While browsing the Twitterverse today, I noticed a quick and to the point tweet from Fotodiox that introduced me to a constant LED light fixture that would accept my Bowens mount light fixtures. It promises serious power mixed with the modular adeptness that I just love. Meet the Fotodiox LED100WA.
The new lights called LED100WA is being sold in either 5600 Daylight or 3200 Tungsten color temperatures (which means you have to choose, unfortunately) and put off the equivalent of a 600 Watt Incandescent Light with the luminance of 7600 lux/m. Being LED, they have a remarkably low electrical draw, maxing out at 100 watts (hence the 100WA in the name). They also claim the lights remain extremely cool, doing so by mixing the lower heat of an LED with a tiny near-silent fan.
600W LED in Strobe Housing?! ow.ly/kA2tx
— Fotodiox Inc (@Fotodiox) April 30, 2013
The LED lamps themselves have a high color rendering index (CRI >85), supposedly providing clear, color correct light. They are dimmable, and the color correctness at each power level is extremely important to me. Color consistent LED light is unexpectedly hard to find. I'll be looking at this part of these lights very closely.
The basic light is set to retail for $325, which isn't too bad considering what you could pay for powerful constant lights these days.
What do you think? Interested? Let us know in the comments below.
Check this one out
Saw it at NAB show in April demo was quite awesome
amazing!
http://www.photoflex.com/products/NorthStar-LED-Lighting-FV-NRTHSTR
I used to work there! No idea they did that. Funny, when I was there the head honcho hated LED. Refused to even awknowledge them.
Seems like they are doing it now...
Sean?
Perceptive...
An interesting twist is most of the time when using stuff like Kino's there's no big modifier in front of the light. Fun to see how that effects the spectrum issue.
Great a slightly hot light...awesome
There are a bunch of numbers up there, but none of them tell me how this light compares to an actual strobe. How do lumens compare to watt seconds? And yes, I know one refers to the capacitor, while the other refers to the light. Give me a frame of reference. Paul C. Buff AB400? AB800? Canon 580 EXII?
Not too interested since I shoot weddings. Wouldn't want to light up the place or constantly search of outlets. To make the info on the product meaningful, we need actual power output info. Crank the power up to full blast and meter it at 10 feet, 1/250th. Give the f-number. Then everyone can compare the output to what they have. Lumens or watts is meaningless.
Just use 5 sec of your time and click on the link in article... it will point you to the manufacturers site where exactly that table is present at the bottom of a page... c/p:
Light Measurements using ISO 200 @ f/5.6:
FeetShutter Speed10'1/20 s15'1/10 s20'1/5 s25'1/3 s
Man I want to get this for a video light.
Not a true monolight however. You can only control power output via the separate power block you see there. If you go to the website, you see that all there is in the back of the unit is a big-ass fan: http://tinyurl.com/cdwle2y You have to wonder how hot the power block gets. Too bad it's not a self-contained unit. Might be OK in a permanent setup in a studio.
The fan runs fairly slowly and is quieter than the fan on one of my disk drive housings.
Better price than that dam icelight.
About a thousand times more powerful and a billion times more useful as well.
lol.
hmmm. tough one.
call me crazy but i like the challenge of working with strobes.
next, wysiwyg is not entirely true. you still have to adjust your exposure to your desired effect which is normally not what the naked eye is seeing. technical still matters (did i just pun?).
finally, another call me crazy and i may be one of none to think this; when working in a darker studio or ambient environment, the strobe doesn't give enough time for the subject's pupils to shrink. with the resulted bigger pupils, in my opinion, you get a much more dramatic and/or sexy feel to the end images. bright continuous, on the other hand, shrinks those puppies and takes something away from the end product.
what i do like about continuous is that i can take the loss of the strobe benefit and trade with the dual usage, stills and film.
again, tough one.
can anyone tell me how long this will last if i put it on my vegabond mini at full power?
I will be interested in measuring this with a color meter. I am sure like everything else you get what you pay for. The videos where they put them against a strobe was weak. Seeing that stuff I would prefer the strobe. However for hybrid work I would choose the LED. Those people are not too shrewd at marketing the lights strengths.
As a still and motion shooter of 28 years I'll say that for a still photographer, he should never consider ANYTHING but strobes, it is the perfect light source, you can easily out power the sun, throw for LONG distance, bounce, reflect, double diffuse, modify as much as you want and you still freeze your subject every time. In addition you can do things that you can't constant light... you can freeze a subject and drag a shutter for as long as you want to soak in a background. All of this happens JUST for the split second that it needs to, during the exposure, photographers with experience have no difficulty with knowing exactly what they are going to get with a meter or just experience.... On the other hand up until very recently the tools available to motion shooters have paled in comparison... to get daylight, you spend a fortune on HMIs or filter Tungsten costing you f -stops... for long throw, you really have needed monster lights... then due to heat and the clunky hot lights we have dealt with, some huge diffusion contraptions have had to be built to soften the light,... and you burn up gels, generators are frequently required, and you still have had a tough time lighting as beautifully as you can with strobes. fluorescents have been around but they are weak and you are stuck with soft... this technology is a game changer for sure, to be able to use grids, soft boxes shoots, have daylight color is terrific... outdoors you'll still need hmi's (for now) for long throw, but this will solve a lot of problems for constant light source. But for stills, strobes are still the answer.