Yeah, she seems happy enough with the HMIs. But my setup time and strike time will be a fraction of the time with LEDs. :-)

The shot looks good . . . but I'd get rid of the plant (it's as sharp as she is) and I'd want to see more seperation between the subject and the background via lighting changes and shallower DoF. Sorry couldn't resist making suggestions. :-)

By going with LS series you can drop that to
$5155


If I was building my Litepanels kit today, and wanted to save a few bucks, I would go with the LS series, I would not get a bi-color 1x1, and I would get a Luma instead of a Croma.

If I was building my Litepanels kit today, and wanted to save a few bucks, I would go with the LS series, I would not get a bi-color 1x1, and I would get a Luma instead of a Croma.

Hi Doug,

Does this mean when you run into mixed lighting you'd just use gels sans bi-color and Croma?

Given the Luma is brighter, even with the light lose using a gel, I guess it's a reasonable trade off for having more lumens the rest of the time.

Would you replace the Bi-Color with LS Flood (or Bi-Focus which has no LS equivalent...yet) or do you find the second panel not needed in most setups?

BTW I've wondered why not get a 2nd Sola ENG rather than Croma/Luma series as it would seem having another small fresnel like source would be more control. That because the Luma is 50° spread which just seems wide for hair/kicker/side situations.

Doug, I bought your LED lighting video, it was very good. Thanks for all you do. I couldn't see spending the money on LED just yet, and bought the Lowell RIFA softbox outfits, a small and midsized, both with the interchangeable heads. So I have fluorescent, and I can add the whole thing to my existing ancient Lowell Tota's and light a larger room, if needed.

For field interviews, I do see a need for LED, and have actually used my small Flo Light to punch in on overcast days. Makes all the difference in the world.

It's good to hear that you would now go with a slightly less expensive and less flexible LED from them. That makes me feel that maybe I'll add one with a battery mount for those field interviews where there is no electricity, and I need to pop the subject.

Hi Doug,

Does this mean when you run into mixed lighting you'd just use gels sans bi-color and Croma?

Given the Luma is brighter, even with the light lose using a gel, I guess it's a reasonable trade off for having more lumens the rest of the time.

Would you replace the Bi-Color with LS Flood (or Bi-Focus which has no LS equivalent...yet) or do you find the second panel not needed in most setups?

BTW I've wondered why not get a 2nd Sola ENG rather than Croma/Luma series as it would seem having another small fresnel like source would be more control. That because the Luma is 50° spread which just seems wide for hair/kicker/side situations.

Craig,
I guess you'd have to define what you mean by "mixed lighting" because I very rarely ever find myself shooting in a location where I have uncontrollable tungsten around me. Usually, if I have uncontrollable light, it is daylight, and that's why it is so much better to have daylight balanced lights today. I don't think I've lit an interview since 2011 that wasn't daylight balanced. One of the best things about LED is leaving 3200 color temperatures in the trash can.

If I was buying 1x1 panels today, I'd get one LS flood and one LS spot. Or maybe two spots, but definately not two floods.

Somebody could certainly substitute a Croma for a 2nd Sola ENG, but the Croma is a very versatile light and I to have it in my kit. There are things I can do with the Croma I cannot do with the Sola. Plus the Croma is so much easier to power than the Sola.

Doug, I bought your LED lighting video, it was very good.

Al, thanks for the feedback. It's great to hear that you liked the DVD!

Yeah, she seems happy enough with the HMIs. But my setup time and strike time will be a fraction of the time with LEDs. :-)
Maybe...I can rig a chimera pretty fast, and I put them away pretty hot. What killed us was getting the background light just right. There was a frosted glass window to the conference room back wall. I ran a 400 par HMI outside, with barn doors on the JokerBug reflector, and a doubled up full blue gel on the barn doors. Moving the light an inch or two this way or that made the difference between a really cool pattern, or almost no color at all. Still, I would have liked to see you duplicate the intensity of that look with an LED fresnel! ;}

The shot looks good . . . but I'd get rid of the plant (it's as sharp as she is) and I'd want to see more seperation between the subject and the background via lighting changes and shallower DoF. Sorry couldn't resist making suggestions. :-)
Har. We are in agreement. I will say that this still grab is significantly wider than what we were actually using during the interview, so the DoF is much deeper. When I zoomed in a bit during the actual shoot, it rolled the plant and background much softer...as did dialing down the light level so I was within a stop of wide open.

