The Colour of Light

Visio, Lots of buttons and RGB confetti

(download)
www.visiolight.com

The Visio-Pasolite 100M LED is an interesting fixture with a lot of unique technology for a production light.  The unit is a RGB+WA LED with a lot of control options over the colour mix of the individual LEDs.

Most importantly is that the RGB white mix is controlled separately from the white or amber LEDs.  In theory this feature allows better control in generating user defined “white” light letting the RGB white find its best balance independent of the white or amber light to achieve the colour temperature without having to stretch the performance of the RGB LED sets. Now my observations didn’t really see anything special going on light wise, as the RGB was added or subtracted I could not see any difference in the colour quality, but as I’ve said before it’s almost impossible to make any intelligent comments on colour temp without test equipment. 

What I did see though was at close ranges 1’to 3’the green and red LEDs seemed to overpower the white output and put a clear colour cast on my hand but it evened out as I got a little farther away.  This leads me to wonder about recommended distances for RGB type fixtures, an investigation for another day.

The unit is well built with a serious passive heat sink and a steel/aluminum chassis. Standard XLR style DMX connections and a tethered power supply a-la laptop style. Colour controls allow independent mixing of each RGB channel and a lock button to hold the current settings.  The unit features six memory pre-sets for your favourite colour mixes as well as pre-loaded mixes for 3200k and 5600k.

The digital readout allows the selection of pre-set colour temps, dimming levels and the readout for the independent RGB mixing levels. The unit uses PWM dimming that some consider a no-no for LED dimming but at its rated 25k frequency it shouldn’t be a problem for most situations.

Overall this unit is well built and has some innovative features but I just didn’t really like it.  It wasn’t very powerful and maybe that added to the uneasy feeling about its colour performance.

Truth be told I’m not a big fan of the tuneable RGB scenario in any light. Now the Visio does remove one of my major issues which is colour recall with its six memory pre-sets and individual RGB digital readouts but I’m still a single colour guy at heart. Too many options, too many setting, too many places to make a mistake and too many chances to need to reshoot, I like it simple give me 3200k and 5600k (and maybe 4000k for special situations) and I’m set.

If you’re in the other camp where RGB tune-ability is important and you don’t need too much power and reasonably priced this may be the light for you.

Make note however that no matter how I asked the question I could not figure out if you can actually buy this unit anywhere or if it was on Ebay.  Also of concern is that in their product brochure it shows a model being lit with the Visio LEDs but the majority of illuminated fixtures are good old tungsten studio lights.  In the pic in the brochure there is a strong and obvious “red” shadow behind the model on the white backdrop….not encouraging now is it?

BTW..dollars to donuts without a doubt Visio is the company that actually manufactures a number of lights marketed under the IKAN brand, maybe that's where you're supposed to buy them.

Here’s the numbers:
Pasolite 100M
3200K 97fc@1meter
5600k 130fc@1meter
$1300.00

Camlight, unique design in one area but too much plastic and old tech questions quality.

(download)
www.camlight.com.cn

Camlight makes a variety of panels from small on-camera units to large 750 LED units. For most of their offerings there isn’t anything too exciting to report except for the fact that many are made entirely of cheap crappy ABS plastic, even the mounting spigots are plastic. I feel quality here is a real issue and these plastic units should be avoided.  They even have a printed warning not to use them if the temp gets to high! Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes plastic is a dream material but not this plastic. 

The standard LED panels are housed in stamped steel fixtures with the usual rotary dimmer, V or AB battery option and DMX control.  One complaint about the DMX is that it is via RJ45 connectors not the industry standard 3 or 5 pin XLR.  Now in a studio install RJ45 probably is fine but I haven’t seen too many Grip Trucks with big loops of RJ45 just waiting to control some lights, never mind terminating to a controller. The DMX is also only addressable via local DIP switches, old school and annoying.

