small LED battery powered light panels

normally most of the work i have done at a local TV station all the equipment is provided from cameras to lights including large light kit and smaller LED panle light with a cine arm to mount it on sony xdcams (PDW-335 and PDW-700) and i am really wishing i owned one of my own to use for personal stuff i shoot with my 7D. i dont want to drop like $300 on a light but i am totally unfamiliar with the companies that make majority of these small lights. i have only worked with large kits made by arri and lowel.

my question for anyone that has these panel lights is which ones have you worked with and what are your impressions on them? I see several on B&H but it looks like their selection is rather small. i would love for it to have a 1/4"-20 mount to accept any mounting options but i would be totally ok if it had a hotshoe mount built onto it.

The z96 LED light is powerful for its size, lightweight, and inexpensive with a hotshoe.

http://www.amazon.com …Light-Panel/dp/B003UCGDSS

$77 kinda scares me for something like this. i dont know how much faith i would have in the quality of something that cheap when most other lights i have seen are more in the $200 area

Brian_R wrote in post #15124702
$77 kinda scares me for something like this. i dont know how much faith i would have in the quality of something that cheap when most other lights i have seen are more in the $200 area

The primary difference between the cheepo lights and the real (higher priced) ones is the quality of the LED's and the Color Rendering Index (CRI) of of those LED's. While the low priced LED's may seem just as bright as the higher priced units their low CRI will play heck with your color balance. The other weigh-off is heatsinking the higher priced units will have decent heatsinks for the LED's ensuring a nice long life which equates into a lower total cost of ownership.

Personally I am a fan of Anton-Bauer UltraLight LED units, they are well built and output a very nice light.

I friend of mine has a couple of Lite Panels and they also seem to be pretty decent LED lights as well which is not too odd as Anton-Bauer and Lite Panels have the same parent company and Lite Panels may actually build the AB LED lights.

Wayne

yea we use tons of anton-bauer gear at the TV station. i think they finally have replaced all the Vipers with bauers as well.

not sure if i can afford anton-bauer gear but ill check out the prices. didnt know they were making LED lights now. only lights of theirs i have used are their Ultralight.

thanks for the tip

Brian_R wrote in post #15125507
not sure if i can afford anton-bauer gear but ill check out the prices. didnt know they were making LED lights now. only lights of theirs i have used are their Ultralight.
thanks for the tip

Unless you need a match to the AB Ultralights look into Lite Panels they are a bit lower priced and I think they are the ones actually building the AB product though within the AB enclosure.

Wayne

thanks again. i like the price of the Lite Panel lights on B&H. not too high but looks like it comes with good quality.

still looking at another section on B&H that has much more LED camera lights. lot more to chose from than i thought. was looking in the wrong area on their site lol.

this digital juice company looks like the have a nice light but people just dont give enough feedback on their purchases if they even buy them.

trying to look through all these lol http://www.bhphotovide​o.com …24+4138044042&s​rtclk=sort

after considerable research and calling other videographers that i work with i decided to order the ikan 144 LED light on B&H

Does this look familiar?

http://fotodioxpro.com …-removable-batteries.html

probably the same thing. although i didnt see any feedback or reviews or impressions on the fotodiox. i only saw just a few things on ikan so thats why i chose to spend the extra dollars.

i have also used other ikan gear before in the field so im slightly more familiar with them than fotodiox, and havent had a bad experience using ikan stuff so i felt safer going with them lol

sspellman wrote in post #15143372
Does this look familiar?
http://fotodioxpro.com …-removable-batteries.html

In my opinion with a CRI of 82 that light is useless for anything photographic, be it still or video.

Wayne

Looking into theses LED flashes and leaning toward the IKAN 144 BI-COLOR.
Would this suite a dim lit reception lighting carrying it around as an off camera flash?
Any pics as examples?
Thanks!
Channel One, what small camera flash size light do you suggest with a 100 CRI?