LED continuous or Studio Flash/strobe lights ?

Ellie Jones

Ellie Jones

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I'm looking to build my own little studio (when I say little I mean, there's not a lot of room in my summerhouse) so want something that is portable and has the ability to be battery powered. But not sure which way to go, flash heads or LED continuous lighting?

Question or should I say questions being.

If I go for the LED continuous lighting, what would I be looking at to ensure that I have enough power and versatility in strength to obtain good lighting within a Studio and Outdoor environment, I've seen so many different types of LED continuous lighting at various ranges of pricing, how to I work out, which is going to be cheap/medium rubbish to ones that will meet my needs, give a very good/high quality of light source etc.

With the flash head,

Again which type are good using a battery, will fit my needs but also work well out on location, and won't need me to start weight lifting classes to lug around if I decide to take them out on location.

Or would it be better to see if I can combine both, say two flash heads and one LED, or perhaps 2 LED"S with one Flash head to use as a main key light?

Really don't know which way to go on this one, nor what would be a reasonable cost for the products that will fit my needs to get up and going.


P.S

So far, I've used a couple of speed lights just to get started, with a couple of flat panels LED. which really only useful when placed with an inch or so of a rather small static subject.
 
I'd say that after trying continuous lighting before I bought my studio flash, that flash is the way to go. Lots of usual suspects here, I went with Lencarta and have some of their Smartflash units, as well as Godox battery flashes, AD600 and AD200.
 
Ellie Jones said:
P.S

So far, I've used a couple of speed lights just to get started, with a couple of flat panels LED. which really only useful when placed with an inch or so of a rather small static subject.
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I think that your PS answers your own question:)
But to give a more detailed answer, nearly all marketing for LED lights is misleading and deceptive.
Firstly, they talk about watts of power but they talk in terms of equivalent watts, i.e. how much light the LED produces compared to a filament lamp, and they normally quote a figure about five times higher, in other words if they quote 1000 watts it is actually 200 watts. A 5x ratio is sort of OK for the very best LED lights but is a substantial overstatement for most of them.
Also, with studio flash the power is expressed in Watt-seconds. What this means is that if, say 200 Watt-seconds is quoted the flash produces the same amount of power during the very brief flash as a 200 watt continuous light will produce during a 1 second exposure. Now, assuming for the moment that you want to use a shutter speed of 1/200th second...
The flash will produce 200 Watt-seconds, the continuous light of the same power will produce 1/200th of 200 Watt-seconds during the exposure of 1/200th second, so effectively the flash is 200 times more powerful.

The workaround is to use a very slow shutter speed, one second being necessary to get the same amount of delivered power, this can just about be OK, assuming a sturdy tripod and a solid floor, but for still life subjects only - but of course that one second exposure will also let in whatever unwanted ambient light that is there for 200 times as long...

There are other challenges too. LED lights have a discontinuous colour spectrum, this results in some colours not reproducing accurately. Again, the sellers often quote a Color Rendition Index (CRI) of around 90-95 - flash has a CRI of 100, which is perfect - but again this figure is normally deceptive and the true CRI is often much lower, with the worst lights coming in at less than 70 CRI, which is hopeless.

And then you've got lighting modifiers. It's the modifiers that fit to the front of a light that make all the difference. You CAN get LED lights that have a standard S-fit accessory mount that accepts modifiers but it's impossible to modify the flat panel lights. Sellers of flat panel lights often claim that they produce soft light, this is nonsense because the softness or otherwise quality of light is related to size and distance and the size is always pretty small. Just to make matters worse, most LED lights comprise an array of hundreds of tiny lights, each of which is a separate light source.
Here's a photo of an alarm clock photographed with an LED light.
clock.jpg
See the reflection of the LED lights?
Here's a closeup, same shot
led reflections.jpg

So, forget about LED lighting, it isn't a patch on flash.
Do you actually need battery powered flashes? Mains power would be far cheaper, if you can run an extension cable to your summer house.
To answer your question about flash power, 200 Watt-seconds will be fine if you can exclude most of the ambient light, a bit more if you can't.
 
