LEDs to replace colour changers

[Hambone]

I'm looking to upgrade these with LED fixtures. I'm using eight of them. The few cheap LED PARs I've played around were uselessly dull in comparison.

 

Anyone using these?

 

Would four of them provide a similar level of illumination to the eight colour changers? The cameras (Sony EVI-D70) require a fairly bright dance floor to make for a good video projection and recording.

 

Thanks!

[Ynot]

Would four of them provide a similar level of illumination to the eight colour changers?

Initial thoughts?

No.

The cheap & cheerful Showtec LED's are at most going to give you about 200-250W output, but are a very different beasts wrt output to your Chauvets.

 

So your 8 x 250W spots are going to be brighter than the 4 LED pars.

You'll get a softer light output with the pars, and depending on where they're positioned you may find problems with the LED's appearing to flicker on screen (when they're not visually doing so to the naked eye.)

We noticed this quite markedly on our stage monitors last month.

 

The one bonus you'll get from the LEDs though is that whilst the Chauvets give you (eg) red by shining thru the gels on the colour wheel, thus cutting some of the lumens, the LEDs are perhaps brighter in some ways because they START off as red.

[paulears]

Very different beasts. The Chauvets are quite narrow, so appear quite bright. The PAR LEDa are quite wide, and therfore dim - so they would complement each other, but are not able to do the same jobs. The Chauvets in haze look great, while the leds will do washes.

 

Not very easy to do this comparison.

[Hambone]

The Chauvets do look good in haze, without the diffusion filter on. But the video cameras then struggle with exposure because of the uneven illumination.

 

With the diffusers on, the video is great, but I don't get the nice, bright beam in the haze. So I'm currently using the centre four with the filter on, and the outside four without.

 

For washes, LEDs seem better, as long as they're bright enough. No more bulbs, heat, heavy fixtures, or scrolling through colours (which I hate!)

[Ynot]

For washes, LEDs seem better, as long as they're bright enough. No more bulbs, heat, heavy fixtures, or scrolling through colours (which I hate!)

Where are you located? Maybe someone close to you has some LEDs that you could 'screen-test'..

I have a dozen, but unless you're in the midlands...

[LDODD]

You won't get the same level of illumination. You should probably find that one of those units is as bright as a 150W halogen. (Assuming that they are 1W devices)

 

Also consider that if you're using a camera - you will likely get PWM "flicker" of the colour changing output.

The more, shall we say "cost-effective" units tend to create issues with pulsing and camera frame rate - leaving a rather interesting effect on the film.

 

If you're doing this seriously, then one of our LED Flood units, Pulsar, James Thomas and the SGM palco would possibly be a smarter option.

[paulears]

The only flicker problems on mine are when they are quite dim, on a solid colour - my cameras don't object to higher level settings. I'm surprised the OP has trouble with these cameras - they're quite sensitive. I wonder if they have been left on auto iris? This makes them very unpleasant with flashing coloured lighting. A bright beam in haze and black background - sure as hell will mess up the auto iris and pump badly. The snag is compounded by the contrast - far too high for the cameras to manage, so washing the area to get the black levels up a bit and reduce the contrast should help. So my advice is decrease contrast, rather than increase lighting levels, but keep contrast the same. Making the lights brighter, actuall could make the problem worse, if the shadows remain very dark.

[lonfire]

Also consider that if you're using a camera - you will likely get PWM "flicker" of the colour changing output.

The more, shall we say "cost-effective" units tend to create issues with pulsing and camera frame rate - leaving a rather interesting effect on the film.

 

I was just going to say this.. one of my suppliers says their 24x1w led parcans don't have this flicker when using cameras, it was something they specificaly designed the unit for..

 

rgds

chris

[niclights]

If you're doing this seriously, then one of our LED Flood units, Pulsar, James Thomas and the SGM palco would possibly be a smarter option

 

I was going to say the same, given OP already said "The few cheap LED PARs I've played around were uselessly dull in comparison"

 

In regard to the serious units I have now had time to play and compare SGM Palco3 against DTS Delta RGB units and can't say enough good things about the DTS. They make the Palco look like a toy. Even though they both spec at 2800 lumen the DTS was noticeably brighter (without boost). Crucially the DTS uses 40x RGB LED's as opposed to the Palco (and smaller brother DTS TriLED) which have three separate arranged sets of the LED's. This gives a uniform beam regardless of colour and is the same off-axis as it is on (unlike Palco where you see clearly see the components off-axis). White is a beautiful white, instead of the usual lavender/pinkish and the colour correction channel gives stunning results likewise. In moving version the movement is full 360/180 and quick enough to be used as effect, should you wish. Most important is they are significantly cheaper than the Palco!

 

I wonder if you would be better purchasing two non-moving versions of these with wide-angle lens (40degree) This should just about fit in budget given you were considering 4x Stairville. I would certainly be a lot more confident purchasing the DTS but obviously the question is will two get the coverage you need?

 

HTH

[musht]

Other slight problem with Stairville units as someone else illustrated , cant find link to post, the panels are 3 single colours rather than mixed, so its a splat of R, G and B.

 

Guessing beam angle will around 15 degree mark which dont make a good wash, widening to a 30 or 40 is spreading it a bit thin.

 

High enough frequency on PWM should eliminate beat frequencies with cameras, certainly worth trialing, not only cheap units had this problem.

 

Interested to hear Nic`s comments on DTS unit, struck me after had rant about variable quality LEDs that there are a couple of credible makers now making high power single RGB LEDs. With the colour homogenised in the optics sounds like they offer a good look. Any further comments on general build quality etc. Nic?

 

Another interesting test involves a light meter and time. Phenomenon of LED droop that some less than optimally thermally managed units can exhibit, cr*p heatsinking, light output drops as LED warms , your eye will adjust for it so you wouldn`t notice it. Light meter or indeed camera with locked aperture will. For further real world simulation recommend a fan heater gently increasing ambient to that similar to a grid full of fan heaters, sorry, moving lites.

[niclights]

Build quality of DTS is very good. Felt solid and designed for outdoor. Connectors are on Harting which might seem a bit fiddly but allows for full IP65 rating. At least they are removable unlike the Palco floating XLR's. When not connected the data connectors have covers to seal.

 

Menu is via large OLED screen. Not important, but looks nice when you're setting up! They also have a secondary Tilt (manual) which I forgot to mention.

 

I had a good long play with one against the Palco and I found the DTS better in every way. The only possible downside was slightly larger & heavier. Nevertheless I was impressed enough to order some - forgot to mention that. Will probably do a full review in LED's thread when I have them.

 

In the meantime I have been in contact with their tech support for details such as max. consumption @230v 50hz (=1.5A) and am very happy with helpful and quick responses.

 

Link: http://www.dts-lighting.it/viewdoc.asp?co_...G=en&Tipo=1