For all you kids keeping score at home: the conference room was about 20 feet long, maybe shorter. We placed the subject about 6-8 feet in front of the glass background, and crammed the camera as far back as I could go. The plant was as close to the back wall as we could get it without a lot of blue light leaking onto the leaves. The camera was an XDCam HD, but with only 1/2 chips...so a competitive DoF disadvantage to Doug's F3 sensor, which is roughly the size of NJ. WB was done with just the unfiltered HMI key light, and then adjusted with a Vortex Media set of warm cards at 1/4 Warm, which raised the color temp about 400 degrees. If you don't have a set of the Warm Cards, order one today. Seriously.

I'm not always a big fan of plant background elements, because in many cases the plants can get out of control and spread all over the image. In this case, I liked the color contrast of the flowers against the super-blue background splash.

Got an Ikan IFD576-S 2-Point Light Kit before reading this thread and watching the DVD on line. Wondering what I can do with what I've got. It has been suggested using one panel for a key, the second for a backlight and using a foam core board for a fill. I also have a couple of Comer 10LED lights

Will this DVD still be relevant to us hobby guys that can only afford cheap 160 leds?

I'm interested in this too.

I've been looking at various LED lights on Ebay. 600 LED panels can be purchased for around $150 USD each. They're powered by the cheap Sony NP-F batteries, which make them a great choice for outdoor interviews.

The build quality may be nowhere near as good as the Litepanels LEDs, but they're also many many times less expensive.

So for hobby work and those with small/no budget, is it really worth paying thousands for Litepanels LEDs? Are the cheap Ebay LEDs better than nothing?

Hi Jody,

I can't say whether a certain brand of lights will get the job done or not because I have never tried them. I can only vouch for the equipment that I own and enjoy using every day. Too bad there's not a Consumer Reports article on professional LED video lights. :-)

Here's something I posted in another thread, but I'm going to post it here too because I think it is relevant :

The lights I choose to use in my own business, and were featured in my LED Interview Lighting DVD, did cost me about $6K. But to me the cost was worth it and was a much better value than cheaper lights that might not perform as well or hold up to the rigors of daily production. But that doesn't mean there aren't less expensive options that will work good enough for other people's needs. For example, if I use a BMW to teach you how to drive, that doesn't mean you can't take what you learn and drive a Chevy instead if that fits your budget better. In my DVD and workshops I try to focus on the overall principles of lighting, camera setup, depth-of-field, and other factors that have nothing to with the brand or cost of LED lights being used. I simply used the lights in the DVD that I like best and already own.

However, with that said, even the least expensive LED light kit that would be sufficient for lighting interviews, will cost more than an equivalent tungsten kit. And if you can't afford to put together a decent LED kit, you are better off staying with tungsten for the time being.

By the way, I know it is short short notice, but in case anyone is really interested in some hardcore hands-on training with tungsten and LED lighting, there are still openings for the "The Art of Interview Lighting Class" I'm teaching the week of September 15-20 at Maine Media Workshops.

The Art of Lighting and Shooting Interviews | Maine Media (http://www.mainemedia.edu/workshops/filmmaking/art-lighting-shooting-interviews)

The Art of Lighting and Shooting Interviews @ Maine Media Workshops on Vimeo

Hi:
I understand that you are setting a standard for the perfect lighting set up using LEDs and your DVD provides excellent instruction in a clear and concise manner. I have watched it several times.

However, it has raised a few questions. The Lite panels bifocus LED panels...the LED spot panels,, are new. No one else has them. Could one not use a Solar ENG in their place. It provides a nice fill as well as a focused beam?

What about the use of a window as a background? It has been suggested to me that a 10 ND gel on the window pane can provide an effective background and would thus negate the necessity of using a Solar 4.

Altogether, I wonder if you could supplement the DVD with some advise for cutting a few corners, equipment wise, by using the natural environment such as windows and hallways.

Hi Tim,

I'm not sure what you mean when you say: "The Lite panels bifocus LED panels...the LED spot panels,, are new. No one else has them." The bi-focus Litepanels 1x1 lights are not new and you should be find them at various retailers. But it doens't really matter anyway because I have never suggested anyone buy those lights -- so I'm not going to defend them against other types of lights. I really see no need for a bi-focus 1x1 panel in a typical light kit. But to answer your bigger question, no, a Sola ENG could not take the place of any 1x1 panel. They are two totally different types of lights, with different intensities, and totally different "looks".

