sources like tungsten units) . So I would add some kind of led mat to your kit, even if it being the cheapest one like Godox etc.

Led tubes are kind of "semi-traditional" led units but they are handy because they are very fast to rig anywhere and they have built in batteries which last for hours. a 2ft led tube is my go-to light for making backlight for interview subjects and it is lightweight enough to handhold at the end of a microphone boompole if you need to make a very quick backlight in a movie shoot and have absolutely no time to rig anything:  just switch the led tube on, get the boompole into position and done! took 30 seconds instead of 10mins rigging something high up to get the same end result. (made the backlights for the actors for an entire feature film using this approach because we had very tight schedule. Worked pretty well and the 2ft tubes usually have battery duration of approx. 4 hours or so) .  Definitely get one or two of the rgbww 2ft tubes at least ?

If you want to experiment with rgbww you can first purchase some of the approx. 10w really small ones with built in battery like the Aputure MC and do tests with it to evaluate how much you would actually need the colours in real life. This very small led unit will become handy every now and then when you quickly want to add an accent to something in the shot and the low powered light is just enough for the job.

 

So I would maybe recommend something like this order:

- small 10w rgbww light with internal battery like the Aputure MC or similar. a 1ft led tube would work too

- one 2ft rgbww led tube. personally I use Cinetubes for interviews etc. as a low cost option but get ones available for you and affordable enough, preferable with a basic wireless controller which can at least adjust the output power. You will like this 2ft light so much that you will probably buy another later ?

- one about 150w to 300w cob daylight led with a basic bowens mount softbox (you may want to test it before purchase because the cooling fans may be noisy on some models and you can't evaluate the fan noise based on user reviews) . This is to get the maximum daylight output possible with a unit consuming way less power and being way lighter than traditional units

- one of the "normal style" rgbww led panels if you feel you need it based on your tests on the small rgbww light and the 2ft led tubes. If you don't specifically need this type of panel style unit with rgbww, then I would leave it out of the list for now

- the bi-colour led mat, either a 100w or 150w one. If you don't need the "normal led panel" then get this style of led mat instead!

I would purchase the lights one at a time so that you can get used to the previous unit first and see what you can do with it. Then you will have a better idea what type of unit you will most urgently need next. As said the Leds are most useful if used on battery power or if the light needs to move fast. For semi-permanent rigging like when lighting the backgrounds you can often manage with traditional units like tungsten fresnels just fine. It is the foreground where the units need to be most versatile and there the leds are often most useful especially if used on battery power, whereas you may not even need led for the backgrounds most of the time if the background lights move once twice during the whole shooting day for example (ANY unit can move once or twice a day, you don't need to have Led for that! even a old carbon arc light can do that)

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This is perfect thank you. Right now I have 3- mole Richardson type 407 baby solarspots fresnels. (1k watts each) i have a one set up with 1000w bulb, another with 750w bulb, and the other with 500w bulb. So I’ll explore what you have recommended!

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