Without wasting more time on the usual C-C-P designs let’s look at their unique focusable LED fixture.  The Camlight SL-9900 is an octagon shaped unit with nine articulating LED panels and these nine panels are very bright.  The panels are controlled via a manual gear knob on the back that basically pulls the centre panel in and out to alter the angle of the surrounding panels which I surmise are on a pivot hinge arrangement.  This movement created the flood or spot option on this unit.  Unlike other focusable LED fixtures where the LEDs have different lensing to alter their focus this unit has all spot LEDs and disperses their beam to achieve a flood effect.  Here’s the rub on this technique though, the beam field is way uneven in flood mode and way hot spot in spot mode.  The flood mode showed bands of light on the show floor about 6 feet away and the spot mode was a small 1 foot hot spot with rings at the same distance. Even their product photos show an uneven flood field.  To add to the issue this fixture was all plastic, with a mechanical movement required for focussing I would worry about how long it will last before the gears fall out. The SL-9900 had two large high speed fans mounted in the back panel to cool the LEDs and from the airflow I felt coming out of the unit I think that quiet is not one of this lights features.

Overall I didn’t like any of their lights; the plastic fantastic killed any idea of quality in my mind.  The focusing light seemed more gimmicky than useful and used loud fans, non-standard DMX and old school DIP addressing.

Here’s the numbers:
SL-2500 5600k 180fc@1m $500.00
SL-3300 Bi-colour 440fc@1m (all LEDs on) $1100.00
SL-7500 5600k 830fc@1m $1100.00
SL-9900 5600k flood 900fc@1m spot 1500fc@1m $2000.00

T&Y, panels with a familiar design but a few improvements over the mass of C-C-Ps.

www.ty-light.net

Ok, let’s get full disclosure right off the start; T&Y said they would give me a really nice tin business card holder if I can to their booth and measured their lights, and they didJ.

T&Y are more of your standard design plurality LED panels but at least some effort has been made to improve on this basic design from the usual “RnD” (rip-off ‘n duplicate) of most other panel manufacturers.  T&Y offers a full range of lighting units including fluorescent, tungsten and some interesting Arri-look alike HMIs.  Their products are still only available on the internet but they are willing to Skype, MSM and Gmail to communicate with you, and their spokesperson Crystal was reasonably knowledgeable about technical matters.  T&Y has seven different LED fixtures that share the same basic platform but are unique enough to be interesting on an individual basis.  Also to note is that T&Y’s claims of performance are modest and more believable than many LED companies I spoke with. No wild CRI claims or that they have built the next super nova of lighting.  T&Y claims a modest low 80’s CRI for all their panels, something even a big CRI doubter like me can believe.

The T&Y LEDs are enclosed in an aluminum and sheet metal fixture with standard DMX connections, on- board slide dimmer or rotary dimmers and battery mount options.  The slide dimmer was maybe the main dissatisfier on these units as it felt sloppy and loose, sure to be a trouble spot as these sliders tend to be as demonstrated on the DJ lighting fixtures that I have lingering in the scrap pile.  The slide dimmer is only shown on the “studio” models and the rotary dimmers on the bi-colour models.  I also didn’t like the single mounting point on some models as I don’t think it was sturdy enough for the weight of the unit in any position other than straight up.

The dimming system on the bi-colour panels is not very intuitive, there is a separate dimmer knob for 3200k, 5600k and 3200+5600k, three knobs and I’m not sure why. I get that one works the 3200k LEDs and the other the 5600k LEDS but what’s the third knob for?  Couldn’t get an answer I understood on this one so let’s call it a language barrier issue and move on.

Let’s look at the various models: the LED600, LED1200 and LED2400 come in various flavours including 3200k, 5600k, bi-colour (with 4000kish mode) with 45 degree spot or 60 degree flood LED lenses.  The LED1200 also has two V-mount or AB battery mounts. I don’t know if two batteries are required to run the panels or if this is some type of “hot-swap” system, answers were again unclear. The 2400 LED unit did not have a battery option displayed but one is listed in the brochure.

 

The panels had an accessory slot on the front for barn doors and diffusers.  Many of the models on display had the diffuser in place and I recorded it showing about a half stop difference.

 

Now here is where T&Y gets interesting, on their newer models they are using 8mm LEDs – not the standard 5mm used by almost every other panel manufacturer including the original Litepanels.  The LED8-240, LED8-420P and the LED8-420 bi-colour all use the larger 8mm LED.  Now T&Y claims that this larger LED doubles the output of their standard 600LED fixture when using only 420 or the larger emitters, I certainly did not find this when I measured their lights.  The standard 5mm units were actually about 10% brighter.  Much dismay and commotion was caused when whom I assume was the manager of the booth could not believe the results. We proceeded to check the fixtures several times without wavering results.  I suspect what happened was that the LED8-420 that was labeled a spot fixture was actually a flood….or well, 8mm LEDs suck.