I'm just starting this journey too. At present I've got cheapie continuous lights (85w each in soft boxes) and it's just about ok for (as Steven say) small product type stuff and still life type things, but the exposure ranges available are limited and I can well imagine there's a colour cast - I've not hit that problem yet as I've been shooting against black backgrounds, though when I tried white, it wasn't!
However, I am finding it a cheap way to get into the small, still-life genre in a small "studio" setup in a spare room; I am certain though that I'll being going down the flash route very soon.

Just thought I'd offer this experience, if it helps.
 
I've tried a few set ups over the years. The old photoflood with brollies worked well enough but were tungsten ballanced, proper tv lights Red heads etc are good again and have modifiers but theres the white ballance issue.
Led I've got a few of the smaller ones which we've used a few times, they work fine close up, but lack the power (and can have slight casts) Best bet for me is proper studio flash, loads of power and color right all the time.
A mate picked up a cheapy set off flebay (new) they are supprisingly good, and he's given them a pasting, I think he got 3 lights stands brollies the lot for about £150, thats less then the price of a branded on camera flash.
 
Firstly thanks for such quality replies, a lot to mull over. Yes deciding has been is a bit of a quandary, as when I said about this at camera club (small group of us) I was told to go LED continuous light, this was after we'd been using an Rotolight Aero, and we' struggled to get the effect we wanted, in my case using an 24-70mm F4L I still have to open wide, and bumped up my iso, with a slow shutter speed. Ended up with photo's that weren't pin sharp and quite noisy :( Photographs I've taken when using a flash head, haven't had this problem even though used much lower shutter iso, faster shutter speed and smaller Ap.

So it's a case of now, deciding what I really need, the battery power requirement has been based on, the Summerhouse is going to be a rather tight squeeze, with using softbox's, umbrella's so will I know limit types of portraiture I can do and flexibility of lighting, so batteries would give me the option, of lugging it out to an outdoor location or two.

I'm assuming that 3 fleshheads is best to obtain, but saying that I could make do with two and perhaps use a speedlight to supplement for a bit.

So next question

So now, what kit to start with.

Is it better to go with just 2 flash heads or go in hook line and sinker to get 3?

At this stage I'm seriously considering one of the Lencarta kits, checked out the remotes on these and they do say, LTT works with my canon 5ds (I've found canon to be problematic with LTT/ETT etc when using a 3rd party trigger)

And yes I can run a extension lead up to the Summerhouse, how much ambient light I can cut out, should be quite a bit, as windows on the front, which dose include french doors.
 
Ellie Jones said:
Firstly thanks for such quality replies, a lot to mull over. Yes deciding has been is a bit of a quandary, as when I said about this at camera club (small group of us) I was told to go LED continuous light, this was after we'd been using an Rotolight Aero, and we' struggled to get the effect we wanted, in my case using an 24-70mm F4L I still have to open wide, and bumped up my iso, with a slow shutter speed. Ended up with photo's that weren't pin sharp and quite noisy :( Photographs I've taken when using a flash head, haven't had this problem even though used much lower shutter iso, faster shutter speed and smaller Ap.

So it's a case of now, deciding what I really need, the battery power requirement has been based on, the Summerhouse is going to be a rather tight squeeze, with using softbox's, umbrella's so will I know limit types of portraiture I can do and flexibility of lighting, so batteries would give me the option, of lugging it out to an outdoor location or two.

I'm assuming that 3 fleshheads is best to obtain, but saying that I could make do with two and perhaps use a speedlight to supplement for a bit.

So next question

So now, what kit to start with.

Is it better to go with just 2 flash heads or go in hook line and sinker to get 3?

At this stage I'm seriously considering one of the Lencarta kits, checked out the remotes on these and they do say, LTT works with my canon 5ds (I've found canon to be problematic with LTT/ETT etc when using a 3rd party trigger)

And yes I can run a extension lead up to the Summerhouse, how much ambient light I can cut out, should be quite a bit, as windows on the front, which dose include french doors.
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I very much doubt whether many people get the effect they want with the Rotolight.
There's no good reason, other than price, not to get battery powered portable flash but the price difference is pretty big.
In a small space it's better to avoid umbrellas because even with the reflective type the light bounces around everywhere, it's more controlled with softboxes.

You're likely to end up with 3 flash heads but I don't think that there is any financial benefit in getting all 3 at once, so you may as get a 2 head kit and see whether you want to add to it later. Get a 5 in 1 reflector as well, cheap, very useful and can often do the job of a third flash head.

