Favorite LED Video Lights ???

[The Blue Whale]

What is your favorite LED Video Light? What features make it 'right' for your set up? How long can you shoot on a battery charge? Do you have any shortcuts or techniques that would help a videographer get better performance from their LED Video lights?

We'll be demoing and comparing all of the major manufacturers of underwater video lights (in the recreational diver's price range). I'm working on getting input before our trip to Roatan on July 15th. Your input is appreciated.... Thanks.

 

[RPdiver]

Most LED lights that i had used have bluish hue effect, there is enough blue underwater. In my experience halogen lights produce a much warmer closer to natural sun light colors. Compare them yourself.

 

[BDSC]

I use the Light & Motion Sunray 1000's. Have no complaints at all. As far as how long they last, mine will last several dives because I don't use them a lot. Just certain shots now and then. What I have found is they are very bright close up like if you want to shoot some macro stuff or take a few pics. They have three power settings and even the low setting can be very bright on a close-up. I'm still learning that aspect of using my LED's.

They are expensive however so I'm not sure what price range you are talking about when you say "Recreational" price range.

 

[The Blue Whale]

Good input. We realize that LED is going to be improving with the various degrees Kelvin and the color balance. From a digital standpoint, color balance is less of an issue compared to film.

As far as our idea of "Recreational" price range, we'll leave that for the divers to determine. It is probably around $1000 per light Max. When you get into some of the professional lighting for videography it could easily go 10x that.

I remember working with Jack McKinney and Stan Waterman on a project where they had some lights made that had to be powered from a generator on the boat. Funny thing, those lights weren't as bright as the Ikelite movie lights we used, just that we only had about 12 minutes.

Thanks for your input.

 

[H2O Photo Pros]

As an FYI, many of the consumer LED video light set ups go for more than $1,000 a light. Currently, both of the Light and Motion popular Consumer set ups (LED 1200 and LED 2000x) are above that, yet are designed and sold to the consumer market. Green Force will likely soon be releasing LED Video lights, and I have no doubt those too will above the $1,000 per light head price.

Id say consumer lighting would best be described as a complete set $4k and less. LED lights are small, light and power efficient, however are certainly not easy on the credit card.

 

[The Blue Whale]

I've been talking with the engineers who are designing some new LED lights and guess their 'price' guestimates were way off. They see the component costs and don't realize the added marketing expenses that drive the costs higher. One shop is buying the LEDs from China at 15,000 per order and building several products. One video light that they currently build has 36 LED bulbs with little parabolic cones and is putting out a respectable amount of light.

 

[gunsrunner]

Hi, I find it unbelievable, ridiculous that lights cost that much.
I think these companies are pricing themselves out of a huge market, but hey, they must know what their doing, right.
I have just purchased a set of Nocturnal SLXi 800 and find them very good for what i wanted.
Burn time at full output, 800 lumens each is about 2 hrs, this is good for a double dive day.
They take 6 x AA batteries each, rechargeable NmHi worked good for me.
Colour temp was good, not too white, not to orange.
I set the reflectors at 90degrees with no hot spots, light was good for about 1 to 1.5 meters distance. Did not get a chance to try 60degree reflectors but am hoping for 2 to 2.5 meters with them.
Cost was $1200AU, much closer to what i wanted to spend!
Hope this helps!

 

[The Blue Whale]

The Nocturnal SLXi 800s are one of the pairs we will be testing along with the SunRay 600 and Ikelite ProV8 lights. We've also got a prototype to check out, but not able to tell anything about it because we've not seen it yet. Bonica did not provide lights for our evaluations, or even offer to sell us some to evaluate. We'll be checking the 'factory' specs to actual diving conditions. It should be an interesting and fun time doing this test.

 

[ronscuba]

Great that you are under taking this test. It will be a great help to UW videographers looking for lights. Some LED lights I'd like to see tested and compared:

Light & Motion
BossK
Fisheye Fix
Sartek
Nocturnal
Keldan

In addition to lighting power, beam spread and hot spot, a buoyancy test would also be nice.

 

[The Blue Whale]

Thanks Ron,
Our goal will be to hook up with a major distributor that is doing something like backscatter's 'Digital Shootout' to do an objective evaluation of the lights and cameras during real diving situations. Unfortunately, most of the manufacturers we've talked with are either afraid that we'll slam their product or simply don't see the benefit of a third party endorsement. Funny thing is that we've contacted all of the companies and most didn't even reply on the first attempt. Now, we have a budget for these reviews and weren't looking for freebies, but hoping to get either a 'loaner' situation or fair rental fee and return to one of their dealers after our tests. We don't sell gear and respect the distribution networks that everyone has.
Our reviews might go on for some time. One thing we are finding out is that there are several advances in LEDs coming along with major price reductions, so we will probably see many higher output lights coming out soon. Also, I talked with an engineer who is working on some gel batteries that will perform in cold temps with longer performance times.
Ron, we'll keep your wish list of brands handy and hit those folks up at the DEMA show for further reviews and testing. Also, enjoyed your videos.