Thoughts on this fluorescent + LED Light setup for mostly Interviews

[David Turner]

Hey Craig,

Thanks. Do you think i could use this light as a Hair/Edge light in Spot mode for sit down interview setup? And then diffused a bit and in regular mode for run & gun key?

[Bill Davis]

Here’s the deal overall…

An “all led” kit makes perfect sense if the job is suited to it. The last time I had to do interviews in NYC – that’s exactly what I took with me. And I got fine interviews with it.

Why?

Because the subject was a single person (limited area to light) the location was contained (hotel room not a factory floor) and the power efficiency of LEDs meant that I could go “all battery” and eliminate packing power cords – which typically weigh more than batteries and are (usually) a much bigger hassle to travel with.

If that’s what you do – hotel room interviews – LEDs are great. And you can use them as key, background and rim (hair lights) perfectly well. Add a pop up bounce and you can do an interview in a contained space with no problem.

The problem comes up when you’re not doing a single person interview – and you’re not in a small hotel room – and you’re not shooting constrained to working with battery power.

Then you need a totally different array of tools.

If you want to control light, fresnels with barn doors, ellipsoidal with pattern projectors, and similar tools will do a vastly better job than any LED array of helping you create more visually interesting backgrounds.

And if you need to brighten a big area like a warehouse interior or a street exterior – then LEDs are nearly useless.

An all LED kit is like having a box of crayons with which to do art – and when you open the crayon box, all you have is a dozen shades of red.

Can a great artist do something amazing with that? You bet. But most artists like having a wider array of colors to work with.

Make sense?

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Craig Seeman]

[David Turner] “Do you think i could use this light as a Hair/Edge light in Spot mode for sit down interview setup? And then diffused a bit and in regular mode for run & gun key?”

That’s very much my interest as well. I did have a look at it up close a number of times but I’d like to see “real world” use. I’ve heard criticisms of fan noise but I had to put my ear closer than any typical mic would be to hear anything.

I’ve read various reviews that were good and looked at the B&H reviews as well. Several point to good use as a hair light be I think some note it’s still a little on the soft side.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/687491-REG/Litepanels_906_1002_SolaENG_3_LED_Fresnel.html

Review from Bruce Johnson at PVC with pics which show the light characteristics.
https://provideocoalition.com/index.php/bjohnson/story/review_litepanels_sola_eng_led_fresnel_light/
Studio Daily review doesn’t really go much into the light characteristics but does speak to its construction (and fan noise).
https://www.studiodaily.com/2012/02/review-litepanels-sola-eng-lighting-kit/

It’s not perfect but it looks good. Given Arri’s L series I’d wish they’d make a move into smaller fixtures as well.

[David Turner]

Hey Bill,

Thanks again! I really appreciate your feedback.

I guess the best thing to do is to describe exactly what I would use my lights for 95% of the time. All of my work is Documentary or “Documentary based”. What I mean by Doc-based is docu-advertising things which consist of interviews but also nice looking interior shots of businesses or events, etc (mostly for web content).

Most of the time I would be doing 1 person interviews. Second most, I would be lighting interior stuff (for example the stove or display case at a Cupcake store). Third most, I would be shooting outdoors or even interesting stuff at night where one or two battery powered lights would help. Very occasionally I may do a 2 person interview or something larger.

It would be nice to do interesting background patterns. But if I ever had to light something like a warehouse or large space, I would rent some more lights.

From what it sounds like, it may be a good idea to go with an entirely LED kit. Right?

Would you recommend against mixing Fluorescent lights and LED lights?

[Craig Seeman]

[Bill Davis] “If that’s what you do – hotel room interviews – LEDs are great. And you can use them as key, background and rim (hair lights) perfectly well. Add a pop up bounce and you can do an interview in a contained space with no problem.”

Bingo! That’s my bias err background. Shooting interviews in closets (offices) in NYC.

[Bill Davis] “The problem comes up when you’re not doing a single person interview – and you’re not in a small hotel room – and you’re not shooting constrained to working with battery power.

Then you need a totally different array of tools.

If you want to control light, fresnels with barn doors, ellipsoidal with pattern projectors, and similar tools will do a vastly better job than any LED array of helping you create more visually interesting backgrounds.”

And that’s when I go back to my tungsten lights. I don’t see any “reasonable” cost/control replacement for these yet.

[Bill Davis]

[Craig Seeman] “And that’s when I go back to my tungsten lights. I don’t see any “reasonable” cost/control replacement for these yet.
“

I completely agree, Craig.

I can make a basic limited area interview scene look good with my LED kit.