 

Overall these T&Y units were built OK, especially compared to other Chinese offerings, but didn’t light a fire in the performance category.  I’d be curious to see what owners of their HMI fixtures have to say, they looked OK but with HMI so many important items are hidden under the hood a quick look means little.

 

Here’s the numbers:
LED600 Single colour 5600k 45 degree spot  340fc@1m   $450.00

LED600 Bi-colour 60 degree flood $490.00

3200k 90fc@1m   5600k 110fc@1m  4000k(all on) 180fc@1m

LED1200 Bi-colour 60 degree flood $800.00
3200k 110fc@1m   5600k 130fc@1m  4000k(all on) no measure

LED8-420 Single colour 5600k 45 degree spot (bet it was a flood) 300fc@1m   $1100.00

(download)

Hakutatz… The Lowest priced LEDs at NAB, also maybe the Lowest Quality.

www.hakutatz.com.cn

I met with Tony at the Hakutatz booth (Tony, really now, who printed these business cards) and got an enthusiastic demonstration of the lamest panel at the show. 

These panels featured some bizarre options that I could not get my head around like two dimmers on the back that seemed to work half the LEDs on the panel. Why would you only want to dim every other LED independently? The explanation seemed to be that one dimmer did the 0-50% range and the other the 51-100% range…I still don’t get it. The panels are available as 5300-5900K models only in 500 and 1000 LED configurations.  The deluxe versions have remote controls for on-off but not dimming.  They are also available with yellow and blue diffusers.  Let me tell you that the blue one won’t be needed as these LEDs are clearly blue to start with (see pics). 

These panels have brightness comparable to their competitors but the light quality looked horrible.  I know it’s almost impossible to make a comment on colour without proper testing but these were SOOOOO bad you could see the blue from down the asile.

Not only were these units the lowest in quality but also the lowest in price, and like the saying goes “you get what you pay for”.  I saw very weak plastic construction, almost all the parts were plastic, and the whole unit flexed when you moved the tin barn doors.  The most serious issue is that the dimmer controls are directly mounted to the PCB board without a chassis bolt/nut the isolate it from the solder joints, I suspect that this defect would render the panel useless in just a few uses.

Without a doubt the leaders in the “C-C-P” race.

Here’s the numbers:
HK-500  5600k  600fc@1m   $160.00
HK-1000 5600k  500fc@1m   $260.00 (that’s right, double the LEDs, less light)

Remote control panels same price.

(download)

Lowel LED Studio, new design still in development but performance may be an issue.

(download)
www.lowel.com

In keeping with the typical Lowel approach to lighting these units look solidly built and sport standard features without unneeded bells and whistles.  The main body made of formed steel looks like a carry-over from the Lowel florescent fixtures refitted with LED panels and standard DMX hardware.  I think these may be the only working prototypes as the serial numbers were “NAB2011001”, many changes may be in store before these hit the market.

The fixtures are shown in two sizes, 250 and 450 which I think refers to the number of LEDs used. The LEDs are SMD low power LEDs and were only shown in 3200k configurations but the interim brochure shows a 5600k model as well.  The most unique thing about these units is the integral honeycomb-like reflector system.

The reflector system is made of mirror coated plastic and its many little “chrome” wells provide an aperture for about 4 LED emitters. Curiously though, the walls of the wells intersect some of the LED emitters and more odd is that the wells do not fit tight to the circuit board thus allowing light energy to be trapped behind the reflector lowering output and causing unwanted internal reflections.  Maybe this issue is just because of the quick mockup for NAB but I would think this wasted light energy could be recovered if the reflector fit the LED array better.

In measuring the light output I found my readings well below the brochures clained levels. As I was testing another gentleman with a Gossen light meter also measured the output and basically agreed with my findings… the brochure lists 657fc at 3’ and the best we could muster was 550fc at the same distance from the LEDstudio 450. Given the ambient light levels in the Lowel booth this is a big discrepancy that I hope the production unit can rectify. Our reading of 550fc is a decent performance but not anything to write home about given the size and cost of this unit. 