I used to work with Lencarta so not entirely impartial, but I would say that their SmartFlash kits are an excellent choice.
 
@Garry Edwards did have a chuckle reading the start of your last reply, and bouncing light from brollies, a vision of standing in complete white out came to mind....

I've already got a couple of 5-1 reflectors, a large and a very handy keep in the camera bag 7inch one, may be small but surprising how much difference it can make.

Still pondering about whether to opt for battery or not, last thing I want to do is try to save some money only to find out that I'm so limited to what can be achieved in the Summerhouse or having to be near some form of mains supply, that I get the 'can't be assed' to get everything sorted.

The battery options, will expand where it can be used as long as I'm willing to lug the kit of cause, and also has a bit more power behind it, which could be useful and would over-come any ambient light issues within the Summerhouse etc.

I was hoping that hubby would help with the decision making, with option A, is within budget option B, is over budget but alas he's gone. Budget is what it needs to be (I know a lot would love a partner with this attitude, but just sometimes tis not helpful)

Chatting to a friend, he's adamant the way forward is LED's (he uses panels, ect) his reasoning was the advantage of LED's, was you got a continuous light to work with, you could pick them up cheap, they were lighter to get out on location. He then went on to describe what he'd had used to get some photographs he took last week he'd shown me, apparently he used a couple of flat panels, a stick light in front, then a mirror to bounce light back, which probably this combination was lighter than one flash head combination. The outcome of the photo's, very harsh on the lighting so not flattering to the model, not really sharp etc. he's now investing in even more panels, to up his levels of lighting. Think in the end, he's going to find that he's got a stash of kit to lug about, sort out and light up.

I know that I'm naive when it comes to lighting side of things, but surely the more light sources and/or using reflection to bounce light around, the more difficult it becomes to avoid light sources merging together into something uncontrollable.
 
It's your friend who seems to be naive about lighting. In the real world there is only one light source, the sun. Depending on cloud cover and weather it can take many different forms but we need to create our own artificial light that emulates natural light, not to replace it with multiple light sources.
In fact, nearly all good photographers use just one light source to create the mood of the photo and this key light usually does 80-90% of the work, sometimes 100%.

LED lights are good for video but as you have discovered the marketing claims made for them are just snake oil when it comes to still photography.

By all means get a couple of AD400 flashes if you feel that you need them and your budget allows, good units but so much more expensive than the Smartflash.
 
Continuous lighting for photography as opposed to video really only has two advantages.

1. Its cheap
2. Its very easy to use to get instant reasonable (but most definitely not the best) images.

The exception to this is the specialist applications utilising absolutely huge heads, and light banks.
 
thank all, mind made up and ordered placed.

@Garry Edwards, thank you for making me see some sense, must admit even though yes in one way I really wanted the battery option, I did bulk at the cost more so when I realised that even though the main 2 head kit comes with a lot, the downside is that you're still have to spend another £82 for each head mains adaptor, was the deciding factor

So I've decided to go for the SmartFlash 4, 2 head set, did add a pop up background though (Oh what fun I'm going to have trying to fold it back up, caused much amusement last time I tried this feat at camera club) I have also sneaked in an AD200, which should be helpful when out on location. but all still coming in much lower price than just the basic AD600BM 2 headed kit.

@GreenNinja67 Wow, what a Stunning Shepherd, so wish I could capture my two, but alas the camera comes out they either head in the opposite direction or try to inspect the lens. sit still and pose isn't an option :( . It took an profession over 6 hours of work, to get an handful of suitable photographs for their PDSA Gold Medal presentation lol

Hopefully this is going not just be an interesting and rewarding venture, one I hope to get to grips with. So I suspect after tomorrow when the kit arrives, that I will be asking many questions....
 
@GreenNinja67 I shall be practicing, but it's hilarious but frustrating, as they will actually sit patiently where requested, but will they pose not on your nelly, they sit there nicely but look everywhere except at the camera or even give a nice angle etc. And getting both in the same shot, facing same way and with eyes open, a case of mission impossible.

This is the nearest I've come so far
The Chase-5304 by jo parsons, on Flickr

Oh , Ellie at front, Jones at the back isn't the camera playing tricks, he's actually a Shepherd X Corgi, hence the rather small lega :LOL::LOL:
 
@GreenNinja67 I shall be practicing hard, and hopefully hubby will help ermm.

