When considering LED lights it’s often easy to think, “If it’s available in bi-color, it’s worth the extra money for the flexibility”. But there are often times when a Bi-Color LED is not the best option. Bi-Color LED Lights Bi-Color LED lights are a pretty common sight, as the rise of LED technology within filmmaking naturally brings more advanced and flexible lighting systems. A Bi-Color light by definition is one that can offer the user multiple color temperatures. Some are user switchable between 3200K and 5600K, others give mid-way options such as 4300K, and others will transition from one end of the spectrum to the other, offering a whole variety of Kelvin color temperatures. This versatility makes them very popular – after all, why have a fixed temperature light when you can have Bi-Color, right? Well, it’s not always the best option, and here’s why. Some LEDs are less color accurate in Bi-Color mode. Testing the extended CRI on them can yield lesser results when compared to the respective straight tungsten or daylight LED fixture. But this is quite a broad statement, so let’s make the assumption that we’re considering good quality LED lights, where high-extended CRI values are a minimum expectation. Generally speaking, many Bi-Color panels have less output at respective Kelvin values then single-temperature fixtures. And this is when you should consider what fixture is the right one for you. Are Daylight-Only LED Lights Sometimes Better? For simplicity, I’ll generalize approximate 5600K (Kelvin) fixtures as Daylight, and approx. 3200K as Tungsten, and work on the assumption that we’re always trying to color-match environments correctly (for example a daylight lamp in a daylight environment). When shooting in a daylight environment, you are often competing with some sort of daylight. That could be room ambience, a visual-in-frame window or an exterior. If you were to take an ambience reading with a light meter in a daylight space like this, you’d generally get more level reading than if you were in standard tungsten-lit room. This is usually the kind of situation where you want the most out of your lights. A high-powered, daylight-balanced light means you can compete with ambience levels and you can modify your fixture by cutting or diffusing as you feel necessary. A daylight-only fixture will nearly always be brighter than its Bi-Color counterpart – you will therefore get more output from a daylight-only fixture than a Bi-Color one. Let’s look at the Litepanels Astra family as an example. I use these in one form or another on nearly every shoot, so I know them well. The Litepanels Astra is available in Daylight, Tungsten and Bi-Color, and they have also now released a new 6X model which is brighter across all versions. Below are the lux ratings of each lamp: Distance of 5 feet/1.5M away Litepanels Bi-Color at Daylight – 4577 lux Litepanels Daylight – 5790 lux Litepanels 6X Bi-Color at Daylight – 6330 lux Litepanels 6X Daylight – 6612 lux You can see from the figures above that you will get the most output from your LED light when it is a fixed temperature fixture – although, again, Litepanels has closed the gap with its latest model. But where does that leave you with mixed temperature or Tungsten lighting, if you go with a daylight-only LED light? My experience with these types of environments is that you have more control over the ambient levels – mixed temperature or Tungsten light is a strong contributing factor to your light levels because daylight is less apparent. It’s these situations where you can sometimes afford to have less output from your light. Therefore, adding a corrective gel to the front of a daylight fixture is an acceptable compromise to having a Bi-Color option. There are of course exceptions to this theory. I can’t speak for the masses, as there is an infinite amount of scenarios with lighting. But it’s a consideration worth taking on board when considering an LED fixture: Does it really need to be a Bi-Color LED or will the extra output from a Daylight-only fixture be more useful to me? A small tip I’d give for those considering Daylight-only fixtures and adding gels when appropriate: always consider Rosco or LEE filtration over the correction packs supplied by the light manufacturer. Many light manufacturers will mass-produce colored gels that won’t have the consistency of output and color accuracy of a company that solely specializes in filtration. Finding a few grades of color corrective Rosco/LEE and cutting them to size can be handy, and adding magnetic strips or some small dual lock will make them as quick and easy-to-use as a native corrective filter. What’s your preference? Would you prefer the instant flexibility over the temperature of your light in a Bi-Color lamp? Or does the extra output on a daylight fixture make more sense to you?

