durable fixtures for shipping

[Bob Cole]

Thanks. I should have said that I was looking for a daylight balanced keylight I could fly on a boom, on the order of a 1000 watt tungsten equivalent. This is for two-person interviews.

Bob C

[Rick Wise]

Todd, you are correct. My brief review is here: https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/47/860998

As far as I can tell, LED technology is improving rapidly. I’m on the lookout for a good Fresnel unit that has at a minimum the punch of a Mole Junior (2K Fresnel) but balanced for daylight, to use for table-top/food photography. I am definitely tempted by the these:

— The Ikan WS-F350, $1,700
— Mole-​Richa​rdson​​ Juni​orLED 200W 8​” Fres​nel (Day​light​) 8851, $1,816
— Dracast Fresnel 2000 Daylight LED, $1,675

The rule of thumb seems to be that 1 watt of LED is roughly equal to the light intensity of 10 watts of tungsten light. So a 200 watt LED would be roughly equal to that Mole Junior. Mole now makes a Senior LED equivalent, and like all their new line of Fresnel LEDs, available in either tungsten or daylight, but not bi-color.

All of these units offer more firepower than you really need these days with video cameras taking clean images at high ISO settings. But table-top photography is special: you often need a deep stop for deep depth of field, and a decent shutter speed to remove any camera shake.

Rick Wise
Cinematographer
MFA/BFA Lighting and Camera Instructor Academy of Art University
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com

[Todd Terry]

Hey Rick, have you actually been able to try any of these instruments? Or seen them with your own eyeballs?

I love fresnels, but haven’t been sure whether or not the LED fresnel technology was “quite there” yet. I’d be interested to know whether they act as true fresnels… truly focusable, and more importantly really cuttable with barn doors, flags, etc. If so, we’re finally at a really good thing.

I haven’t looked at them much because the last time I gave the LED heads a gander everything pretty much was still AC powered… and I have almost completely cut the cord now and don’t consider anything that I can’t battery power (unless I’m shooting on stage, HMIs are the only stingers I ever run now… period). Oops… I just realized I lied, I did use Kinos on location a couple of weeks ago, but that was the first time in ages that I had to go looking for AC power.

Will be interesting to hear what you decide on….

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Rick Wise]

Todd, I have not yet seen any of these units. Given past performance, I’d put my money on the Moles as the best of the lot. But battery powered they are not…. I have a small hope that the Academy of Art is actually going to invest in a few Fresnel LEDs. I’ll let you know how well they work when I get my hands on them. As for the table-top food photography I do for my wife, that’s all for free, so investing that much dough for a large LED Fresnel not a very good option at the present. For any freelance projects, the producer rents per my specifications. But that line of my work has pretty much gone away. Gee, you’d think they think 80 is too old or something. Bloody ageists!

Rick Wise
Cinematographer
MFA/BFA Lighting and Camera Instructor Academy of Art University
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com

[Erik Anschicks]

Hey Todd – I haven’t used the Mole LED fresnels specifically, but I can confirm that I’ve been very pleased with the Dedolight DLED units I have. They have identical performance as far as the clean beam and ability to cut and shape as their legacy tungsten counterparts. I posted this image a couple of years ago on another thread and it illustrates their capabilities well:

The unit on the left is a 200w pepper and the right is the DLED 4.1. I even used identical barn doors to fashion the same shape since the same size fits both units and I’d say the LED is a much cleaner beam than even a traditional pepper. So there’s no doubt to me that these units at least are more than capable of replicating the options of flagging and cutting light like a traditional tungsten fresnel.

In case you’re wondering, these aren’t as big or bright as most of the Mole fresnel line, but the 4.1 has an approximate output comparable to a 125w HMI or 500w tungsten head, and the 9.1 is around a 750-800w tungsten head equivalent. It’s always hard to directly compare since the beam angles aren’t the same and a Dedo basically crushes all challengers in this class in spot mode. But I’ve essentially replaced my 650w and 1K tungsten fresnels with them and while they aren’t QUITE as bright, I’ve never really noticed the difference in my workflow, they’ve been enough to slot right in as I would have used the older tungstens. So I’d say that LED’s that fit your criteria of having beam-shaping abilities like good ol’ tungsten fresnels do indeed exist!