Can't believe how quick Lencarta are, have they got a thudding great whistle on their computer to deafen's the staff to say Order coming in, as within an hour of placing my order, and first confirmation ordered received, followed by order is being processed, Royal Mail notified my of my tracking number, followed up with a confirmation that order has now been dispatched and will arrive tomorrow...

Only problem is I've got a 12 hour shift tomorrow, but hubbies home....
 
I've had numerous continuous flashes, but back in October bought the Pixapro pika200 (godox ad200) . Amazing bit of kit but sadly, I found that I don't use them. I think that's due to me only doing photography as a hobby and not a paid job. If you're looking for a good setup, I can definitely recommend these. The hss and modelling lights work perfect and get 500 shots on full power
 
Well it arrived lunch time, but alas still had 7 hours of work to do, before heading home..

unpacking 2 large box's, and finding a couple of freebies included well chuffed. Mind you trying to put up the soft box's, was well a challenge indeed, no distructions that I could see, but thankfully Youtune came to the rescue. Charged the AD200 while putting just one of the SmartFlash's up.

Was impressed with the SmartFlash, and the modelling lamp is so bright, so sure it's going to be very useful.

I've had a play with the AD200 once it was charged, and yep like it. Enjoyed being able to pick my shutter speed etc, and having enough available light, and such clean images, noise free.Sadly my model wasn't really going to play ball, but hey ho, the hounds will be trained :)

And boy how different having a decent stands, to put it on. gonna like these I'm sure.

The only disappointment I would say, is the trigger, pretty naff in my opinion, but I do have an Godex trigger, so gonna see if this will work.

I feel I'm going to enjoy this light sculpturing malarkey, so much to learn though, But comparing my very brief play tonight, Yes photo's screamed She don't know what she's doing, but the results were actually more pleasing, with no noise, I chose my settings etc, than that I've experienced with LED continuous lighting.
 
Garry Edwards said:
It's your friend who seems to be naive about lighting. In the real world there is only one light source, the sun. Depending on cloud cover and weather it can take many different forms but we need to create our own artificial light that emulates natural light, not to replace it with multiple light sources.
In fact, nearly all good photographers use just one light source to create the mood of the photo and this key light usually does 80-90% of the work, sometimes 100%.

LED lights are good for video but as you have discovered the marketing claims made for them are just snake oil when it comes to still photography.

By all means get a couple of AD400 flashes if you feel that you need them and your budget allows, good units but so much more expensive than the Smartflash.
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We have used led for our product photography for years with no issues, we use the godox 60w at the moment, no snake oil here :)
 
Phil V said:
Not for live people though, which is what the OP is shooting.
Context is everything:)
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Agreed, that’s why I never class people as products :) missed the bit about just shooting live models, which clearly flash is the only way to go and the selected ad200 are quite good.
 
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Kieranstandishphoto said:
We have used led for our product photography for years with no issues, we use the godox 60w at the moment, no snake oil here :)
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For the avoidance of doubt, my reference to snake oil wasn't directed at you, I was thinking specifically about certain people who produce promotional videos about LED lights that are clearly deliberately deceptive.

And if you think that a cheap 60W LED light is good enough for product photography then fine. They are in fact fairly popular for a certain type of product shots - low prices, consistency, high throughput, white background, bland lighting - because they are something that is easy for people to use but. . .
1. They require very slow shutter speeds, especially at lower power settings, in order to avoid unacceptable flicker.
2. They are discontinuous spectrum lights, i.e. they do not include Magenta (this is added in artificially, resulting in a slightly warm tone but adding it artificially cannot compensate for its absence)
3. The stated CRI is only 95. I haven't tested this specific light for the accuracy of this statement and now that I'm retired I no longer have the equipment to do so, but even if it is as stated 95 is a long way short of the perfect 100 of flash, filament lamps and daylight and cannot reproduce all colours correctly. This would be a killer for the type of product photography that I used to do.
Ellie Jones said:
Was impressed with the SmartFlash, and the modelling lamp is so bright, so sure it's going to be very useful.

And boy how different having a decent stands, to put it on. gonna like these I'm sure.

The only disappointment I would say, is the trigger, pretty naff in my opinion, but I do have an Godex trigger, so gonna see if this will work.

