Looking for an affordable LED set-up for photo studio

Hello -- This is my first post here to these forums, so I hope that this is the correct place to post this question.

I work with studio photography, and currently I am using tungsten hot lights, but I would like to replace these with LED alternatives that put out as much light -- but the catch is that I do not have a bunch of money to spend on this, and I am completely unkowledgeable about what is the brightest and best lighting set-up to buy -- or maybe have custom made.

So, any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Welcome to CPF.

I'm not aware of an LED array for photo lighting devices. Flourescent is becoming more common but is still $$ when bought from the major lighting manufacturers. You can DIY with daylight balanced bulbs for less than $50 in a table top set-up.

The tried & true strobe is readily availble and at reasonable prices for the given output. With digital, I use my Lowell Tota for some shots although I find the better color balanced shots come from my monolight.

Thank you for your reply.

The thing I am wonderin about is the amount of raw light output for the size, as I still think of flourescents as being quite large compared to the amount of light they emit.

With flash, this is powerful enough, but not as easy to fine-tune in a studio setting as a hot lights would be. Plus for a decent amount of lighting (say enough to light the exterior of a building evenly) and power you are still looking at thousands of dollars -- which I unfortunately do nto have.

The kind of hot light that I have worked with before, and which I think an array of bright LEDs would be perfect for are these Hot Lights

Is there anyone on this board that makes LED arrays for a pretty good price to maybe try some experimenting with? Any help or input is greatly appreciated. I think that LED lights are an exiting new way to have bright studio lighting without the heat and power expense problems...

Flourescents are fine for table top stuffs and yes, the DIY rigs IMO are bulky for the size and output.

When I got the strobe, the control for my subjects was much improved that using a hot light has not crossed my mind. For more precise control, the latest generation of digitally controlled mono's offer 1/10'th output capabilities but are $$$.

I have no complaints with my older mono as it has varaiable control over 6 stops. A bracket yeilds options and I can dial up the strobe for precise film exposures. While my 645 only steps in 1/2 stops, the digital has 1/10'th capability. YMMV in application.

It would be interesting to see development of a LED type device for photography if they can consistently grade these at 5000-5200K balance. It might be pricey for now.

If you are used to working with 1,000 watt lights, then there is simply no way an LED array that could put out that much light would come remotely close to being "compact." Worse, most LEDs put out as much heat per watt as halogen lamps (they just don't project it out the lens), with only the most efficient ones being comparable to fluorescent bulbs.

HID is the way to go at these power levels, being far more efficient than any of the above, yet as compact as the tungsten. A standard 400w HID bulb puts out far more light than a 1,000w tungsten lamp and about 1/3 the heat output. They are available in different color index ratings too.

I think the problem you will run into with LED is that of color balancing. Cameras are not designed to color balance to a white LED light source, they are tuned more for broad spectrum devices. To that end, you may find you are not happy with the results you achieve. I think a wide spectrum flourescent is the way to go for now, but even then, you may not be as happy as the flash. LEDS for general test lighting and then firing the Xenon strobe may be best.

Semiman

I have made some custom LED light panels for photography, I have 115Volt versions that run off ac, as well as version that work off batteries. The panels have 36Leds 5MM white 16000mcds, there fairly bright VERY even but the color temp is about 9500K so you need to do a custom white balance. If your interested in more information feel free to contact me.

Gotta love the new Search feature!

I'm looking to start a table top lighting rig (specifically), but I'd also like to know what options are best for diverse hot lighting (like lighting an entire room). I haven't invested in any equipment yet, and from what I've learned in this thread there are many options available (halogen, florescent, HID, strobe(?), etc). My main focus for now will be table top, however.

To start, I would like something that could provide lighting with mini-tripods and diffusion screens, to achieve perfect white-background catalog photography. I see all sorts of cheap gimmicky light studios that I wouldn't want to waste my money on. The products I will be photographing will be as small as a pen, and possibly as large as a microwave or television.

If anyone could provide some advice with current technologies out there, what's decent at varying price scales, and perhaps the best bang for my buck... I'd greatly appreciate it.

Best regards,

Eric

I know that there have been some LED arrays for on-the-camera rigs for DV, not that aware of LED lighting for studio. I would imagine that it would still be expensive. I know for example that stage lights that are 100% LED are considerably more expensive than the incand. lamp versions.

You probably are already familiar with this site but I would check: www.dpreview.com for lighting stuff. I've been on CPF for several months and I haven't seen much of anything related to photography on here, though at the beginning like you I thought there must be. It's pretty much flashlight-related, unfortunately.

But, hope someone proves me wrong and gives you some info!

Thanks mcmc. And yeah, I've kept myself pretty secluded in the Lasers forum for the last couple years.

The above posters seem to be pretty familiar with photography, and gave a lot of good advice (or things to think about), but I'm really looking for a current day definitive "this is what you want, it is both high quality and cost effective. you can buy them here, here, and here." sort of thing. I know this is asking much.

Checking out your link now.