And if you think gelling windows is a good alternative to having the proper lighting equipment, then you must not be very busy. Do know how much time it takes to gel windows and how much that stuff costs? I don't have time for that on a typical shoot. And what about all the other times when you need to blast some light through a cookie, or light up a background, etc. when windows are not even a factor. How are you going to do that with a roll of gel? Think about it.

The good news is that today there are are some newer, less expensive alternatives to the lights I show in my DVD. If I was building my kit today, I would go with a pair of Litepanels 1x1 LS daylight spots instead of the 1x1's I own, and I would use a Luma instead of Croma. But no, I'm not going to supplement my DVD with ways to cut corners because that would go against my core beliefs. Being successful in this business in not about cutting corners and saving a buck here or there on gear. It is about having the right gear and knowing how to use it quickly and efficiently in nearly any situation you are faced with.

I'm not saying everyone needs to have the same lights I use because there are many ways to skin a cat. And depending on what someone shoots (and what client's expect) they might be able to get away with a much smaller kit -- but let's not fool ourselves into thinking they will be able to handle the same situations that someone with a fully equipped light kit will be able to tackle.

And time is money. I want to be fully setup and ready to roll on an interview in 20-30 minutes from the time I have my gear unloaded, and I want to be able to deal with almost any location I'm likely to be faced with without a lot of drama. But if I've got a roll of gel and a couple of under-powered lights, what am I going to do? And even if I find a way to make it work in a given situation, I'm probably not going to be ready to roll in 30 minutes. And how often am I going to find myself under-gunned and under-powered for what I really need? ALL THE TIME.

Before you start cutting corners, look at it his way: Unless someone is a hobbyist, this is their profession and they need to have professional tools that will get the job done right, get it done quickly and efficiently, use equipment that looks professional to clients and colleagues, and hold up to the rigors of production for 5-10 years.

When you amortize the cost of a nice light kit that fits the needs I have just outlined, it's really not that expensive. Let's say my kit costs $6000, even thought it's not really that much. But let's just say that it is. If that kit serves me for just 5 years (it's already going on 3) that works out to $100/month. That is nothing!!! And in reality that kit will probably serve me for closer to 10 years, so do the math. In fact I have a lot of gear that I still use that is over 15 years old.

Show me the professional who can't justify that kind of investment, and I'll show you someone who should start looking for another occupation. Going LED has cut the amount of gear I need to haul around by at least 30%. It allows me to work faster than ever before. It allows be to incorporate daylight and windows into my shots that I never could do with tungsten. I don't have to worrry about blown bulbs. Talent and crew stay nice and cool. I can run everything off of batteries. And I my setup time is faster than ever. All without sacrificing any quality in the shots

So if you want to talk about cutting corners, you've asked the wrong guy. :-)

How to Set up and Shoot Awesome Interviews with LED Lights (http://www.vortexmedia.com/DVD_LEDDVD.html)

Doug

Doug,

Thank you for that reply. Most of what you just said applies to EVERYTHING we do, not just lighting. I completely understand that people have to deal with budgets, but I believe what you said: that as professionals we should have and use professional tools to be able to get the job done correctly, quickly and effectively. What you sort of implied but did not say outright, is that we also need to charge a professional rate to support having those tools. I know I'm just an old fart, but I have been around long enough to see this self-destructing race to the bottom that the video (and audio) business has been in for so long. Yes, the cost of pro gear has certainly come down over the years. But I believe we all do ourselves a big disservice when we take jobs for less that what it costs to keep the lights on (in this case literally!). In my position now, I hire outside freelancers to do work and I have had to fight hard with the pennypinchers in the organization to be able to pay a fair professional rate. So not to pile on Tim, who I know is just looking for ways to maximize his profit and get better at his job, but I agree wholeheartedly that cutting corners is not the way to go!

Hi:
Have another question about LED lighting. I am wondering if the endorsement of Litepanel products comes because Litepanels has overcome the problems that I have just read about here:

Any truly color accurate LED panels out there? - Lighting - Cinematography.com (http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=52551)

Is this article accurate?

I am sure you are familiar with all this. It seems quite alarming and the facts seem to have been out there quite a while. So I would be interested to know why you still went ahead with your purchases seeing as what you bought may become outdated very quickly by new technology