Anyone with experience in using constant light
ex. video light.

How much light do i need.
I’m planning to build some light head’s with LED.

Kenneth

http://www.niteriderdive.com/products.html
http://www.nocturnallights.com/

have a look at what people are making already .. check out their power .. then copy ?

Thanks Giles.

Have someone in here used for ex. video light for still photos.
What’s good what’s bad.
Any idea’s will be very welcome.

Kenneth

What are you using the lights for?

Video light or focus light or lights in lieu of a strobe for still photos?  May change a bit what you want or need.

For instance a focus light does not need alot of power and you want to make sure the strobes over power the hotspot

Video lights, well the more power the better.

Also want to make sure you do not have hot spots in the light.

Well my plan is to use it as primary light when shooting stills
with my 350D in Nimar house.

I will start up by making one light head like the one’s seen for video
with a wide light beam. I will try with 30 led’s to start with to se if that can do it.
If that’s not good i will try 60 maybe more.

And with a separate batt pack to place either on the bottle or
under the house.
I want the head’s to be as small and light as i they can get.
I want to use led’s because they can take almost anything.
And for long burn time.

Kenneth

Kenneth

I haven’t seen any recent entries in the thread so perhaps you have not gotten farther on your project.

White LEDs are more efficient in generating photo-useful light than tungsten bulbs and about as efficient as HIDs.  They are better tban HIDs in that they are very rugged, can be turned on and off with no warmup or cooldown delays and have 10s of thousands hour life.

Having said all that- you can’t get something for nothing.  To get a lot of light you will need a lot of power.  You can use as a comparison the power and light output of HIDs. 

You’re right in thinking of a lot of LEDs since LEDs give less light if they get hot because of increased power; less power per LED is generally better to achieve the high efficiency specs put out by the LED manufacturers.

Finally- since the light power and input power will be constant, it will be “wasted” when the shutter is closed.  That is why strobes are the preferred light source for still cameras!

Good luck.

Divetechx

Hi Divetechx.

Thank’s for your input.
The projekt is still on. I just have to much to do at the moment.
I will return to this thread when i have something to show.

Kenneth

I bought a UK Light Cannon 100 to (HID) use with my DS-125, but in my opinion the torch was not really powerful enough to add more then “focusing light”.

I recently built a constant light with 24 LED to use for macro photography on land, but they also got out power by the flash. Now building the 2.0 version, 10 “high power LEDs”  ((ten times as expensive then the previous, hopefully more powerful…))...

Please give us an update when You tried Your rig.

Thank’s for your info on this topic. Can you put in a link for those : high power LEDs”

(i have 3 bended ribs. så i will wait a month or so before i carry any diving gear)

Kenneth

I decided to go for LUXEON Rebel
http://www.lumileds.com/products/line.cfm?lineId=19

The LUXEON K2 also looks interesting, but I decided on Rebel since it should be easier to integrate into my mechanical design.

If the 10 Rebels are not enough I might add add few Lumileds ‘LXCL-PWF1’ that I only light during the actual photo ((triggered from the regular flash)).

Thank’s for the link

Kenneth

Has anyone of you also looked into Light & Motion’s new LED System?
They also have 2nd generation LEDs on a specially designed reflector
which are also completely spotless.

The Sunray 1000?

Looks nice and is probably brillant for video.

For still photography you are probably better of with two strobs (more light and cheaper).... Beyond two feet (or so) any constant light system will mainly work as “focusing light” and be out powered even by a quite cheap strobe…

Hi Kenneth,
how is the constant light project coming on?

Thanks,
// Magnus;

Hej Magnus.

Not much yet. I have found some 10W led and have some ideas on how to make the lightheads but they are not made yet.
When i have e’m ready you will know first hand here.

Kenneth

Hi Kenneth aka Divebum

Haven’t heard from you in a while. 

I’ve developed (http://www.ftechx.com) a 700 lumen LED videolight that plugs right into the Light and Motion Sunray battery pod.

You might want to take a look at the Cree XLamp MC-E LED.  It is a single package with 4 LEDs inside and a maximum power input of 7.5 watts with proper heat sinking.  It is compact and so you can use a few in a small space.

Art aka DiveTechX
http://www.ftechx.com