This unit was also one of the few where I was able to measure falloff. The other light meter toting fellow had an interest in performance at 2 meters so we both measured the LEDstudio 450 at 150fc at 2m, a whopping drop of 400fc in only 3 feet!

Overall impressions have to be all covered by the caveat that this is not a production unit and the issues observed here might be rectified before this unit hits the dealers, if not Lowel will have a problem on their hands. Otherwise it looks like a solid, middle of the road fixture with a good build and workhorse features. Stay tuned to see how it develops.

Lowel estimates the units will be in dealers by July 2011.

Here’s the numbers:
LEDstudio250  400fc@1m   3200k
LEDstudio450   550fc@1m  150fc@2m  3200k  $22-2400.00

 

Autocue, rebranded Chinese panels still a disappointment by any name.

The Autocue booth was front and center at NAB and featured several rebranded Chinese LED panels. I’m about 99.9% sure these are LS brand panels with a simple “Autocue” sticker added for branding on the back.  Now the “LS” panels aren’t the worst of the breed for 1x1 LED panels but there’s nothing new here to report. If you’re looking for this type of fixture at this quality level just seek out the cheapest supplier/rebrander because they are all the exact same. For details on the build and features of these Autocue panels please see the “LS” review coming here soon. For continuity’s sake I tested the brightness of the Autocues for comparison to their parent panels and they seem to fall within the normal output expectations for then Chinese 1x1s.

500LED   5600k   $399.99    270fc@1m
1000LED   5600k   $749.00   440fc@1m

(download)

Arri L-Series LED Fresnel...Look at the shadow picture, what more needs to be said!

(download)

www.arri.com/l-series

I went to NAB really jazzed about finally seeing the mysterious Arri fresnel and I wasn’t disappointed. Just one look at the shadow picture I took tells the whole story, Arri nailed it. True, hard, single shadows.  I got lucky Thursday morning as I was the first person to the Arri display when they were just taking the new units out of their secure storage area ("Area 51" I suspect) so I got a lot of time to fondle and ask questions.  The units on display at NAB are the only functioning prototypes Arri has in the world and I was told that the final production model will have some differences but the basic foundation is in these units. I was told that they were actually programming the processors on the show floor the night before to improve performance.  Arri plans to have the units on sale in North America by late fall 2011.

From the pics you can see these units are quite large, the “-7” name refers to the 7” fresnel lens system which looks like it can share all standard 7” accessories like gel frames and barn doors. The focus range is 15-50 degrees. Units are available in fixed colour temperature or with fully adjustable colour. The fixed colour units draw 250watts and the adjustable unit draws 220watts.  The units are either passively cooled (see the MASSIVE heatsink in the pics) or actively cooled with a large rear mounted fan.  The units contain 84 RGB style LEDs but they would not tell me the makeup of the RGB layout or if they contained any W,A or Y LEDS.  Arri staff commented that the output was under a 1K tungsten fresnel for comparison.

The L7-C is the fully colour adjustable unit and features a side panel multi-display control that allows for dimming, colour temp, and +/- green adjustments.  In this module you can also invoke party colours and control their hue and saturation.  The unit offers two memory settings to recall your favorite mixes.  There were a pile of other settings but I did not get a full rundown on these as the crowds were starting to form.  The L-7T is the 3200k fixed colour temp and its side panel offers dimming and some process control which I did not get explained to me.  I did not see a daylight unit but was told they will be available. Focus is handled by a large hand knob near the front of the units.  The units featured a USB port on the back panel for processor upgrades as well as standard DMX control.

Overall these units are a home run for Arri and should make the studio guys very happy. The units are solid and extremely well built, as one would expect from Arri. The colour looked great and the shadows are unbelievable, without a doubt the best LED fresnel at the show.  If you want one I’m sure the line will be long.

Here are the numbers:
L7-C (colour adjustable) $2990.00
L7-T (single colour 32 or 56K) $2890.00

The L7-T (3200k) at the midpoint of its zoom range showed 410fc@1m

 

(download)

Dexel LED, solid looking but not a lot of information.

(download)

www.dexel.com

Well the nice people from Dexel are from Argentina and only speak Spanish, me not so much, so the info I could get was very limited.  Currently their fixtures are not available in North America but they are seeking a distributor, inquiries can be made on their website.

