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Homemade LED Ribbon China Balls-Rolling Experiment
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  • astrabanastraban

    Thanks for all that @andyharris! If you have time one of thoses evening, a test in the street to "boost" the practical street lighting on the talent face would be awesome (or in a car at night). But I'll try to do some test myself when I'll found thoses tools. Thanks again. Great ideas.

  • vicharrisvicharris

    @andyharris Yeah man, go for the smaller globes for sure. I'm using a 17.5 I think at the moment but have two 16 inch ones sitting here. They have a more neutral paper color to them. My first version was more tan and added some color cast I'm sure, which might not be too bad :)

    And as a good laugh, here's what I put together initially for the inner chamber! I wanted something that I can wrap gels around for correction easily. The black foam core will be replaced by another metal frame so zero light is being blocked from and angle. might not be the prettiest solution but it works and it's easy to gel when needed. I'll figure out a way to make it look not so cluster fucky :)

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  • vicharrisvicharris

    @andyharris I don't know man, that video looks pretty good to me. Did you light her on camera by chance? Also was there a backlight used at all?

  • andyharrisandyharris

    @vicharris

    The China Ball was the only light used. 20" and 24" Balls ordered for next experiments.

    I like the randomness of your approach! I can also see that you could organise most of the LEDs to be around one side of the ball thereby getting the light where you need it most.

    After an hour or so I heard a few expansion clicks from the baked bean cans, they get warm but easily hand held so not much to worry about.

    @astraban

    If it stops raining and the wind drops in the UK I'll give it a test - this weeks homework is fibre-optic broadband, I'm sure Clover would have a word or two to say about that!

  • BurnetRhoadesBurnetRhoades

    @andyharris

    My conclusions are that I need to use a smaller ball so that I can get the drop-off greater (the ball would be closer to the subject). I'll be ordering a 20" ball when I get a moment.

    No, no, don't do that. You are creating a soft source. This is affected by the paper scattering the light but it's the size of the source that more dramatically effects the quality of light hitting your subject. You want to go as large as is still practical.

    Smaller sources, especially moved closer to subject, create "source-y", harder light. You become aware of the spread angle and light hitting your subject at different angles. Larger sources further away, or very large sources closer but dimmed down, give you softer, better looking light, of a more consistent direction, if you're not wanting to draw attention.

    This is why they were able to move the China Ball with camera and subjects in American Hustle without looking like something on TMZ. The larger, soft source didn't create obvious shadows (which come from harder, source-y light).

    Similarly, when a production is only equipped with fresnel and par-can type lights, and not shooting in the old style of harsh, hard light, they will fire the lights into very large frames of diffusion material, turning the entire surface area into the light source. That or fire the light into a very large piece of ultra-bounce or other types of cards, frames, etc. It's to create a larger source with mostly parallel rays contributing to shadows.

    edit: I'd raise the overall stop of the room first with a second light fired into the ceiling perhaps (if it's a light color), so that you're not so dependent on the one light doing everything perhaps. Then bring down the effect of your China Ball perhaps by walking it further back if you don't have a dimmer on it. The dimmer would eventually be pretty helpful.

  • vicharrisvicharris

    @BurnetRhoades The problem I think we're having right now is the lack of power in these LEDs for these larger globes. Even my 17.5 or whatever it is puts out a pretty soft glow. I'd be afraid that a 30" or 36" might diffuse and spread the light out so much, you would need to put it right next to someones face to work.

    @andyharris Randomness is one way to put it. I have a few others that don't sound as nice :)

  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn

    +1 on the larger china balls. The extra space also lets you put more watts inside without risk of burning. (Not that you probably need to worry too much about burning with these LEDs.)

  • vicharrisvicharris

    @DouglasHorn So you think the larger size wouldn't knock down the range too much? And yeah, no worries at all about these things getting hot. You see that damn torture chamber I made. Left them on for 3 hours as a stress test and nothing got scary at all.

  • BurnetRhoadesBurnetRhoades

    @vicharris yeah, that is based on the assumption you've got enough bundled in there to put out some fairly strong footcandles. I wonder about the relationship to the interior source size relative to the outer diameter and how much power output influences the result.

