Lighting With LED Panels

1. Lighting With LED Panels I have mixed feelings about shooting with LED panels. On one hand, they are extremely convenient, efficient, and easy to set up. But at the same time, there are some undeniable downsides to working with them. With all that said, I really do think the benefits of shooting with LED panels outweigh the negatives. They are so light and portable and can effectively allow you to shoot well in nearly any situation. In years past, if you needed to capture a night scene in a really dark exterior environment you would have no choice but to rent a generator. On small sets, I really have never enjoyed working with generators as they are cumbersome to deal with, costly, and they can be very noisy — which of course is a problem for sound. LED panels, on the other hand, can be powered with a single V-Mount battery, which in turn solves the sound issue. Not to mention they stay cool when you’re working with them, making adjustments and teardown a breeze.So, for those of you that enjoy working with LED light, but still want the cinematic look — this post full of LED-based filmmaking tips is for you. Throughout the rest of the article, I’m going to outline my top few tips for working with LED panels.

2. Always use a modifier LED panels(like many other light sources) don’t typically generate very pleasing results when used directly. In other words, if you were to simply flick on your LED panel and point it at your talent, the overall quality of the light probably isn’t going to be what you’re looking for. Many corporate videos, events, and other lower budget productions mistakenly shoot this way with LED panels, and their footage can look very cheap.As long as you aren’t going direct, you should be able to achieve nice results. This can be said about most light sources, but I find it to be especially relevant with LEDs since some of them aren’t very powerful and could theoretically be used straight on from an exposure perpective. Be very careful when dimming Most LED panels these days have the option of dimming down the brightness, which is an excellent feature to have when it works. The problem however, is that dimming doesn’t always work well and many LED panels are prone to flickering when they aren’t running at full blast.This isn’t always the case. Some of the higher end LEDs do a phenomenal job of maintaining consistent brightness when dimmed down to any level, but at the same time, a lot of LED panels do suffer from this issue. Sometimes the effect is so subtle that you almost don’t even notice it while shooting, but then in the editing room it becomes apparent. Always test your LED panels as much possible before a shoot to know if and where the breaking point is. More info : www.lightnshine.co.uk/