Dexel has four main LED products, a high power panel, 5mm LED panel, Red Head style high power LED and a LED Fresnel style fixture.  The units all look very well constructed mainly using aluminum and stamped steel, beefy screws and thick yokes.  They felt solid and professional. All panels featured local and DMX control as did the Fresnel fixture. The “red head” style fixtures only had local dimming control.  I couldn’t figure out how to work their DMX system but an English manual probably would solve that issue.

The Fresnel fixture was not functioning but looked as sturdy and well made as the panel products.  I believe they were trying to tell me that it was a non-functioning mock-up but it looked pretty production final finish to me.

The high power panels all had a very large fan on the back and in the show floor din I couldn’t hear any sound coming from the fixture but I’m sure they make their fair share of fan noise judging by the airflow I felt coming from the exhaust vents on the fixture.  The high power panels are rated at 6000k and a drop in diffuser and 3200k dichroic colour changing are available as options.

The ‘red head” style fixtures were interesting, made from a solid aluminum spun rear housing and a standard accessory looking front bezel I bet these would integrate quite nicely with an existing “red head” kit and share the hot light accessories.

No prices were available but they promised to send me an email with additional info and costs.  I would have liked to learn more here but the language barrier was tough and I was dead tired as I hit this booth on the way out Wed. evening so I kind of rushed things.

Overall impression, very good. If these units have a reasonable price and a decent US distributor can be found they may find some good traction in the market.

The numbers:
LED48  6000k  320fc@1m
LED81 6000k 500fc@1m

Videssence, claiming the most powerful light throw available in their class, too bad they don’t make the grade.

(download)

www.videssence.tv

I visited the Videssence booth where they had their primary LED fixtures on display.  The ExceLED 24, 50 and 100 models named so for their wattage listings.  Now Videssence claims these units have the most powerful light throw available for their wattage, a claim I wasn’t able to substantiate but they defiantly have some punch.

Each unit is based on a primary 9 LED cube module with what I estimate to be a 10 degree lens on the LED.  The 25 watt unit sports one LED cube, 50watt two LED cubes and you guessed it the 100watt four LED cubes.  Construction is of bended/formed aluminum with a black powder coating. The lensing seems very narrow and served to throw the light but I’m not sure if this is a positive given their intended design as a studio fixture.  The booth staff demonstrated the 50watt units throw by shooting a pretty strong beam about 60’ onto the ceiling of the LVCC.  Great throw but probably too narrow a lens for studio use unless you’re trying to give the talent sunburn.

The units come standard in 3200k and can be ordered in 5600k if needed. A claimed CRI of 85 seems pretty honest compared to the baloney listed the other LED sellers at the show. Standard units are not dimmable but dimmers are available by special order.  The 100 watt unit on display had on-off switches on the back panel to control each of the four LED cubes, a kind of odd dimming system if you ask me as turning off cubes will change the pattern and evenness of the beam.

The units are AC powered only and do not offer DMX or any external control.

One unique feature in the 100watt model is the ability to pivot the four LED cubes to change from flood to spot configurations. Now this was a pretty lo-tech approach with a gear wheel/internal screw mount moving the center of the cubes in and out to concentrate or spread their narrow beams. It didn’t look very effective but the units were so crowded together it’s hard to tell. 

Even though they were bright and punchy, which I’m sure is due to the narrow lens, I didn’t like these units at all.  They are big, ugly, low-tech and way over priced for what you get.  They look like something made in shop class at your high school, and sure looks aren’t important if performance is there but the ExceLED’s don’t make the grade in this department as well.  Videssence takes an old school approach to these units and it shows, no DMX, key features as options that are standard pretty much everywhere else and lens configurations that seem inappropriate for the primary in studio use.

Overall impression, underwhelming.

 

The numbers:
ExceLED25  5600K 1400fc@1m $1200.00
ExceLED50 3200K 550fc@1m $1900.00 (different lens I suspect)
ExceLED100 $3500.00 (couldn’t get a reading of fc as the unit was so crowded in with others on the side of the booth I couldn’t reach in to take a reading)

The “China Crap Panel” et al.

The bitterness of poor quality is tasted long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten! Heard that one before?

Before I engage this rant please clearly note that it has nothing at all to do with the fact that the manufacturers are Chinese!  Love the Chinese, hate their lights.  Some products and components made in China are great, these lights aren’t one of them.