  • vicharrisvicharris

    @BurnetRoades Yeah, I have 900 LEDs in mine right now but it's really hard to get an accurate reading of what they really put out without proper tools. They don't output the same as a normal LED panel. Much less IMO. I can look at these, I can't look in my 500 LED panel. Also I'm sure whatever the manufacture says is far from accurate. That's the price we pay for dirt cheap. Well that and a green spike :)

    In the end, I'm sure trying to get things perfect is a pipe dream here since we are not using top of the line items. I'll go get a 24" globe and measure that with a gray card next to the 17" with the same internal piece. I guess that would be a start eh?

  • BurnetRhoadesBurnetRhoades

    Hmmm, yeah so I guess it's just ideally you want to be as large as practical on the globe, one of those all-things-being-equal sort of things. Weighing in the amount of power on hand changes things some.

    Still, it wasn't so long ago even the "dirt cheap" level of product would be considered quite expensive. Hopefully the backlash against CFL for the home further drives down the cost of LED lighting and the power and purity up.

  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn

    @vicharris - Yes, getting a larger china ball will reduce the range somewhat if you have the same lights inside, however it will be a much larger, more diffuse source, which is one of the big reasons why people light with china balls. I have some big 30" balls (!) that I put the very large CFL bulbs into. The great thing about these big china balls is that they quickly light an area with great diffuse light and are one of the few light sources that can easily appear in a scene without seeming like a movie light.

    But because they light in all directions, the light is not particularly strong for the wattage.

  • vicharrisvicharris

    Thanks for your help. Hopefully we'll get a cheap, nice solution here everyone can afford and build.

  • BurnetRhoadesBurnetRhoades

    Vic, would you say that the individual LED in the strips you got are putting out less light than what you have in one of your panel lights?

  • joetheprojoethepro

    @andyharris Clover is an exceedingly adorable girl, my goodness, so charming. You've tempted me to pull the trigger on a 24" globe and a trip to the hardware store to grab some light socket adapters and get a few CFLs in them. Should be a nice cheap solution.

  • vicharrisvicharris

    @BurnetRhoades Not 100% certain but I'll do a test with the 600 strip against the 509 LED panel found here. Of course being 3200ish, they put out less light but I can't look into the panels when they are full on but I can these.

    @joethepro Kinda think you missed the point here. CFLs in china globes have been around and aren't really the same thing we're doing here. We're trying to find a portable, low voltage solution that we can emulate the lighting found in American Hustle. Walking around and lighting talent as well as lighting people where there's zero power. But glad you found it useful anyways.

  • joetheprojoethepro

    Yeah I realize this is more about LEDs, but I was thinking more of being inspired just to get any sort of china ball. The LEDs are a pretty awesome option for portability, Ill most likely pick some of those up as well.

  • rockroadpixrockroadpix

    @andyharris & @vicharris - I concur with the others about size of the china ball. Andy, your test looks really nice to my eye. One thing you could do is is hang a little duve on the ball to contain the spill that is not the subject. That would give you a slightly more contrasty feel as there would be less light bouncing around the room. I wish your led tape was available in the US!

    Found something-

    http://store.yujiintl.com/collections/high-cri-led-strips-ribbon/products/high-cri-led-ribbon-5630-smd-60-led-m-90-95-cri

    Nice CRI.

  • BurnetRhoadesBurnetRhoades

    Nice, and these appear to be on-par with the LiteRibbon product when you opt for the 95CRI violet chip but when you factor in that they're at half the density (60/M versus 120/M) they become quite a bit more expensive per meter, by almost 38% :(

  • vicharrisvicharris

    Yeah, 60 is not many of these little suckers at all. My 600 strip is 120/m as well.

  • rockroadpixrockroadpix

    Yep, I got there via search for 120, but it was a tease, or another product...

  • joetheprojoethepro

    Has anyone tried these? Is the 6000k temp an odd number? Looks like they are 120/m.

    http://www.amazon.com/HitLights-Density-Flexible-Adapter-included/dp/B005ST2I9O/ref=sr_1_13?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1391575755&sr=1-13

  • vicharrisvicharris

    @joethepro Those are the same brand I'm testing but at 6000k. I really never saw a use for daylight ones since they would barely make a difference in the day. Hard enough to get my 1x1 LED panel to make a dent!

  • BurnetRhoadesBurnetRhoades

    @vicharris what about moonlight?

  • hellrazorhellrazor

    My last experiments were done with Ikea balls and Xenon 35 Watt car lamps. Powered by 4s lipo. The light was too harsh due to the spot source inside the Globe. Where do you geht the globes from?

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