38 TVBEurope Camera and Lighting Focus


www.tvbeurope.com June 2014


LED looks set to overtake conventional sources because of its far superior energy effi ciency


NAB lights up


As sure as digital will replace emulsion, LED looks set to overtake conventional lighting sources, but plasma and fl uorescent off er useful energy effi cient alternatives. Adrian Pennington shines a spotlight on the industry


AS DIGITAL cinema cameras fi nally live up to their promise of using less light without loss of image quality, they are more sensitive than ever to colour rendering or poor quality white light which can be


emitted from non-traditional light sources. That’s why precise control of full spectrum fl icker-free white light is a key focus of vendors keen to accommodate the seemingly unstoppable switch from HMI


and tungsten incandescent to LED and emerging technologies like plasma. “HMI certainly pumps out a lot of light and there is nothing from any other source that does the trick. It’s the biggest gun


on everyone’s truck,” says Jon Miller, co-founder, Hive Lighting. “However, a lot of smaller fi lm units are looking


Jon Miller (left) and Robert Rutherford (right) founders, Hive Lighting


for practicality as well as quality of light and also something more energy effi cient. They want to do more with less, and new tools whether LED, fl uorescent or plasma are starting to give them that.” The quality of light emitted from tungsten is still valued by many cinematographers, despite the obvious drawbacks of heat and impracticalities of powering the fi xtures. But just as digital is replacing emulsion, LED looks set to overtake conventional sources because of its far superior energy effi ciency. “We’ve entered a new age of LED technology which is no longer about certain specialised niche applications,” says Ali Ahmadi, senior product


manager, Litepanels. “The


advantages of LED have been


clearly recognised. While there’s a lot of legacy product still being used, when a replacement cycle comes up they choose LED.” In some of its newest fi xtures, Litepanels has set out to match HMIs. Its Solar 9 outputs the equivalent of a 1K tungsten; the Sola 12 is equal to 2,000W tungsten with the option of battery operation rather than generators (and used to shoot Elijah Wood series Wilfred on location). “The reason we did this was to try and overcome the hesitation among technicians toward LED which is perceived as a new technology,” he says. “Instead of reaching automatically for a 1K HMI, we want them to grab a Solar.” Primarily designed for studios, the fi xtures include DMX control.


Similarly targeted at HMIs are Litepanels’ Hilio daylight 12 and Hilio tungsten 12, very high output panels, comparable to a 2K tungsten Par. Instead of heavy glass lenses, a proprietary nanoptic lens is used to bend the light in circular, horizontal or vertical patterns and essentially convert the open source into a soft light or broad directional fi ll. “The trend has been toward bigger and brighter LED light sources and on improving the colour output,” says Ahmadi. “There’s been a signifi cant improvement in high colour rendering over the past couple of years.”


LEDs were notorious for emitting green banding in skin tones and missing red tones which created extra correctional work in post.


“Cheap LEDs will still give a horrible cast-off although you can use this to your advantage,” says Alex H-French, marketing manager for Rotolight. “Use one to give an extra green fi ll to the face when shooting scenes where computer screens are prominent.


Using 276W and weighing 10lbs, the Bee has a 100˚fi eld


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