led lighting for high-speed movie photography

sean oconnell

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Apr 19, 2011
Messages
1
hello,
i have been doing an art project for a while now where i use a special machine i made to collide two hollow metal boxes together, and film the collision with old 16mm high speed movie cameras, taking movies at 500 - 2,000 frames per second.
i have been lighting an area about 60 x 60cms with three 1000W narrow spot par globes, on separated phases of a 3-phase outlet, so ythat the 50Hz flicker is softened between their three outputs. i film from between 20 - 80cms from the lit objects. when i measure the lux with a crappy lux meter i have, i get a reading of around 60,000 lux at this point - a touch more than the daylight reading with this meter at 45,000 (the meter may be crap, or i am reading it wrong....)
what i want, is to ask if there is feasibly an led alternative using an array of high power leds and lenses, that i could make (i am very handy with lathe and all sorts of stuff....) there is a similar idea here in australia, using what looks to be 100 3w leds???

basically - am i barking in the wind, or is something like this possible to replace the kind of intensity that i have been getting with the three par cans i have? more would be better, of course.... my budget would be around $2000 max for parts, though all the hardware i can make myself.... leds are appealing for the lack of heat in the light (the boxes smoke after a minute under the pars), their flicker-free nature, the significantly less power drain they create, and the softness of an array.

in thanks,
sean.
 

Nico01

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Apr 18, 2011
Messages
12
It looks like you might be able to replicate the results of the light on your linked website with enough of those screw-in LED "lightbulbs" (the ones that people buy to replace their incandescent bulbs with), wiring a bunch of sockets together in parallel (be careful, don't lick any wires, and I'm not liable if they have to scrape you off the ceiling).

Alternatively, have you looked at HID lights? Maybe duct taping half a dozen of these together would work: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001U04MEY/?tag=cpf0b6-20

If you wanted something a little less jury-rigged, you may be able to hook up a bunch of aftermarket car lights (think the kind mounted on top of Jeeps and rally cars) to a big 12V power supply.
 

zoomjockey

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Joined
Mar 20, 2013
Messages
4
I would recommending saving your money on building something and Renting HMI Electronic Ballast lights.
 
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