Ahhh... LEDs. The really snazzy new lights that everybody
wants to add to their hang. LEDs are cool and awesome, right?
Yes and no. As a designer I must admit that I am divided
when talking about LEDs. I love the color output. You cannot
believe how lovely these things are when they start scrolling through colors.
They pretty much blow conventional lights away when it comes to color.
We did a shoot out with the Source Four LED ellipsoidal and a regular
Source Four ellipsoidal gelled with Rosco 27 (a deep, dark red). To make
the outputs match we had to pull the LED fixture back to about 40% output.
Gel works by filtering out part of the visible spectrum. That means
that gel is blocking light output. If you will look in your handy dandy
gel swatch book somewhere there will be a transmission number. For Rosco
27 (that deep, dark red), transmission is 4%. That means that 4% of the
light generated will make it through that gel. Not a lot, huh? With
LEDs you can match the color and still get 100% of the intensity output.
It is bright enough to make your eyes hurt. What is not to love?
For a designer, the color of LED fixtures is the biggest selling point.
A Source Four LED ellipsoidal with a gobo
There are, of course, other things to love. LEDs don't
generate the heat that conventional lights do. Your actors will love you
for that and your HVAC costs will go down. LEDs pull nominal power
compared to a conventional light. If you assume that most of your conventional
lights pull at least 575-1000 watts, an LED pulling 80-140 watts is pretty
fantastic power savings. To make life even better, instead of hanging a
three color down wash, you hang one set of fixtures that can be any color you
want. Your hang and focus costs are cut by two thirds. Again I say,
what's not to love?
Well.... there are still a few downsides to the LED. The
industry is working on the kinks and most of these babies are tons better than
they were even two years ago. But there are still flaws to keep in mind
before you go crazy and throw out all your conventional lights.
My biggest gripe as a designer is the dimming curve. LEDs have a different dimming curve than
conventional lights. We expect lights to fade evenly to zero percent when
we tell them to fade out. For the lower end and some mid-range LED
products the curve is still problematic. They fade to 1% or even a half
percent and then they click off. While small, it is still noticeable and,
quite frankly, annoying. I find it to be distracting both as a designer
and as an audience member. The higher end LEDs don't do this. With
LED fixtures you totally get what you pay for. A $2500 light will just
work better than an $800 light. The $800 lights aren't horrible.
They just aren't as smooth as the $2500 lights.
Which brings up problem number two- cost. LEDs are
substantially more expensive than conventional lights. Are they worth it?
If you put in a good fixture they are definitely worth it in the long
run. You will save both time and energy. The cheap LEDs will
probably be more hassle than they are worth. The exception there would be
in special effects LEDs. American DJ is making some interesting special
effects that aren't horribly expensive and that work fairly well. They
have the best water effect I have seen in a while and it is super easy to use.
Plus it really truly looks like moving water. You can also use it
for a pretty easy fire effect. Very nice.
Problem three is control. You need a fairly smart console to
run LEDs. An old slider board or two scene preset isn't going to be
enough. Unlike conventional lights that just use one address, LEDs take
multiple addresses. The newer, nicer consoles see LEDs as one channel
with multiple attributes or parameters. Older consoles will see each
attribute as a channel and thus a slider. The LEDs will eat up your
channel space. If you are just using a few LEDs you possibly can limp by
with your old console. You would be better served to plan to upgrade your
console when you purchase an LED package.
ETC Ion console in action
The last thing to keep in mind when contemplating an LED addition
is that it is not a conventional light.
It is an entirely different type of fixture. It’s not bad.
It’s just different. The majority
of LEDs are wash fixtures, but they are not fresnels or PARs and they don’t
work like an incandescent source. Unless
you are going with one of the higher end units you can expect there to be more
spill light than you are used to with a fresnel. They just are not as controlled as a single
source filament fixture.
So are LEDs worth dealing with?
Certainly so. Technology is
growing by leaps and bounds. It seems
like every day a new fixture is coming out that is bigger, better, stronger and
cheaper. We now have LED wash fixtures, LED
ellipsoidals, LED zooms and even LED moving lights. Eventually, the incandescent will go the way
of gaslight and candles and we will all be using 100% LED rigs. Won’t it be pretty?
Live on the Green, an all LED concert rig
Live on the Green, an all LED concert rig
No comments:
Post a Comment