I’ve recently added a set of LED lights to my equipment list from Konova Photo in Korea. The order process was smooth and the lights arrived to me in Northern Ireland in just a few days.
After unpacking the lights and checking them out, they seem to be of a high quality and design. I went for 2x 500 and 1×1000 LED dimmable versions with four switches on each light to turn on/off banks of LED’s.
When turning the lights on the first thing I noticed was how much output they produced. A rough guess is the 1000 LED version is equivalent to a 600w tungstun and the 500 LED, around a 350w, yet they only consume around 35/55 w. This meant that I was easily able to power these lights with a 12v inverter in my vehicle, opening up the options for mobility.
Like all LED lights these emitted a slight green cast which I didn’t really notice until I reviewed my footage after import. This was partly cured by adding 1/4 negative green gel to give more natural skin tones. You’d still be better with a Kinoflo type light which have a higher CRI but at the end of the day it all comes down to costs/performance/use balance – the three light cost just $1100 including shipping. It’s my understanding that all LED light suffer from this draw-back but hopefully the technology will improve in the next few years.
You’re not going to have to worry about giving these lights a few knocks, and they run almost totally cool. They also come with handy quick release mounts making it easy to adjust the angle and orientation.
Conclusion:
If you’re looking for a low cost, portable light kit that gives nice soft light these are for you. If you’re not so concerned with budget something like a Kinoflo set-up would be more suitable, outputting a higher CRI.
Test video using the LED 500 and 1000 video lights
http://www.vimeo.com/20961274
Nice Review, very helpful. Where did you get your negative gels from?