Is the future LED? As cameras get better and better will we ever reach a point where we are only using small LEDs?

[LeeLewin]

I bought into the whole Rotolight thing, but not completely - I still kept my flashes. But to be fair to them this tiny thing (neo ii) can kick out a bit of power. I am struggling to think when I might use it professionally, but it shows what direction lights are going in. Do you think in the future we will be 100% LED?

 

[Phil V]

No
Hotlights are uncomfortable for the subject - we may see hybrid products though using LEDs for short durations.

LED's will get brighter - sensors will get better, just see how far we have come. But we need loads more to be done to get a comparable output to flash.

One of the things we like to do is 'overpower the sun'; would you really like to stand a model in front of a continuous light source that was 3 times brighter than the midday sun?

 

[Kaolin]

Given that Xenon and Krypton flash tubes have an efficiency of ~ 50% LEDS could well become more important within flash systems. I have seen high powered LED flash systems, large panels of over-driven LEDS used for high speed imaging, but at the moment these are very expensive £10k. So we might have all LED systems, but I do hope flash is not going away as Phil said really bright continuous lights are no fun.

 

[Mr Perceptive]

I work in industrial imaging (machine vision) and use strobed LED lights in many applications, LED brightness is current driven and you can overdrive them easily at 10x their continuous rating, but the overall duty cycle has to be 1x. So if you have a 1A rated LED light then you can give it a 5mS pulse at 10A, but then you can't give it anything for the next 45mS (9x light on pulse) - they can get seriously bright, but heat dissipation is a consideration, both around the LED and around the lighting controller.

So I'm sure that LED strobe systems will come to consumer/professional camera market, they already exist in industrial imaging!