I feel I'm going to enjoy this light sculpturing malarkey, so much to learn though, But comparing my very brief play tonight, Yes photo's screamed She don't know what she's doing, but the results were actually more pleasing, with no noise, I chose my settings etc, than that I've experienced with LED continuous lighting.
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Yes, those stands are pretty special, patented and unique to Lencarta.
I don't know what the problem is with the trigger, it will be a Godox one and should be fine. Get on to Lencarta if you have any queries or problems with it.
 
Garry Edwards said:
For the avoidance of doubt, my reference to snake oil wasn't directed at you, I was thinking specifically about certain people who produce promotional videos about LED lights that are clearly deliberately deceptive.

And if you think that a cheap 60W LED light is good enough for product photography then fine. They are in fact fairly popular for a certain type of product shots - low prices, consistency, high throughput, white background, bland lighting - because they are something that is easy for people to use but. . .
1. They require very slow shutter speeds, especially at lower power settings, in order to avoid unacceptable flicker.
2. They are discontinuous spectrum lights, i.e. they do not include Magenta (this is added in artificially, resulting in a slightly warm tone but adding it artificially cannot compensate for its absence)
3. The stated CRI is only 95. I haven't tested this specific light for the accuracy of this statement and now that I'm retired I no longer have the equipment to do so, but even if it is as stated 95 is a long way short of the perfect 100 of flash, filament lamps and daylight and cannot reproduce all colours correctly. This would be a killer for the type of product photography that I used to do.

Yes, those stands are pretty special, patented and unique to Lencarta.
I don't know what the problem is with the trigger, it will be a Godox one and should be fine. Get on to Lencarta if you have any queries or problems with it.
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No worries, didn’t think it was directed at me :) we shoot thousands of ecommerce products with no issues, so I suppose it is horses for courses, we are a conveyor belt studio churning out thousands of images, it’s not very glamorous, but it pays very well :)
 
@Garry Edwards, the trigger is fine works perfectly well, but doesn't feel solid/sturdy. But the Godex trigger I have, works with the kit as well, so can use either.

@Kieranstandishphoto

LED vs Flash/Strobe is constantly debated at camera club, and it's an interesting one, and have a couple that swear blind by them, even at the cheaper levels. Sing their praises to how versatile/portable they are etc etc. I know that a lot I know, actually prefer continuous lighting, so they can see the effect of the light.

One of the reasons I've asked the question, has I wasn't 100% sure if when it came to LED lighting, the issues I faced was based on, in generally low end cost LED's being used. If I invested a reasonable amount of money would it overcome these issues.... Considering the NEO Aero, appears to be a very good from various reviews, but alas when I've used a mates one, I've never been able to get results I'm happy with.

I've now had another opportunity to have another play, alas my models (hubby and the two hounds, won't be talent spotted any day soon me thinks) but you work with what every you've got.

But here's two I took.

This is just using the AD200, on my own so trying to bribe Ellie to keep still while holding the camera, isn't an easy task... As this photo shows.

Ellie-6728 by jo parsons, on Flickr

Jones taken today, The AD300, Softbox and hubby giving an hand.

Jones cropped-6912 by jo parsons, on Flickr

So nice to be able to choose in the main, the settings I want to shoot at, not having to set the camera to the lights..
 
Ellie Jones said:
@Garry Edwards, the trigger is fine works perfectly well, but doesn't feel solid/sturdy. But the Godex trigger I have, works with the kit as well, so can use either.

@Kieranstandishphoto

LED vs Flash/Strobe is constantly debated at camera club, and it's an interesting one, and have a couple that swear blind by them, even at the cheaper levels. Sing their praises to how versatile/portable they are etc etc. I know that a lot I know, actually prefer continuous lighting, so they can see the effect of the light.

One of the reasons I've asked the question, has I wasn't 100% sure if when it came to LED lighting, the issues I faced was based on, in generally low end cost LED's being used. If I invested a reasonable amount of money would it overcome these issues.... Considering the NEO Aero, appears to be a very good from various reviews, but alas when I've used a mates one, I've never been able to get results I'm happy with.
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Using continuous lighting is an easy option, and it's easy because everyone uses continuous lighting - the sun - all the time so understands how it works. But it's also a lazy option because it's always a compromise.

