LED Lighting for 16mm?

[Lilly Lewin]

I am planning on testing my recently serviced 16mm Arri-SB and Bolex Rex4 after a 20+ year hiatus from film school. With all the wonderful lighting options using LED, I was wondering if I should rather invest in a Fresnel lighting kit to light with these vintage cameras. Would I be better off working with LED or are there serious concerns I should be aware of if I wanted to incorporate LED lights into my 16mm film shoot. I honestly can't find any substantive information about this on the web.

[Lilly Lewin]

*Tungsten Fresnel kit - I understand Fresnel LED's are available. I am wondering if I need old school lights to light up scenes with old school cameras.

[David Mullen ASC]

Soft LED panels can be used with film just as Kinoflo fluorescent tubes were used before. As for hard lighting, LED fresnels can work as long as they are modern ones designed for filming, not some older RGB LEDs made for small bars and clubs, those are hard to get a simple 3200K color out of.

You could mix tungsten fresnels with LED panels too. It’s hard to get a LED to look like a direct 2K tungsten fresnel or bigger, but for smaller spots then LEDs are fine. Certainly there’s no LED version of a 20K tungsten fresnel!

[Lilly Lewin]

Thank you! Very helpful ?

[Tyler Purcell]

I just did my first full LED shoot on 16mm and it came out great. No flicker, no issues, very happy. 

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Hello Tyler,

did you set the LED to 3200K and shot with a tungsten balanced film or to 5500K with a daylight balanced film? Or have you been “color correction filters” like a Wratten 85 or 80A?

thanks and regards
Jörg 

[Tyler Purcell]

14 hours ago, Joerg Polzfusz said:

Hello Tyler,

did you set the LED to 3200K and shot with a tungsten balanced film or to 5500K with a daylight balanced film? Or have you been “color correction filters” like a Wratten 85 or 80A?

thanks and regards
Jörg 

I kinda set them by eye, we had one of them in "flicker" mode to make it seem like a TV to the right, hence the right guys face being kinda pink/violet. It's an effect. 

So there is a big source to the left pointing up at the ceiling and there are two Pavo Tubes, one 3300k and one on the flicker. The background light in the windows is 1k open faced Tungsten with special glass 5600k adaptors. 

[Stephen Baldassarre]

The main problem with most LED fixtures, even fairly high-dollar video lights, is there's very little energy between deep blue and green, virtually no cyan and little in the deep red range.  What I usually do is use LEDs for my fill lights and then add in a tungsten key, works pretty well.

Edited July 20, 2023 by Stephen Baldassarre

[Lilly Lewin]

Looks like I will be purchasing a tungsten light to use as a hard light. Thanks to all!

[Stephen Baldassarre]

Don't be afraid to look on the used market for some 1K Fresnels.  I'm sure you can get them super cheap or free.  I'd offer you some of mine but the shipping cost would probably be more than the fixtures are worth. :D