Led Lights and Video

[jschnell1203]

At the symposium I always bring my Ikea Led lights for extra light but videoing with them can be tough. I happened to see in the vender area someone selling photo light boxes. I was talking with one someone and came up with the idea of trying to soften the light of the Led lights. I found some brown paper toweling and wrapped it around each of the lights and put a Velcro strip around it to hold in on and it worked great. Also someone commented that maybe putting a bigger piece of towel on it but I didn't try that. Also the Led light don't get hot and don't try this with a regular light or halogen light. I also made sure to turn them off when I left just in case too.
thanks

 

[hockenbery]

At the symposium I always bring my Ikea Led lights for extra light but videoing with them can be tough. I happened to see in the vender area someone selling photo light boxes. I was talking with one someone and came up with the idea of trying to soften the light of the Led lights. I found some brown paper toweling and wrapped it around each of the lights and put a Velcro strip around it to hold in on and it worked great. Also someone commented that maybe putting a bigger piece of towel on it but I didn't try that. Also the Led light don't get hot and don't try this with a regular light or halogen light. I also made sure to turn them off when I left just in case too. thanks

Jeff, I like the the LEDs but the often blow out the video image in demos. I will have to try your paper filters....

LED's do not contribute to the drying of wet wood so they are great when using light as a thickness guide for things like vases and goblets.

Thanks,
Al

 

[robo hippy]

I found these at a local sewing store. They have 3 different 'color' ranges, and brightness is variable. Pretty expensive, and they do not broadcast wide enough for my bowl turning. I am thinking that most of the cost is due to the long life of the LED lights, and not the technology.

https://stellalighting.com/

robo hippy

 

[Bill Boehme]

At the symposium I always bring my Ikea Led lights for extra light but videoing with them can be tough. I happened to see in the vender area someone selling photo light boxes. I was talking with one someone and came up with the idea of trying to soften the light of the Led lights. I found some brown paper toweling and wrapped it around each of the lights and put a Velcro strip around it to hold in on and it worked great. Also someone commented that maybe putting a bigger piece of towel on it but I didn't try that. Also the Led light don't get hot and don't try this with a regular light or halogen light. I also made sure to turn them off when I left just in case too.
thanks

I agree with Al that LED lights can be a problem because they are very bright point sources of light and typically used very close. Brown paper towels are a bad idea because they will screw up white balance. I also don't like mixed lighting. If the room lighting is fluorescent lights then stick with supplemental fluorescent lighting.

Concerning the little Ikea LED lights, a better idea is to move the light source back and then place a sheet of wax paper or a sheet of onion skin paper about a foot in front of the light to act as a diffuser. The lumen output from the little lights isn't very great so they might not help much when backed off. A better solution would be to get high powered CFL or LED lights.

 

[john lucas]

To soften a light source you need to make it larger. Just putting a filter over it won't work if it's the same size as the light. Often putting something like a handkerchief over a hand held flash would work somewhat because the cloth would spread the light and bounce off walls as well as making the light source a tiny bit larger. Photographers would often bounce the light into a larger reflector of say 5" or so. So not only would the light from the flash which was about 2x3" is enlarged to 5" it was also less direct so some light spills around the room and softens the shadows which in affect lowers the over all contrast. I haven't tried LED lights with video but I would think you would have to somehow enlarge the light source by making a translucent panel that is larger than the LED light and then aiming the light into it. If you watch the news you will often see very terrible lighting. This is because the light source they use is very small and makes the persons skin look awful. If they have time they bounce the light into an umbrella which changes the light source from about 3" up to about 2 feet which really changes the look. What we often did in photography in a pinch was aim the light straight up and tape a piece of white paper to the flash and then angle the paper about 45 degrees. This affectively makes the light larger and again it bounces around the room. The downside is it reduces the power (think brightness). I believe I've seen panels that are about 8x10" sold to mount on video camera lights to make the light larger which will soften the light and not burn out the image so much.

 

[Tom Cadwalader]

small LED Panel

For video work I like to use an LED light that has adjustable power output. You just dial in the amount you want. Some have filters available to change the color of the light. The one I have is about 3"x5 " and will mount on a hotshoe.
Below is a link to one of the newer inexpensive models. There are several different configurations of lights in this product line.

http://www.adorama.com/FPLCL300.html

 

[Jamie Straw]

It's the designer label....

I found these at a local sewing store. They have 3 different 'color' ranges, and brightness is variable. Pretty expensive, and they do not broadcast wide enough for my bowl turning. I am thinking that most of the cost is due to the long life of the LED lights, and not the technology.

https://stellalighting.com/

robo hippy

Nah, methinks the price is directly related to the "designer" label (and wow, do they think a lot of their designer!). There is now a wide variety of LED lights, from tiny things to task lights to shop lights at pretty decent prices (finally!).