There was a massive amount of Chinese lights on the show floor at NAB 2011 and pretty much they all exhibited the same downfalls. I just can’t get past the fact that all these manufacturers showed pretty much the exact, I mean exact…sorry EXACT same light designs, did I say exact?  Over a dozen booths showed the same 12”x12” yoke mounted panel with 5mm self lensing LEDS “ala Litepanels” 1x1 design.  I know the Chinese are renowned for their ripping off of popular Western designs but really now how about just a drop of originality.  Haven’t they figured out this design has been done to death and pretty much outdated already?  Not one of them brought anything new to the design, well except for maybe low price.

I tried to ask each of them why their design seemed to be everywhere at the show but never really got a good answer. Some stated they were the originators of the design, some stated they used better components, some stated they had innovations like bi-colour or a dimmer and my favorite was the lady who told me that they built the original units for Litepanels and they were pissed off that they weren’t getting credit for it...hmmm. 

Anyways these units not only look the same but share similar defects.  Of primary concern is the poor colour quality, low quality electronics, questionably build quality and the lack of consistent performance between identical models of the same brand. 

At one booth I measured the light output of their standard panel then checked another just two feet away and found a 100fc difference..me thinks somethin’s wrong so I double checked…same results.  This new revelation sent me back to booths I had already checked to see if this variance between panels was a common issue.  For the most part the panels of other booths were consistent between samples to an acceptable degree, 10-20fc between like samples seem reasonable given the unscientific testing environment. That being said a few manufacturers were way off the mark one even showed a 300fc difference, but as my review will show later I think this outfit was the worst LED light in the show.

The electronics of these units also is of concern, most seemed to use hardwired construction techniques with no modular design or removable connectors for ease of servicing.  I couldn’t see every internal design but one the ones I could see everything just looked like a big ball of solder and black tape.  The circuits also looked very basic, not much voltage protection or signal processing going on.  For the units that used battery power I would have to wonder about low voltage protection as well.

Colour was a big concern for me since it was the impetus for this blog and well these “Crap Panels” did not leave me wondering. They SUCK! It’s pretty damn hard to make fair colour comments without test gear but when some of the panels are so blue that the booth staff describes the colour as “midnight sun” at 5600K I gotta start wondering ‘cause I live in Canada and I’ve seen the “midnight sun” many times and trust me it ain’t that blue.  Take the colour comments as my opinion because they’re totally subjective.

Build quality is all over the map, stamped tin to machined aluminum, plastic nuts and Velcro to millions of tiny screws.  With a few exceptions I don’t think these panels will cut it in a professional production environment.  I think most of the raw enclosures are fine but it’s the human touch points where quality really falls apart.  Dimmers, colour controls, yokes, power connectors and the such.  All seem weak, under sized poorly mounted.  One panel actually had the dimmer direct soldered to the PBC and the dimmer knob shaft was unsupported poking through a hole in the back panel, how long would that last…five minutes on any of my sets.

Never mind all my complaining the big issue really is service. NOT ONE OFFERED USA/CANADA SERVICE OPTIONS! So when your $200 light breaks what do you do? I’m sure the manufacturer thinks you’ll just fix it yourself or throw it away, or are they really marketing disposable lights?  Now again, trying to be fair, I am including the Microbeam and IKAN  LED panels in this “Crap Panel” category and these two companies offer service but they are just resellers and probably just suck up the costs of repairs in their customer service budgets.  The true “Crap Panel” manufacturers offer no service PERIOD!

Still not deterred and want to buy a “Crap Panel”, good luck.  Most manufacturers only deal via the web and language on their websites is an issue if you’re an English only speaker.  My big wonder is payment, they don’t use PayPal but rather all seem to request the TTL system of advance payment in full via bank transfer. This is a system used mainly for business to business Western Union style transactions; problem here is you never really know who you are sending your money to.  Two different exhibitors actually provided me with their personal bank account info for transfers rather than the company accounts listed in their brochures….run away silly Westerner save your money.  I have heard of several people on DVinfo.net having good experiences with some of these dealings but I’m way to cautious to send money into the dark abyss without a way higher comfort level of whom I’m dealing with.

Enough negative chat for now, on with the reviews.