Re: Thoughts on this fluorescent + LED Light setup for mostly Interviews

Here's the deal overall...

An "all led" kit makes perfect sense if the job is suited to it. The last time I had to do interviews in NYC - that's exactly what I took with me. And I got fine interviews with it.

Why?

Because the subject was a single person (limited area to light) the location was contained (hotel room not a factory floor) and the power efficiency of LEDs meant that I could go "all battery" and eliminate packing power cords - which typically weigh more than batteries and are (usually) a much bigger hassle to travel with.

If that's what you do - hotel room interviews - LEDs are great. And you can use them as key, background and rim (hair lights) perfectly well. Add a pop up bounce and you can do an interview in a contained space with no problem.

The problem comes up when you're not doing a single person interview - and you're not in a small hotel room - and you're not shooting constrained to working with battery power.

Then you need a totally different array of tools.

If you want to control light, fresnels with barn doors, ellipsoidal with pattern projectors, and similar tools will do a vastly better job than any LED array of helping you create more visually interesting backgrounds.

And if you need to brighten a big area like a warehouse interior or a street exterior - then LEDs are nearly useless.

An all LED kit is like having a box of crayons with which to do art - and when you open the crayon box, all you have is a dozen shades of red.

Can a great artist do something amazing with that? You bet. But most artists like having a wider array of colors to work with.

Make sense?

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