Topic: LED lighting yay or nay for filming?
Does anyone recommend LED lighting for filming?
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Does anyone recommend LED lighting for filming?
Does anyone recommend LED lighting for filming?
Totally recommended.
End of discussion.
LED lamps or LEDs?
Both are excellent for brickfilming. For lighting a set, I use two LED lamps and a normal incandescent lamp to create a mixture of light. I've used only LED lamps to light a set before, it looks good, but I prefer mixing the light.
As far as the little LEDs go, I would highly recommend them (they don't have to be LEGO brand). I primarily use them to add more light to the subject minifigures. They're also great for creating unique lighting structures. Here's a great example.
Last edited by Fun Sucker (July 5, 2014 (11:18am))
Cheap LED light tends to have poor color replication compared to incandescent, halogen, or even fluorescent lights. Here's a graph of what I'm talking about, showing how LEDs appear across the color spectrum:
And here's a graph of sunlight vs. incandescent:
If you look up fluorescent graphs you'll see they have holes in them in a manner similar to LED, however the placement of these holes is not quite as problematic for most purposes and generally despite what the graphs look like it's not quite as bad.
Some newer, more expensive LEDs have good color replication. The general critique with the inferior ones is that yellows and browns tend to become greenish, this is often a problem with flesh tones and I've run into the same issue to much lesser extent with yellow minifigs.
Still, LEDs are a great value in general. If you can control the light to get the results you want and the color issues aren't majorly problematic they're a good way to go for at least part of your light sources.
A thread like this would be best suited for the Production thread.
Mod edit:
-Mickey can you please leave forum moderation to the moderators, you can always report posts if you think they are in the wrong section-
I love using small LED lights for ambience but a while back when I bought a LED lamp my camera (Logitech c920) was picking up flicker from the lamp which I could never see. 
Using small LED lights and one big incandescent works best for me.
Mod edit:
-Mickey can you please leave forum moderation to the moderators, you can always report posts if you think they are in the wrong section-
Aha the great forces of moderation have been angered...
Also I don't think it has been mentioned but a major benefit of LEDs is that they last insanely longer than anything incandescent meaning that they end up being cheaper overall and also you can be pretty much be guaranteed that you won't have to replace them mid-production (and therefore removing the potential for major inconsistencies in lighting).
What powers the small leds? I'd get them for mood lighting if they are available in Oz
Batteries. If you get Lifelites, they come with a battery box and special system that works great. (Until one of the wires gets pulled out of the end) But if you have a Radioshack or something comparable you can just buy loose LEDs that you can wire together yourself and then hook up to some batteries.
I've had no experience with LED bulbs, but I can talk about using tiny LEDs for lighting.
In three words: DO IT NOW! I love the look, as well as the amazing things that can be done with tiny lights. You can add extra little details, you can use them to light up only a small portion of the set of characters, and it adds tons of options in regards to great lighting set-ups. I've used them in quite a number of my own films, and can't recommend them more.
I use LED bulbs in my two primary lamps, and thus far I haven't had any problems with color, you can watch my videos to decide for yourself, I think I started using LED around Brew, maybe. I love not worrying about them dying, which is a problem I've had in the past with incandescents, darn things would start flickering like crazy when they started to wear out. Also, the lack of heat is amazing; I don't start sweating from the heat of my lamps anymore, and I don't have to worry about accidentally burning myself on them. I'd say use LED, especially if you have a DLSR (which I think you do) and can adjust white balance. Just make sure you get decent bulbs.
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