This Dumb Question again…

[John Sharaf]

Hi Dennis,

Leave it to you to have all the latest toys and in quantity too!

Yes, I have had the opportunity to try those Litepanel Helios; there were a few on Stage 7 at Sony Studios in Culver City where they teach the F65 class, and I used them to fine effect in the practical lighting portion of the class.

The thing about the TrueColor HS is that these units have among all the LED’s the highest and best CRI (Color Reproduction Index) so skin tone is rendered as good as tungsten and better than HMI. I think this makes them superior to the Divas which have a tendency to go green when they heat up.

In addition, this color is likely to remain consistent over time because the correction is not on the LED’s themselves where the heat will affect longevity , but instead on “transfer panels” located away from the LED arrays.

This is the first of all the LED’s I’ve tried that does not require green correction (granted that there are many different brands and models that I have yet to try), but I’m very high on these PRG lights and you are correct that the “quality of light is superior” too; it is very soft and wide even without a light bank or diffusion panel, even though I understand that Chimera has one in the works.

Now that cameras are nominally 800ISO and have dynamic range of 14 stops (in Log mode) and post color correction is more and more becoming the norm, lighting is not required in the gross amounts as before, and subtlety becomes more of the aesthetic where factors such as the quality of the light and accurate color rendition can be the distinguishing characteristics.

Not to mention the new OLED monitors which are quickly becoming the new standard in viewing (at least on set). All these things together challenge the modern DP/LD to outdo themselves everyday!

Cheers,

JS

[Terry Leahy]

Hey John,

Thanks for all of your input on lighting. I had some lowells lying around that are battery powered that I can use as backlights (for now) so I decided to take your idea and just buy what I need so I grabbed a Diva Lite 401 as my first PRO light and will just use the cheaper lights to fill in the shadows for now.

Good Stuff!

[John Sharaf]

Ok Terry,

You’re on your way now. Before you’re done, you’ll own a truck full of lights and know what each and every one of them is used for!

Cheers,

JS

[Bob Cole]

[john sharaf] “the Divas which have a tendency to go green when they heat up. “

more details please! I rely on my Diva, and haven’t noticed this. How long does it take for them to “heat up” to the point where they go green?

Do you use minusgreen on your Divas to counteract this?

Bob C

[John Sharaf]

HI Bob,

I don’t have Divas, I use conventional tube KF 2Banks and 4 Banks in 2′ and 4′ sizes. This way I’m assured all the lights are the same color. I know that the Diva’s are very convenient because of the built-in ballasts and dimmers, and that whatever color shift can easily be white balanced out.

Recently I purchased two PRG TruColor HS LED lights which are the same size (12×24″) and are very bright, high CRI, dimmable from 20-100% with now color shift and both daylight and tungsten. I use them as I would a Diva and really appreciate the dimming feature vis a vis the tube KF’s.

Putting gel on the Divas aggravates the heat issue so it’s not a real good solution’ watching the color carefully and repeat white balancing is the best cure.

JS