At NAB 2017 we took a look at the Visionsmith ReLamp system. An ingenious idea: use your old light fixtures, and upgrade them with LED replacement bulbs! Courtesy Erik Naso – Showing ReLamp LED replacement for ARRI 650 ReLamp LED Replacement Lights ReLamp allows you to replace old halogen lights, such as ARRI fresnels, and upgrade them with an LED component – a great idea for those who have would like to give a new lease of life to their old fixtures. These revamped versions that Visionsmith showed off at this year’s NAB now feature 90V – 250V compatibility and offers LED replacement units for a wider variety of housings. While many cinematographers have complained that LEDs don’t render perfect colour, I believe the game has changed significantly. Visionsmith claims their LEDs have a CRI of 98, and apparently there are no colour shifts during dimming. The benefits of using LED include being eight times more efficient, meaning you can save a whole lot on your electricity bill. Additionally, there’s no heat to worry about: a halogen grid is like a grid of industrial space-heaters, compensated by heavy-duty air conditioning. If you’re running lights for 12 hours a day, the numbers add up fast. The new VisionSmith ReLamp will be available in various versions. Here are some of the prices: ARRI 650W LED replacement: $495 ARRI 1k LED replacement: $695 ARRI 2K LED replacement: $995 For more information please have a look at Visionsmith’s website. What do you think of ReLamp? Has the time come to move over to LED? Please let us know in the comments below.

This is a guest review by director of photography and cinema5D reader Scott Leslie who reached out to share his insightful review of the new DayLED 2000 Fresnel LED lights with us. Lupo is an Italian company with a long tradition in photography equipment, new to LED technology. Their lights seem to rightfully attract filmmaker’s attention. Enjoy this review. (Intro by Sebastian Wöber) Lupo DayLED 2000 Fresnel vs. the Arri 2K Fresnel I was interested in testing the light output difference between my old standby Arri 2K fresnel and the new Lupo DayLED 2000 Fresnel. Although they are different color balances – the Arri is tungsten balanced and the Lupo is daylight balanced, I wanted to see if the Lupo was really putting out a 2K amount of light. Benefits of the Lupo DayLED 2000 Fresnel What I discovered is the lights are very close to the same output. The Arri is a little brighter but by less than half a stop. The quality of light was very similar between the two lights. The benefits of LEDs over a tungsten hot light are numerous. First the Lupo DayLED 2000 only got slightly hot. Nowhere near enough to burn you or put out any substantial heat. However the Arri 2K gets cookin’ hot and will burn the crap out of you. It’s also like a heater and will warm up the room and possibly overheat your actors/talent. Secondly, the Arri 2K takes a considerable amount of power. It will plug into a standard edison plug but you need to have it on it’s own 20 amp circuit or you’ll pop a breaker. The Lupo 2k power consumption is very low and it can also run on a 28V battery. Lastly, the Lupo is completely dimmable and like most LEDs, the color does not shift when dimmed. The Arri isn’t dimmable and if you hook it up to a dimmer the color will shift warmer when dimmed. Both lights have almost identical spot and flood coverage. Build Quality As far as build quality, the Arri is built like a tank and has the weight to back it up. There is a reason why I’m still using this light 20 years later – it’s built to last! The Lupo is a hard plastic that seems to be very durable. On their site they say, “the lamp housing is made from carbon fibre reinforced polymer and is built to last a lifetime”. I’m not sure how they’ll stand up to the 20 year test but they do seem to be pretty solid. The barn doors are metal. The Arri 2k is about 8 lbs heavier than the Lupo DayLED 2000. A final item of note is that there is no place to put scrims in the Lupo 2K. At first I thought this was a big deal but then I realized that the whole purpose of scrims are to decrease the output of the light which can be much more efficiently done through the dimmer. Real World Test Here is a short video I shot and edited for Deconstructive Media featuring my amazing niece Jill Stafford. This was a really fun shoot where we lit with only 3 Lupo LED lights: 1) Lupo DayLED 2000 fresnel – which was my primary backlight/kicker 2) Lupo DayLED 1000 fresnel – which was used as a backlight in the larger shots and squeezed down key in some shots. 3) Lupo Superpanel – I dimmed this down to about 20% and used it just for the background. Final Words Shooting with quality fresnel lights is a joy. You can shape the light and mold the light like you can’t with a soft light or LED panel or Kino Flo. They’re a must have tool in your lighting toolbox. Now that you can get them as an LED with low power, low heat and low cost (compared to an HMI), it is really a game changer. I am not at all affiliated with Lupolux but I am a fan boy. The Lupo DayLED 2000 is available at selected retailers only. Lupo recommended the following retailers to cinema5D. US: $1,750 at Brightline EU: 1,297€ excl. tax at Lovegrove.Lighting This article first appeared on esproductions.tv