If I have my Arri kit- my grip bag, and access to stingers and dependable power – I can usually make the same scene much, much better than just “good.”

With the hassle of schlepping lights and grip on a plane cross country to NYC (don’t even mention the insane cost of the overweight baggage these days!) an all LED kit is a great tool.

It’s just not a particularly good tool if it’s your ONLY tool.

That’s my position in a nutshell.

David (presuming you’re reading this)

This is precisely why I own tungsten, LED and Fluorescent lights.

Each has their place and something they do better than the alternatives.

Tungsten is extremely controllable and lets you “paint” with your light – but it’s heavy, sucks power, and generates tons of heat for the light.

Fluorescent is flattering for most human faces without the hassle of a bag over a tungsten fixture and the extra power needed to get the same light through the diffusion – drinks power more politely then tungsten, and you can swap out daylight or tungsten equivalent tubes for different locations.

LED sips hardly ANY power compared to the competition. And the light output per watt efficiency is nothing short of amazing. But it’s WAY more difficult to control than tungsten, can be finicky as to spectrum, and takes quite a bit of getting used to, in my experience since you have to toss out most of your grip and control experience since the light generation is so totally different.

And that final one is the big issue.

If you buy nothing but LED – then you’ll never LEARN to use the more traditional tools like tungsten fresnels with barn doors or cookies to paint with your lights. So when the new generation of LED fresnels finally gets affordable, you’ll likely have a “knowledge defect” to overcome simply because you’ve never practiced with tools that let you get those kind of results.

My thinking anyway.

YMMV.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

I mentioned “painting” with light in my previous post.

Just to help the folks coming to lighting without a ton of experience visualize what I’m talking about, here’s an example from a shoot I did about 3 years back with traditional tungsten lights.

Basically, the set was just a flat wall behind the talent in a room where we could turn the lights out.

The keys were tungsten softboxes. Fresnels (probably 300s) were the back/rim lights on tall stands. The grey back wall was broken up with an Altman ellipsoidal w/ metal gobo for texture. The bright blue loops above Molly are the bottom of a corporate logo projected on the back wall with a standard business projector running a computer file. (had to “greek” the logo with no time to ask permission to use it here)

The real point is that theres absolutely no chance to build these kinds of layers and textures if all you’re carrying is 3 LED fixtures.

I happened to see this today when the client wanted to revisit this old program for changes. Looking at it I deeply wish I had already been shooting in high def back then. SD looks so … well, boring after having spent at the past couple of years working almost exclusively in HD!

But I thought it would be useful for the folks who are coming to lighting in the new era – so that you can see a little bit of why many of us are happy to trade weight and power inefficiency for the control that comes with traditional lighting instruments.

Someday we’ll have the best of both worlds in single (hopefully affordable) gear. But right now we don’t.

FWIW.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Craig Seeman]

This is a very good example of why I’m still using Tungsten lights as well. It’s almost as if the difference is between painting with good fine art brushes vs an oversized mop (I hope I’m not arrested by the COW analogy police).

The dilemma I’m facing and maybe David is as well and maybe you saw in your trip to NYC, is that many office shoot spaces are incredibly small (and maybe even limited it available power). I’d almost venture a guess in the “new economy” office space is an area being cut. It seems I’m shooting in offices that are 8’x10′ and sometimes smaller. Don’t forget there’s often desk, credenza and/or file cabinet, shelves, etc and the walls are giant reflectors.

[Craig Seeman]

I’m not sure that posting a product ad is COW ethical but the Sola ENG ad I just found is the first I’ve seen where Litepanels is showing that the ENG is not primarily for on camera use (as the ENG name implies) which their marketing material and the reviews I’ve seen, focus on.

You can see by the ad they’re thinking of back, fill and softbox key use. Of course real world use would reveal real world value and flaws but this is really what I want to see in order for one to “pain with light” in a small office shoot environment. I don’t expect “long throw” but that’s not what I’m up against in a small office. I need to paint without cooking the subject or blowing the fuses.

[Dennis Size]

I’ve used almost all of the LED’s described above …and then some — but still prefer tungsten. Old habits die hard.
We’re doing many studios now all “green” with dozens and dozens of energy efficient, non-tungsten, fixtures (in one studio we’re currently designing — hundreds of fixtures)..but no dimmers.
It’s where the future is (unfortunately).
For those wanting single source LED instrumentation, in addition to the Sola, check out Frezzi’s HyLight. It’s got quite a lot of “bang for the buck” …. with several beam spread sources, and excellent color rendition, and a very bright beam.

DS