It's a sort of halfway reasonable compromise with LED lights that are in traditional flash head form, with a (usually) S-fit accessory mount that allows many basic modifiers and light shapers - but not focusing spotlights or fresnel spots - to be used. They still dazzle people without producing much actual light, they can't compete with any reasonably high level of ambient light and are totally useless in daylight, but at least they still behave more or less as photographic lights.

The flat panel lights can't be modified, that's OK for video but obviously not for still photography.

And all of the 'affordable' LED lights that I've tested all suffer from a low CRI that stops colours from reproducing accurately. Reds become orange, orange becomes yellow, yellow turns into Wickes own brand magnolia and so on. There are very high end professional LED lights available, used in the TV and movie industries, that are perfect - but they are also incredibly expensive, most people aren't prepared to spend as much on a couple of lights as they do on a brand new car. . .

The 'specialist' LED lights, the ones that come in odd designs and for which bold claims are made, are just crap, or at least the ones that I've personally tested are. I've never actually seen a positive review - except perhaps from complete beginners who have no experience of anything else - except of course for the fake 'reviews' that we find on YouTube from people who are clearly paid to promote this overpriced junk. These videos show very heavily retouched photos that could not possibly have been produced by the lights demonstrated and often the lights weren't even placed in the place that would have produced the faked finished results - all down to photoshop fakery. It's almost impossible to get any results without using a ridiculously high ISO, a slow shutter speed and a wide lens and shoot in the dark, which of course severely restricts both image quality and options. But, if people really believe this nonsense and pay 10x as much for a branded junk item as something very similar with a different name on it then that's up to them, they just shouldn't be surprised when they actually get it and find that they guy in the video isn't actually able to change the immutable laws of physics. . .

I use LED lighting a lot and I love it. I have an off-road car that has very powerful LED worklamps pointing both backwards and forwards, both of our tractors have them too and all of the security lighting is LED and it's all fantastic stuff, brilliant focused lights, very low amperage, nearly no heat, very reliable.

The problems arise with cheaply made lights that use basically the same components as these worklamps and security lamps. The Color Rendition Index (CRI) is usually very low (although many sellers seem to confuse both themselves and their customers by publishing quite high figures) and they are awful at reproducing colours accurately. It doesn't matter if security lights or worklights have a blue or green tint to them, it does matter when the lights are claimed to be ideal for photography and so some manufacturers artificially add what in effect is a magenta filter. The colour looks OK and the colour temperature seems to be OK but the CRI is still low and nothing will ever change that, other than by making the lights from much more expensive components.

Sellers push LED lighting very hard. The reason for this is very simple, they can make far more profit from selling LED lights than from selling flash, where the profit margins are often ridiculously low.

But still, almost all serious and experienced photographers spend more money and buy flash, and they are right.
You've made the right choice too. If other people want to kid themselves, then fine.
 
“But still, almost all serious and experienced photographers spend more money and buy flash, and they are right.
You've made the right choice too. If other people want to kid themselves, then fine.” Quite a statement mr Edwards, I assume we are still talking about live model stuff otherwise we will have to bin the 12 led heads (godox 60w with a cri of 93) we have in the studio on monday so we can remain both experienced and serious :) Debates over equipment and manufacturers will go on forever, or at least until godox take over the world.
 
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Kieranstandishphoto said:
“But still, almost all serious and experienced photographers spend more money and buy flash, and they are right.
You've made the right choice too. If other people want to kid themselves, then fine.” Quite a statement mr Edwards, I assume we are still talking about live model stuff otherwise we will have to bin the 12 led heads (godox 60w with a cri of 93) we have in the studio on monday so we can remain both experienced and serious :) Debates over equipment and manufacturers will go on forever, or at least until godox take over the world.
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I believe Garry has experience with those heads and he absolutely wouldn’t use them for the work you do, but horses for courses. He’ll have tested them and could probably give you the accurate CRI
For the record, I would avoid LED for products too, you will never get colour accuracy from lights with a CRI of 93.
 
Kieranstandishphoto said:
Quite a statement mr Edwards, I assume we are still talking about live model stuff otherwise we will have to bin the 12 led heads (godox 60w with a cri of 93) we have in the studio on monday so we can remain both experienced and serious :) Debates over equipment and manufacturers will go on forever, or at least until godox take over the world.
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What you do in your own studio is your business but yes, personally I'd bin them.
 
