Anyone use LED studio lights?

Rotolight has some advantages, as it is a full spectrum light source. A lot of LED lights are missing huge chunks out of the spectrum, which can result in colors not looking so great. Color rendition out of their products is generally much better than the competition, unless of course you're going to start spending a lot of money (like say on a LiteMat).
Might I ask why you're interested in using LED's for stills? Are you planning on shooting a lot of motion and you prefer fast shutter speed over strobe freezing? Are you planning to mix a lot of daylight with LED? Do you simply just prefer to be able to meter with the camera meter and not have to adjust? Or do you like the ease of seeing the light pattern without having to take a picture?
 
I'm mostly interested in them for size and portability. Probably as a fill light and not my primary light source.

I'm only now getting into studio/portrait photography, and short of having a camera, I have no lights at all to work with, so now I'm trying to build myself a simple set up with a single light (or two) and maybe a reflector silver/gold and go from there.

Money is an issue, only because I'm not sure how much time I will have to play with the setup and don't want to spend too much, only for the lights to be collecting dust.
 
The cheapest way to start is probably to buy PCB gear used. Even new an AlienBee B800 is $279. For an extra $75 ish dollars, the DB800 can be had for $350. Which comes with the advantage of having an LED modeling light and a much smaller package as well as digital control. Then just pair it with whatever radio trigger you choose and move on from there for the future.
This comes with advantages and disadvantages over LED of course. The biggest advantage is power, which can't be underestimated. The biggest downside is probably cost. As you'll probably want to invest in at least one modifier.

LED's major advantage is mostly to be able to see what you're doing before you take an image. But it's downside, low power, can some times be really tough to deal with if you need a lot of depth of field and you don't want to crank up the ISO. You'll never be able to overpower the sun for instance with an LED.

Usage case of course then changes a lot of things. If you're going to live in both the video and the stills world and only want to buy once, the logical choice is LED. If you're going to be in the stills world 100% of the time, I'd go for a cheap strobe. Buy it used and any associated gear used. Worst case scenario you sell it for roughly what you paid for it.
 
The scary part is, lights+accessories are getting expensive really fast. (but hey... I've already spent $15k on the gear.. what's another thousand, right? :rolleyes:) Only a couple of a days ago I was looking at a simple LED fill flash, and now I'm looking at lights from the likes of Godox that are $600 apiece (mostly because a buddy of mine uses them and swears by them, and agreed to let me use them this weekend). And while my budget is for the most part flexible, I really don't want to find myself in a rabbit hole. :banghead:
 
northrop said:
The scary part is, lights+accessories are getting expensive really fast. (but hey... I've already spent $15k on the gear.. what's another thousand, right? :rolleyes:) Only a couple of a days ago I was looking at a simple LED fill flash, and now I'm looking at lights from the likes of Godox that are $600 apiece (mostly because a buddy of mine uses them and swears by them, and agreed to let me use them this weekend). And while my budget is for the most part flexible, I really don't want to find myself in a rabbit hole. :banghead:
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If you're a studio shooter, than lighting is probably the best investment you can make. Even over camera. At this point a 12MP camera and $10k worth of lighting gear (well that and grip/electrical) will net you a far better result than a 48MP camera if you're always stuck in fluorescent overhead lighting. Also considering that lighting gear allows for crafting of the light. Still, if you're primarily a natural light shooter and you know how to see the light and manipulate it for your work then you can just skip lighting altogether.

Sue Bryce has made a 20+ year career essentially doing just that. I know a lot of people would talk smack and say she doesn't know what she's doing, but I would actually say it's the opposite. She really knows how to get natural light to bend to her will and get the looks she wants. AND she's disciplined enough to start learning strobes this late in her career. Not because it will make her more money (as she's already multi-six figures), but because she loves the craft aspect of photography, and realized that she needs to expand there. To learn more. Even at this point, she says that 90% of her work is natural light.

So take that side diversion for what you will. If this is about making money then it's not necessary (most wedding photogs and portrait photogs don't use strobes). But if you love the art of crafting light and you're a studio type of shooter then it will open up worlds.

As far as gear, everyone has their flavor. But it's more or less indisputable that the top three are Broncolor, Profoto, and Elinchrom. Underneath that is up to a lot of debate. I don't have a whole lot of experience with Godox, so I can't say much. But I do know that the Phottix Indra is the flavor of the week (month, year, whatever). And after doing a bunch of research on them, I definitely made a conscious decision to stay away from them. The Indra suffers from color accuracy issues (different color temperatures at different wattage settings) and Phottix's customer service apparently is a nightmare. If this is supposed to be a piece of workhorse gear, I want to make sure that when it's time to get something repaired or otherwise serviced it will happen quickly and efficiently. With Phottix, it isn't there. At all.

I went with PCB as a result because they have the best service and their equipment is reasonably reliable. Their stuff definitely isn't pretty. And it doesn't have a bunch of fancy settings. However there is a massive track record with them. A lot of photographers have used their gear and survived. That isn't to convince you to go that route. You have to figure out your own gear and what matters is how it works for you and your workflow. But hopefully that explains to you why I went with what I did (which was 5x PCB Einsteins).

So my only other advice then is to work with what works. Avoid gimmicks. Avoid flavor of the week. Avoid the hottest trend and the next big thing. Usually the next big thing is just after your wallet and not going to give you better performance or performance per dollar better than what is already on the market (with some exceptions, generally at the top end, and also only generally for photographers that need that level of gear).
 
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