Surefire for filming

Hi. I'm a documentary film maker and I am wanting a Surefire or similar as a portable light.

I was hoping someone could recommend a strong LED with a broad beam i.e. I don't want a tight or focussed light.

The L4 or L5 look good but, as I am in Australia, I can't play with any to compare. Would either of these be the right light? Should I consider anything else?

And I am needing a consistently white colour - anything with a blue or green tinge can look awful. Are there any US based suppliers that will test the LED before sending it to me???

Any advice greatly appreciated

Mark Davis

I've got the L4 and it is a wall of light, the Surefire LED pickers do a fabulous job and mine is nice and white. I can't answer about the L5 but the L4 is a very bright 65 lumens very broad angle light.

doug

Mark,

L2..... 100 Lumens - Completely flood beam.

As for the Luxeon lottery - If you can't get your hands on one in the flesh prior to purchase then - as with all us mail order only types...You get what you get.

Generally the tint differences are not that noticeable unless you're comparing light next to another light, shining against a white wall.

The good thing about Surefire is that if the tint is unacceptable - they will replace it...This means you're without your light for some time though.

Check out the Surefire group buy in the group buy section.
You won't beat the prices at 'OpticsHQ'.

Here's the link Click


Tim.

L2 or L4. They are both Luxeon V LEDs with the same type of flood. ALL flood. Only a slight central hotspot.

Try Lighthound.com. They graciously tested some rechargeable batteries for me first. Perhaps they are willing to do the same.

Hi Mark,

I own an L2 and on high the L2 puts out a really bright, even, white flood. My only concern is since you will be using it to film you probably want a light that was designed to run bright the whole time. As many have said before, the L2 is primarily a low/medium output light with a high option and not desinged to run continously on high. Therefore I would recommend the L4 as it basically puts out the same flood of light (at a slightly lower brightness) but does so for the life of the batteries. From what I have heard, the L5 has a more focussed beam than the L4 so would not be suitable for your purposes.

As a fellow Australian I have also had problems with the tint of LED's due to not being able to test them before shipping. I found a really great store in the US that was prepared to test the LED tint for me due to the looooong distances involved. Got them to test my L2 before sending it and it is pure white. It is www.productwizard.com. Only problem is I doubt they will continue to do it if everyone starts asking them to tear open boxes...

I hope that helps,

John

Hey Mark I thought most documentary filmers use headlamps.....

But I agree on what the others said. Go for it.

Thanks everyone for excellent advice. It looks like the L4.

The color temperature of LED's is still a critical one for filming....but it seems someone has got a constant supply of white LED's. Litepanels are a popular bank of LED's that are constantly daylight white... but very expensive and too big for my purposes.

www.litepanels.com

It would be interesting to know how they achieve such consistency.


thanks again

Mark

just from quickbeams tests the L5 has more throw with about same overall light as the L4. I chose the L4 for my flood general use light due to its smaller size. But I'd like to see L4 vs L5 comparison beam shots to see just how much morw throw you get from the L5.

davisabc said:

The color temperature of LED's is still a critical one for filming....
Mark

Click to expand...

Mark, I actually posted in another thread about the 6 Surefire shootout and noticed this one. I need a flashlight with a color temp of 4500 and up (as close to daylight as possible) and am working with video surveillance cameras, so white balance is key. I will be really interested in your conclusion. If only this could be as easy as IR light selection, where you just have to match the LED wavelength. FYI, I have to make a purchase decision in the next week.

white balance is key.

Click to expand...

Can't you manually set the white balance of your cameras? I was under the impression that all digital cameras that record in color are white-balancable. Then you can use virtually any color of light as your source so long as it doesn't go too far toward monochromatic.

scott.cr said:

Can't you manually set the white balance of your cameras? I was under the impression that all digital cameras that record in color are white-balancable. Then you can use virtually any color of light as your source so long as it doesn't go too far toward monochromatic.

Click to expand...

Yes, most all mid-to-high range movie, DVC Pro, Digital Video and Closed Circuit Television cameras have Automatic White Balance Control by a manual reflected light setting off a white sheet of paper. However, these settings are most efficient for fine-tuning and are never a replacement for good light. The other issue is that after manually setting this white balance mode, you'll have to change the setting to an Automatic White Balance Tracing Mode when you move outdoors, as the color temperature of the ambient light is constantly changing.

It's far easier to get a great, color-balanced light (I hope like the U2).

Contact JSBurlys.com and ask Jon about when the Indium Smart will be available...it has total application to filmmaking or other situations where you'll need variable light output since you can program its light levels through a PC.

www.jsburlys.com

I would reccomend the L4... a cant reccomend the L2 though, unless you are only going to film 11 minutes at a time

-David

In seperate tests, using Surefire batteries in the L2, it lasts 30-40 minutes on high.

The L4 has a green blue cast when shot on film, (not unlike fluorescents) You could try gelling it with some minus green, but you'd probably have to fine tune before shooting.