One of the main advantages of flash (for a beginner at any rate) is you can buy a decent setup cheaply, you can't really do the same with continuous but this does raise the question, just how cheaply can you put together a 'good' continuous kit?
 
simonbarker said:
One of the main advantages of flash (for a beginner at any rate) is you can buy a decent setup cheaply, you can't really do the same with continuous but this does raise the question, just how cheaply can you put together a 'good' continuous kit?
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Walk outside? ;)
Sorry Simon, couldn’t help myself.

I suppose it depends what you want to shoot and how critical you are, Flourescent is better colour wise than LED and cheaper, but its not trendy. As a largely people photographer I’d rather not point a htlight at my subjects. So I suppose for me there’s no price I’d consider.

I suppose I don’t consider continuous an option, but plenty do, and from what I can see, it’s no cheaper than flash, but that would depend on your priorities.
 
simonbarker said:
One of the main advantages of flash (for a beginner at any rate) is you can buy a decent setup cheaply, you can't really do the same with continuous but this does raise the question, just how cheaply can you put together a 'good' continuous kit?
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I think this may be getting a bit out of hand. . . I'm not interested in starting an anti-LED personal campaign, I just tell it the way I see it.

When I started out in photography we only had continuous lights. They were pretty awful in many ways, we had "Photoflood" lamps that were filament lamps that were basically over-run, to produce a whiter, brighter light that lasted for either 2 or 5 hours (depending on design) before they failed. They were available in a choice of 275 or 500 watts. They were expensive, the only modifiers available were home-made and were very limited because of the intense heat. Later, Halogen lamps became available, these were far more powerful, with "Redheads" at 800 watts and "Blondes" at 2000 watts and they lasted much longer, but with the same modification and heat issues. The colour temperature was usually claimed to be around 3200-3400K (actual was usually around 2700-2900K which involved gelling them, which reduced effective output and melted the gels). Later still, we had HMI lights, which were good for about 500 hours, they then gave out green light:(

So, when studio flash came out we all moved to it. Expensive and fairly lethal at first, but it solved all the problems. Then Bowens brought out monohead lights and everything started out being wonderful. Both the early continuous lights and flash had a perfect CRI of 100.

And then fluorescent lights came out, dirt cheap, no heat problems but back to the problems of being unable to modify them properly. And even the "good" ones only had a CRI of about 90.

And then LED happened, poor at first but with massive improvement over a short period of time - but the CRI of the affordable ones is still far too low for most of us, although clearly not for all of us.

So, the new technology of both fluorescent and LED continuous lights made them much cheaper, more reliable, more compact than the old filament lamps and halogen lamps, and also got rid of the heat problem and produced "daylight balanced" light too. In theory these improvements are massive but most of the advocates for these lights seem to overlook the obvious fact that their inability to reproduce all colours accurately actually makes the finished results much worse than the old fashioned lamps that they replaced!

With modern flash units so cheap, reliable, well specified and good, why would anyone want to use anything else?

As for the question of how cheaply can we put together a 'good' continuous light kit, I just don't know because I'm now 2 years out of date, but last time I looked a LED light of what I personally consider to be professional standard started at around £5000 - not a problem for the movie industry but not what I would call affordable for still photographers.

Having just had a quick look on Ebay and Amazon, it's easy to buy what I consider to be junk LED and fluorescent light kits for unbelievably low prices. Pay 3 or 4 times as much and you can get something that is less bad but still nowhere near the standard that I would consider, or at least not for still photography.

Video is very different, same lights but different standards apply because still photos expand time and video compresses time. With video it doesn't matter if the colour rendition is a bit out because, with moving images, nobody is likely to notice. But with still images, we tend ONLY to see the faults.

And of course there are even more problems when using continuous lights to photograph people or animals.
 
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simonbarker said:
One of the main advantages of flash (for a beginner at any rate) is you can buy a decent setup cheaply, you can't really do the same with continuous but this does raise the question, just how cheaply can you put together a 'good' continuous kit?
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IMO, the real issue is power/£... and if you want to use larger modifiers over any distance, freeze motion, overpower the sun, etc, there really isn't a reasonable continuous light option (if there is any at all regardless of cost).

