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Using Lumee LEDs for light painting

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I guess it’s a sign of the times, but I get sent far more LED lights to test than any other light…. even though I never personally use LEDs.

When I say I don’t use LED lights, it’s not because I have a dislike for them, but for me, they have limitations that I struggle to deal with when I shoot what I shoot. If you’re after some affordable continuous light for video work that looks natural and emulates everyday lighting, then LEDs are your first and smartest choice. But for what I do, which is often very controlled and saturated colour work that is anything but natural, I’m going to stick to the control and power of flash for now.

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Rosco’s MIXBOOK is the “world’s first” digital gel swatchbook

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Gel and lighting manufacturer Rosco has released the MIXBOOK. They say that it is the “world’s first digital swatchbook”. If you don’t know what swatchbooks are, the physical Rosco gel swatchbooks are essentially sample books of the different gels and materials that Rosco makes.

But as LED lighting has become more popular, and particularly coloured LEDs, demands have changed. Rosco’s MIXBOOK digital swatchbook is essentially the digital LED equivalent of the original gel swatchbooks. It’s a handheld LED unit (although it has a 1/4-20″ socket, too) that can create just about any colour of light you can imagine.

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Lightcore is a 5800 lumen LED light for video that’s smaller than a speedlight

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The problem for many photographers making the move to video is that there’s generally a lot more gear, and most of it’s much bigger than the gear they’ve been using for photography. Especially if they work on location, and particularly when it comes to lighting. Well, Lightcore is here to help fix that. At least the lighting part.

Being funded through Kickstarter, Lightcore is a 5800 lumen LED light that’s smaller than a speedlight, and offers flicker-free operation even at 1% power shooting 120 frames per second. It claims the equivalent combined power of 8 60 Watt tungsten incandescent bulbs, and offers a CRI of 97+.

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Manfrotto announces the water-resistant Lykos 2.0 bicolour on-camera LED light

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While billed as an on-camera LED light for video, the new Manfrotto Lykos 2.0 is a pretty powerful 2-in-1 LED light panel that can also be quite handy for photography, too. And, of course, you can take it off your camera if you wish.

It’s a bicolour LED ranging from tungsten to daylight and it’s water-resistant, but not waterproof, meaning you can use it outdoors even in not-so-great weather. Its array of LEDs feature built-in lenses, to optimise efficiency, and it can be controlled from your Android or iOS smartphone, too.

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Spiffy Gear has launched Lumee, a $45 cinema grade wearable light

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Spiffy gear has released some pretty interesting products over the years. Products like the Light Blaster and, more recently, as they’ve started getting into the world of LED lighting, Spekular. Now, they’re expanding their LED lighting range with a small, wearable LED light called Lumee.

Lumee is what they’re calling a “slap light” and as the name suggests, it works like those slap bracelets many kids had in school back in the 80s and 90s. Lumee is available in two flavours. One is a cinema grade 95+ CRI bicolour LED while the other is a “mood-generating” RGB LED light.

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This brain-melting video explains why our cameras see in RGB – just like our eyes

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When we’re kids, in school, we’re taught that the primary colours are red, yellow and blue. But this isn’t entirely accurate when it comes to light. Pure white sunlight is made up of a whole spectrum of colours, with the primaries actually being red, green and blue. Our cameras with Bayer filter arrays on the sensor see RGB. Our monitors also display RGB.

But have you ever wondered how we’re able to get so many different colours from just three? And why just blasting red, green and blue LEDs at an object doesn’t always give you true white light? This fascinating video from Technology Connections isn’t really specific to photography, but light in general, and how red, green and blue affects our (and our camera’s) perception of colour.

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How to turn a broken LCD TV into a DIY LED light panel

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One of the things I love the most about DIY projects is that they can give a new life to the items that are destroyed beyond salvation. In this video, Matthew Perks of DIY Perks will show you how to repurpose a broken LCD TV or monitor and turn it into an amazing LED light panel. It almost perfectly simulates daylight, and it’s useful for photographers as well as filmmakers.

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Elinchrom launches their first continuous LED light and it’s $1,700

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Elinchrom has expanded its lighting range, adding to its long-standing range of strobes with a continuous LED light. Manufactured by Light & Motion in partnership with Elinchrom, the Elinchrom ELM8 is a portable continuous LED light with an EL mount. For Elinchrom strobe users, this means it should work with all your existing modifiers.

As we’ve come to expect from Elinchrom products, it’s not cheap, though. In Europe, it has a price tag of €1,379 + VAT and in the USA it’s $1,699.

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Soonwell FB-21 – An affordable option for a flex-type led light

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The LED panel and LED Bowens mount are both familiar form factors of LED lights. In the last two years, we are seeing a third type of LEDs enter the market – the Mat LED, A.K.A Flex-LED. Essentially it is very similar to an LED panel, only instead of the LEDs being mounted to a rigid surface, they are placed on a flexible mat, hence the name – Flex light.

The Soonwell FB21 is the last member to enter this family. It is conveniently priced at $428.00, which is by far on the low end of flex LEDs. Well, at least compared to the similarly sized $1,199.90 Westcott Flex. Here are our thoughts:

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