+1

Funny thing is that I can't see any green tint from the built-in LCD playback. I see the green tint from laptop playback.

Can ext LCD show such green tint from camera playback?

I don't have any ext LCD.

How about Lilliput 9"?

I wonder if there's any color shift between HDMI streaming and camera playback...

This guy is very strange normally.
Be very warned about his opinion as he lives from the money he get from affilate programs.
So if he wrote about 312A, he'll push it.
And tomorrow he'll push something else.
No one prevents you to turn both LEDs parts to full.
And this is exactly you want to do to get best light quality possible.
You'll get slight light output drop compared to simple 312A, but it is not much.
You can loose light if you want to keep exactly 5500k shooting with open windows or outdors.

I suggest you to buy bi-colour leds, especially if you shoot interviews and people a lot.

Nope.
I already told you. It depends on your needs.
If you shoot interious with closed windows bi-colour must be better.
And light quality will be always better for bi-colour led lights.
We have same light for $199 in a deal page.
This is in case you didn't noticed :-)

>Bi-color is new LED light standard.

Not extra new, just become priced normally.

Read this - http://www.coollights.biz/wordpress/archives/category/articles

It is old, but very useful read.
I have authors permission and will post this on blog soon.
But want to add more fancy pictures :-)

Small except:

The poor man’s approach is to simply take at least two colors of LED and control them independently of each other with manual dimmers so that you can custom mix your color temperature result. Let’s call that the “bi-color” approach and I believe this will be the common method in the near future to give the best CRI with the least amount of sacrifice where LEDs are to be used. When you do this, you level enough elements in the light spectrum which make a mono-color LED daylight panel so lacking in its color rendering capabilities. You lose some light but not as much (hopefully) as with the filtering (minus green) method.

I tried a variety of "daylight" LED's and they varied greatly in the CRI quality of their visible spectrum. The telltale greenish tint becomes quite visible when they are compared to incandescent light. To my eyes, the "tungsten" LED's are too orange, though blending them with white LED's may look better. I found the Z95/W95 LED's to have the best balance, especially when used with high-CRI 5000-5500K fluorescents.

As an underwater LED video lighting manufacturer (HDVSEATEK) let me say that there's enormous variability in the quality of LED emitters out there...and a lot of absolute CRAP. The Chinese don't know how to make very good semiconductors for photographic application...period. If they source the LEDs elsewhere they can potentially build a good product.

Two important specs/parameters to look at for any LED lighting for video are:

1) Chromaticity...color temperature and CRI index (anything under about RA = 85 will have poor color gamut)

2) Luminosity...Lumens output @ rated beam angle... (efficiency Lumens/watt isn't particularly important for mains powered lighting...but absolutely critical for battery pack units...again...the Chinese stuff is not so good).

A lot of these products never mention CRI...I wonder why?

Weird color tints (purple/blue green) can also be a sign of old generation production techniques/super-cheap emitters using phosphor doping.

@stonebat

With quality, high CRI LED video lights Auto WB will work perfectly.

http://www.oscars.org/science-technology/council/projects/index.html

As I put in another thread this is a great talk on such issues. It starts off with the nature of light and how we experience colour and then moves into the different devices that are being used in film production. There's no mention of the old carbon arcs I suppose because it's focus/objective becomes exploring the value and dangers of this new solid state (LED) lighting technology. I encourage all readers of this forum to check out the video symposiums on the right side of the page.

On a show I was on last year I had to make a big snoot with various diffusion slides and CCs for a large Xenon flashlight as an eye light. This was what the big L.A. DP wanted and so we provided. It looked great but was a cumbersome "old" technology, I figured. Remember the "X Files" flashlights? The same ones, brought out of storage almost. Built for the Vietnam era combat guys. So I figured I'd make something newer. Suffice it to say I zeroed in on LEDs. They are so efficient, etc…

On other shows we'd use a couple of battery belts with an inverter in a cumbersome backpack to power a little pocket par HMI in a chimera for exterior walk and talks. Again, not ideal and a somewhat old way of lighting when we've got this whole new efficient, lightweight lighting tech coming up to speed. So why not do a little research of what's what and put together several good and powerful LEDs that have the right colour temp. and diffuse them like I did with the Xenon?

Well. Hm. Then I saw this talk and realized I really didn't know WTF I was doing enough to possibly… It looks fine to the eye but… Imagine they get to post on a 16 trillion dollar movie and all the closeups of the 16 million dollar bitc.., I mean actress, are all, ah, well…not fixable. Oops!, ain't going to cut it.

The great thing about our era, as we all know, is that technolgy's racing ahead. Change is definitely upon us, not about to start, but well on its way- in most fields if not all. But there's no finish line, as such, in this journey. And there's no point in getting burned by any kind of snake oil. And while "generalizations" can often be ridiculous it's also fair to say that capitalism can entice some providers/sellers/marketing guys to think- "hm. We've got this great line of LED architectural design lights for kitchens and roads and signs and…hey... why not… Just a bit of repackaging will do. I mean light is just light, right?"

@Skeptikal

So what would you suggest I should buy? I need 2 lights on tripod stands, for a basic set light right? What about the lights in my first post? You said all lights from China are crap, these are from India I think. But most inportant, what do the specs tell you?

Also I understand Vitaliy's post about you "generalising", but then again, your name allows you to be...haha

>As always...you are the final expert. But I do this for a living (successfully) for 7 years...what would I know?

I am not "final expert".
But if you are making 1 product how you could know?

>Who are the best LED companies (emitters - not finished products for photographic application)? Are they Chinese? When you find out your facts to support your generalizations please let me know...

OK.
Let's hear your facts.
What emitters you used actually?
How you tested them?

>I don't make topside lite panels so I realy don't give a rat's arse about what you buy. My comments were intended to provide some insight about LED tech. and some of the pitfalls to watch out for.

Perfect.
But this "insign" is not very useful.

Right on bubba. We don't need no stinkin' badges…or pissin' contest, just the lot of us sharing our experiences with different gear that includes lighting sources. And no doubt LEDs are the future. They'll soon ban the sale of incandescent lights of all sorts because of their pathetic inefficiency ie- most of their energy comes out as heat and not light, the opposite of what we want. My guess is the film industry will get a reprieve until our standards can be met, which are far higher than household bulbs. But the attention goes where the big money lies and we are way down the list of what's required to pull off this massive change in meeting the publics lighting needs.

The change from the big ugly mercury vapour lights on the highways and streets to sodium is still going on in some places. Now change again to LED takes time and money and will mostly happen by attrition...unless your govt. has seen "An Inconvenient Truth" too many times.

But whatever. I know that, in building my own lighting package, I wanna go small and lightweight…as apposed to what I'm used to, which is a Forty Footer full of tungsten and assorted gear and a 5 ton packed with HMIs.

One of the great things about the "DSLR Revolution" is that it 'reduces our footprint' as such. ie- smaller cameras, faster lenses and better sensors that need less light…but still light itself is what makes the image. And whether it be "lighting by God", as we call it, or supplemented with grip diffusions and bounces, or added to/or overruled by our own lights… it is the quality of the light that can turn an ordinary shot into a great image.

I welcome the era of cheap LEDs when they're up to the task. I want to know which ones to buy! But for now all we're using is the brick and 1X1 Litepanels…and they are not cheap