Flo Light LED 1000, or Cool Lights LED 600. Has any one used these light panels??

LED 1000 - LED Lighting (http://www.flolight.com/led-lighting/led-1000.html)
http://www.coollights.biz/clled600-panel-p-114.html

Pros....cons...?

Paul,

I've got one of the cool lights led spots and one of the floods. I bought them for the occasions where we needed a little lift and power was an issue. However, the fast setup, light weight, and ability to run off a battery makes them so darn handy that several of my DPs call for them first. I've hired them several times for commando documentary work, and have used them as key on night/indoor shoots, location shoots in a heavy canopy rainforest, and even as substitute daylight rimlight for a music video on a beach when the sun went behind clouds for a few hours.

Very versatile units, a reasonably hard light that you can soften up nicely with spun. I'd buy 'em again in a heartbeat.

The "cons"... i guess that depends on what you are comparing them to. Any questions specifically?

Cool Light is also coming out with a chimera-like pop out soft box soon:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1737256&postcount=166
or do you think just some tuff spun would work just fine.

Im also looking at the Cool Lights Portable CL-255P softlight,
wondering if i could use my own 600watt dimmer on this light or will it hurt the electronics in the light?
CL-255P Cool Lights Portable 2 x 55 watt Softlight - Cool Lights USA (http://www.coollights.biz/cl255p-coo...ight-p-66.html)
Thanks, Paul

I had a bad experience w/prompter people standing behind their LEDs.

Their 500 LED was 4300k, not 5600k as advertised.

When I mentioned it, they said "send it back".

I did, and when they sent it back to me it was exactly the saem.

Beware.

I would look into the Coollights LED 600s

They are fantastic and Richard DOES stand behind his products.

I had a bad experience w/prompter people standing behind their LEDs.

Their 500 LED was 4300k, not 5600k as advertised.

When I mentioned it, they said "send it back".

I did, and when they sent it back to me it was exactly the saem.

Beware.

I would look into the Coollights LED 600s

They are fantastic and Richard DOES stand behind his products.

Hi MAtt,

Any other thoughts or experience with the cool lights? Very close to pulling trigger.

Good luck with Jon B in DC....have a great shoot!

Tom

Hi MAtt,

Any other thoughts or experience with the cool lights? Very close to pulling trigger.

Good luck with Jon B in DC....have a great shoot!

Tom

Thanks Tom,

Richard and the CoolLights LED 600s are AWESOME.

Everyone I know who gets them LOVE them.

Buy in confidence.

Thanks again for the lead!

Matt

I have one 600LED 5600K Flood version ... It is fantastic. Runs really cool. More important for me - able to operate outdoors and inside tropical rainforests. I won't dare to bring any tungsten halogen based products to anywhere near water - the bulb could explode if water droplets gets on it.

I charged up one Anton Bauer NiMH battery (not the LiOn) - and it lasted me nearly the whole day.

I am now ordering one 600LED 5600K Spot version from Richards now. How's that speak for confidence in his products?

Another +1 for CoolLights (600 5.6K flood). Its versatility is amazing. Went into a shoot today thinking I'd use it for my key with toughspun diffusion, but the location spurred me to flip it to be a rimlight. Even as a flood and not a spot, it covered well but didn't go all over the place. A 3/4 or Full CTO and a half-minus-green matches pretty well to tungsten, but with the light loss and short throw of two gels, getting a 3200K model is wise if you're 100% studio. The falloff with the barndoors gets "stripey," but diffuse the source and it's all good.

Rock solid build, flawless performance, heck, even a darned nice carrying bag for it and its power cable. Richard is immediacy personified when it comes to customer service. Do it, fer realz! :-)

Thanks guys for your comments!

Byron Atkinson did a review of the LED 600 for his blog HDHD. Check it out here:

Part II – Lighting For Stills and Motion: A Cool Experience for Under $500 hdhd!! (http://hdhd.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/part-ii-lighting-for-stills-and-motion-a-cool-experience-for-under-500/)

Hi Richard,

Apologies if this is the wrong thread for this, but do you recommend one temperature over the other if one shoots video with the Canon 5D Mark II?

Thanks!

Hi Greg,

The choice of one or the other, in my mind, pretty much predominantly has to do with blending with other existing light. It can also have to do with how the sensor of your camera is optimized and to what kind of light. A RED camera for example we know is optimized for and likes light in the range of 5000K best. I'm not sure what the sensor of a 5D is optimized for but perhaps someone else knows. I never remember anyone saying anything about that.

On the blending with other light which is perhaps an easier question to handle, if you have lots of tungsten lighting you still use you might want to use the tungsten colored flood or spot.

If you tend to shoot in areas with daylight coming in windows, you might prefer the 5600K. People have even used them outdoors during the day in the shade as a daylight fill.

If on the street at night and you have lots of sodium vapor or mercury vapor lights you might want to use the daylight and gel appropriately, etc.

Dan Chung, another dvinfo.net contributor, shoots with the 5D all the time and he uses daylight LED 600 panels and likes them very well. Here was a video he indicated used the LED 600 daylight:

Keya's story: climate change in Bangladesh on Vimeo


Hope that helps.

Thanks, Richard, that does help!

--Greg

Just got a coollight 600 (56ook-spot)and it really is fantastic and well made. Now I can have a fill light that really can give some light outside in daylight. After a footballmatch, when interviewing a player, you do not have to chase around with a redhead with 1/2 or full blue conversion filter that rattles in the wind and a long tale of 230V cable. In Nature you have a total mobile daylight lamp where the battery can give you enough power to your work. If you go indoors the 3200 conversion filter takes a little light but when working inside you never need that much light for an interview anyway. Well I could have bought a litepanel but in Denmark the prize of the coollight is 1/4 of the lightpanel .

Glad to hear that got in OK Bo and its what you needed. I was thinking about many of those situations when I designed the LED 600, so its gratifying to see it actually out there like we expected it to be.

Keep in touch and let us know how its going from time to time.