CRI I'm not quite as concerned with... just how important that is will depend a lot on the subject, workflow, use, etc. I.e. if the image is for digital presentation of any sort you really don't have control over color accuracy at any rate. Even if you are evaluating/processing the images on your calibrated monitor I'll bet they won't look exactly the same on my calibrated monitor; not to mention the rest of the web.
Plus, stated CRI isn't of a whole lot of value... you can have a pretty high CRI due to very good rendering in general with a massive hole, or the same CRI for overall lower accuracy but with no massive hole. And just how many colors are you dealing with (reproducing) at once?
 
Phil V said:
Walk outside? ;)
Sorry Simon, couldn’t help myself.
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The sun in British weather? Never! :mad:

Phil V said:
I suppose it depends what you want to shoot and how critical you are, Flourescent is better colour wise than LED and cheaper, but its not trendy. As a largely people photographer I’d rather not point a htlight at my subjects. So I suppose for me there’s no price I’d consider.
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Yeah that's the problem with the question, I don't really have any interest or incentive to try working with continuous kit but the question comes up so often it got me wondering what kind of kit would actually serve beyond pure convenience.

Garry Edwards said:
I think this may be getting a bit out of hand. . . I'm not interested in starting an anti-LED personal campaign, I just tell it the way I see it.
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I wouldn't worry about it, better someone hears the practical reality of using these things from someone with experience than being led to think it's a silver bullet, you might annoy a few beginners because you're not telling them what they want to hear but anyone with that outlook would have done what they wanted regardless.

Garry Edwards said:
With modern flash units so cheap, reliable, well specified and good, why would anyone want to use anything else?
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They don't know better, every time the question comes up it's always accompanied by being able to see the light an important enough point they think they need a continuous setup for. I'm not saying that out of contempt, even though it was a few years ago now I can still remember my bewilderment assembling my first kit from the bits I'd scavenged, glad I persevered but I can understand why many wouldn't bother even though things are much better now with so much good kit widely available, cheaply and with information even more accessible on how to put it to good use.

I did always like that there's less things to go wrong with continuous heads, assuming they don't melt that is.
 
sk66 said:
IMO, the real issue is power/£... and if you want to use larger modifiers over any distance, freeze motion, overpower the sun, etc, there really isn't a reasonable continuous light option (if there is any at all regardless of cost).
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Seems reasonable, I have used a couple of bits of continuous gear I quite liked though, a Dedolight with a projection attachment is a lot less painful experience than the flash equivalent but this is more the exception that proves the rule.
 
I have a couple of portable LEDs for video. I have used them for additional lighting shooting people, but they dazzle, and they can make the eyes' irises smaller.
 
Phil V said:
I believe Garry has experience with those heads and he absolutely wouldn’t use them for the work you do, but horses for courses. He’ll have tested them and could probably give you the accurate CRI
For the record, I would avoid LED for products too, you will never get colour accuracy from lights with a CRI of 93.
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As you say horses for courses, and our customers are happy, as is our bank balance :) the equipment debate will roll on forever. and a cri of 93+ As stated by the manafacturer is still more than acceptable for a cheap unit.
 
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LED lighting is at the same point early Digital cameras were not long ago.
They are not yet at the point where professions or serious photographers would find them very useful.
That being said, in time, there are going to be potential advantages for product and cine photography, where exact placement and light balance in depth is important.

However they will need to overcome some serious shortcomings including:-
Much increased Power.
Full spectrum coverage (at least equal to Adobe RGB)
A full range of modifiers.
Large Fresnel focusing spots.
Replaceable LED sources.(bulbs)
Competitive pricing.

To enter the "people Photography" realm they will need to work more like flash, where they can be dimmable for setting up, but flash to full power for exposure.

It is important for their future development, that many amateurs find them perfectly adequate for their rather less demanding work.
For "phone" photography. And for such less severe needs, they work perfectly well.
Rather better in fact than the ancient Photoflood bulbs used for so long by amateur photographers, who were quite Happy to fry and blind their sitters and risk exploding bulbs and seriously burning anything, including themselves, when adjusting or coming anywhere near them.

There will certainly come a time when they will become a stock in trade of serious photographers. and and at an economic price.
I also doubt that, that, will be that far in the future. seeing the, now normal, explosive speed of technological development.

LED's are more a case of a technology that is in the process of being tailored for professional needs.
Dsl's have now completed this process.
Mirrorless cameras are now serious contenders. and have demonstrated some advantages.
LED lights are some 10 years behind.
 
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