ePhoto CN900s vs Litepanels

[Robert Lee]

Hi everyone:

Has anyone ever used the ePhoto CN900s LED? I've heard a few folks that have used it is that its similar to the Litepanels and much more affortable in price.

I do understand the old adage that "you get what you pay for", but if it can perform just like litepanels and the only knock is it's not a house hold brand name. , I'm not against saving $$$. :)


Robert

[Mark Kenfield]

Light output from the cheaper Chinese LEDs isn't as nice (as you'd expect), but they can certainly do the job, I've got a couple of the cheap 700LED bi-colour panels which I generally just run off a couple of v-mount batteries, and I love them. Being able to dial in colour temperature and not having to deal with cables is a sheer delight.

1/4-1/8 minus green filters are a must, and they benefit from diffusion to improve the light quality if you're using them as a key, but they do a pretty solid job for cheap lights.

I also feel comfortable with cheap LEDs in a way I never could with cheap incandescent lights, because they don't heat up to dangerous temperatures, and they tend not to explode as much.

[Robert Lee]

Mark, the kind that you have, are they ePhoto? If not what kind do you have?

[Nicholas de Kock]

ePhoto is just a label one company slaps on, they go under many names. I've been using the daylight LED600 for about 2-3 years and works great. I always have the minus green filter on & I built in my own remote on/off switch. Great for portability when running off V-Mount batteries. On the plus side I don't feel bad when you scratch or drop these lights as I didn't have to mortgage the house to buy them. I've never used Litepanels before but I hear light output on the Litepanel is considerably weaker in terms of brightness compared to many other LED's.

[Mike Marriage]

I have used and compared a number of different LED panels and I would recommend the Felloni Tecpro - Hi output bi-colour.

IMHO the Litepanels are overpriced and the light quality is worse than the Tecpro. The Gekko panels are very sturdy but also heavy. I also prefer their light quality over the Litepanels but didn't want the extra weight.

I have also tried cheaper panels and did not like them. The Tecpro offers excellent quality and good value. The body is plastic, but is is well made and durable.

[Mark Kenfield]

Originally Posted by Robert Lee

Mark, the kind that you have, are they ePhoto? If not what kind do you have?

They look pretty much the same as the ePhoto ones, but there's no label on them and I got them randomly from eBay, so I couldn't label them anything other than 'Generic Chinese LEDs'.

I can't imagine there's going to be any great differences between the various ones available to be honest. I would however recommend only investing in the 'bi-colour' models. The colour temperature of the output from these cheaper lights isn't awfully consistent, so at least with dimmable bi-colour LEDs built-in you can adjust that colour to a certain extent and dial in roughly what you need.

[Tom Morrow]

There is a significant difference. I own the ePhoto 1200 LED panels, and recently worked on a shoot with LitePanels 1x1 bicolor units. The Litepanels produced light that didn't show up on camera (Red) as artificial looking, while my ePhoto LED panels somehow always have a bluish-green tinge that often seems slightly unnatural looking.

The build quality on the Litepanels is of course better, but only enough to justify say a few hundred more bucks, not enough to justify a few thousand more. I have had an ephotoinc LED fall from an 8' light stand onto concrete when the wind picked up (don't forget sandbags just because these are light in weight!). It didn't suffer any functional damage, just a dented corner.

[Robert Lee]

After reading everyone's comment, the one thing I have trouble finding out on when I look into Ephoto, and others, is knowing what type of battery it can take? I can't find any photos that demonstrate where you can put the battery on, or how it's mounted on the LED's.

Sorry, not sure if it's my eye's going gaga trying to find these types of photos that don't exist, or mind being too numb trying to think of the right keywords to pull up such image.

[Nicholas de Kock]

Any V-Mount battery.

V-mount battery powers CN-900 for more than an hour | Dan McComb