Beyond the camera and lens, the most important technical and creative skill you can have is learning to use and shape light. A good place to start is knowing the tools you have at your disposal. Know your fixtures Before we get into the types of film lights, let’s take a quick look at the two most common types of fixtures. Open Faced An open faced lighting fixture is used to create hard light that casts hard shadows. It is not much more than a housing and reflector for the bulb, and provides nothing in between the bulb and the subject. The commonly known 800W “Redhead” and 2000W “Blonde” are examples of open faced video lights. Fresnel A Fresnel lens is a special type of lens that is divided into concentric circles, resulting in a much thinner lens than a conventional lens of the same power. This lens evens out the light and allows for the beam to be varied from flood to spot by changing the distance between the lamp/reflector unit and the lens. Practicals A practical light is considered any light source that will appear in the scene such as a table lamp, any visible interior light sources, even a hand held flashlight. Often existing bulbs are swapped out for those of different wattage or color temperature depending on the needed effect and desired contrast ratios within the scene. Performance Factors CRI CRI stands for Color Rendering Index. It refers to the ability of a light source to properly and faithfully reveal the color of an object compared to an ideal or natural light source. The highest possible CRI is 100 and is attributed to a perfect black body (a tungsten light source is a perfect black body, as is the sun). Color Temperature Color temperature refers to the “color” of white light emitted by a light source based on that radiated by a perfect black body at a given temperature measured in degrees Kelvin. White light can be warm (yellow/orange) or cool (blue) and our eyes automatically adjust. However, the color temperature of light sources and especially the mixing of different color temperatures becomes very important when designing film lighting. Temperature Source 1,700 K: Match flame 1,850 K: Candle flame, sunset/sunrise 2,700–3,300 K: Incandescent lamps 4,100–4,150 K: Moonlight 5,000 K: Horizon daylight 5,500–6,000 K: Vertical daylight 6,500 K: Daylight, overcast 15,000–27,000 K Clear blue poleward sky Know your light sources Tungsten (Quartz Halogen/Tungsten Halogen) Tungsten light sources are basically related to the same type of incandescent filament bulbs which until recently were common in homes and offices everywhere. The key difference is that these use bulbs that take advantage of what is known as the halogen cycle. The pressurized halogen gas inside the bulb helps to redeposit evaporated tungsten metal back onto the filament. The glass bulb is made from a much stronger quartz or aluminosilicate glass. The lamps operate at a higher temperature than normal incandescent tungsten bulbs, and so they can achieve a higher color temperature, and higher luminous efficiency. They naturally produce a warm light, but blue color correction gels can be used to simulate daylight. Tungsten lighting fixtures can be open faced or Fresnel up to about 20kW in power and are dimmable. They produce a continuous spectrum of light from near ultraviolet to infrared, producing near perfect color rendition. When dimmed tungsten lights become warmer in color, so gels are needed to correct the color temperature. Uses Tungsten lighting is usually used to light interiors as it matches the warm light associated with domestic incandescent lighting. Advantages Near perfect color rendition Low cost Does not use mercury like CFLs (fluorescent) or mercury vapor lights Better color temperature than standard tungsten Longer life than a conventional incandescent Instant on to full brightness, no warm up time, and it is dimmable  Disadvantages Extremely hot High power requirement The lamp is sensitive to oils and cannot be touched The bulb is capable of blowing and sending hot glass shards outward. A screen or layer of glass on the outside of the lamp can protect users. HMI HMI stands for Hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide and is a metal-halide gas discharge medium arc-length lamp. A HMI bulb contains mercury vapor mixed with metal halides. An electrical arc between two electrodes excites the mercury vapor and metal halides resulting in a very high light output and luminous efficiency. HMI lamps are capable of between 85 and 108 lumens per watt, up to four times that of conventional incandescent lamps. The specific mix of gases in a HMI bulb is designed to emit a 6000K color temperature light, closely matching natural sunlight. Electronic ballasts produce a flicker free light due to their very high frequency operation. Pulse width modulation can be used to dim HMI lights. Uses HMI’s are often used when high output is required and when recreating or augmenting sunlight shining into interiors, or for exterior lighting. Powerful HMI’s can be used to light large areas. Advantages Very high light output Higher efficiency than incandescent lamps High color temperature Disadvantages Relatively high cost, but this is balanced out by increased output High power requirement Requires an external ballast for arc ignition (up to 70,000 volts) Dimming is possible only to about 50% and the color temperature increases in conjunction with dimming, thus creating a bluer light If dropped while lit an HMI bulb can explode releasing super hot quartz glass and mercury vapor Fluorescent  A fluorescent lamp uses the excitement of low pressure mercury vapor to produce ultra-violet light, in turn causing a phosphor coating on the inside of the glass tube to glow giving off light in the visible spectrum. A fluorescent light is much more efficient than an incandescent light, and is capable of generating up to 100 lumens per watt, similar to the output of HMI. The spectrum of light emitted is different to an incandescent source and depends on the mix of phosphors used. However a CRI up to 99 can be achieved. The color temperature of a fluorescent can vary also from 2700K to 6500K depending on the phosphor mix. Uses  Fluorescent film lighting is most often used in fixtures containing banks of tubes. These tubes are normally either tungsten or daylight color balanced, or the tubes can be mixed within the fixture to vary the overall color mix of the light. They produce a soft and even light and can be used in relative close proximity to the subject. Fluorescent lighting is often used to light interiors and has the advantage of being more compact and cooler in operation than tungsten or HMI lighting. Advantages High efficiency Low power requirement Low cost Long lamp life Cool Capable of soft even lighting over a large area Lightweight  Disadvantages Flicker can be a problem with domestic fluorescent installations not intended for photographic use. Those designed for film use have electronic ballasts and produce flicker free light. Fluorescent lights for film use have a high CRI, however the use of domestic tubes may have a far lower CRI and poor color rendition. LED LED stands for light emitting diode and is a solid-state semiconductor device. Only recently, LED’s of sufficient power have become available to make practical LED film lighting possible. LED’s are extremely efficient but are still limited in overall light output when compared to any of the other light sources. LED’s are by nature monochromatic, producing only a single wavelength of light. So the challenge of LED lighting has been in creating a full spectrum white light. This can be done in two ways, either by combining the light of red, green and blue emitting LED’s, or with white LED’s whereby the visible white light is actually created by phosphors that are excited by an ultra-violet emitting LED. LED lights can be daylight or tungsten balanced, sometimes switchable or having variable color temperature. Some have variable color through the entire RGB spectrum, which is something not possible with any other lighting technology. The CRI rating of LED lighting can be over 90. Uses LED’s are becoming more and more common on film sets. They can easily be battery powered making them very portable and requiring no separate ballasts or heavy cabling. Panels made from LED lights can be small and compact, or large for a variety of situations. LED’s are also powering more traditional Fresnel style lamp heads such as the Arri L-series. Overall power outputs are on the rise, which is good news. Advantages Soft, even lighting Pure light without UV-artifacts High efficiency Low power consumption, can be battery powered Excellent dimming by means of pulse width modulation control Long lifespan Environmentally friendly Insensitive to shock No risk of explosion Disadvantages High cost. LED’s are currently still expensive for their total light output. Luminous Efficiency Compared Tungsten Quartz Halogen:   Up to +/- 35lm/W HMI:                                        Up to +/- 115lm/W Fluorescent:                           Up to +/- 100lm/W LED:                                        Up to +/- 150lm/W There is no Winner When all is said and done, all of these lights have a specific purpose, and you’re likely to see them all on any film set. Not one of these lights can be used for every purpose and any lighting kit list would be severely compromised if any of these were missing. Big HMI’s are going nowhere. When you need to manufacture sunlight, the only way to do it is with big power hungry HMI’s. There is simply no other way to generate that amount of light. Yes, this means generator trucks and added crew, but when it comes to lighting big exteriors none of this is about to change. Even on a conservative job I would suggest having a 2K and 5K HMI available. Tungsten light is cheap and is still the workhorse of interior lighting. LED Fresnel technology may at some point reach a practical equivalence but even with Arri’s most powerful L-series, it’s not going to replace the medium to high output Tungsten lamp heads soon. LED’s are also a permanent addition to the lighting department. For space restricted setups and the sheer portability that battery power affords these lights have become indispensible. Fluorescents provide a lovely soft even light. They offer higher output than LED panels and can be larger in size, although LED panels can of course be tiled. Fluorescents are also very cost effective. That covers the most common types of film lighting, but it is only the beginning of the story. Creating light is one thing, but shaping and controlling it is the most important skill of all to learn.

Tony Reale‘s NextWaveDv has been a great resource for filmmakers. Their website has provided news and training articles for independent videographers and filmmakers for quite a while. It’s a good thing when new companies come into existence and offer new products that challenge others price or functions. It’s even better when there’s a good person behind them and we hope NextLites will survive among the strong competition in video equipment that we’re seeing lately. As for the products NextLites offer the whole range: LED, Fluorescent, Tungsten and HMI and their products look a lot like what we’re used to at a relatively normal pricepoint I would say, not cheap, not expensive either. These lights will have to earn their respect with time when users start to test and evaluate them, but I have a feeling they will live up to our expectations. Although our great Reviews Section is a little broken at the moment due to a legal dispute (long story), we have a whole lighting section that is just waiting to be filled with information and new product pages by you. this would be a good place to index reviews and opinions about the NextLites. Here’s the link to the NextLites giveaway contest: link