The Benefits of Kino Flo LEDs
LED lighting has several major benefits.
These include its energy-efficiency and environment-friendly qualities.
LEDs have become more and more sophisticated, offering better quality and more versatility when it comes to lighting for film and video.
Film-makers and videographers can also make the most of the benefits of LEDs, and discover further advantages, by using Kino Flo LEDs on their shoots.
What Are Kino Flo LEDs?
Kino Flo LED lighting systems are designed especially for for digital imaging application like television and cinema production.
LEDs are becoming increasingly popular as a viable and effective alternative to traditional forms of lighting in video and film production.
As they have developed, there has been greater demand for consistency and improved colour rendition from LEDs fixtures.
Kino Flo lights offer certain advantages to videographers and film-makers, with specific aesthetic as well as practical and economic benefits.
The rapid development of LEDs has seen them go from being visually quite basic to offering high-quality lights that cover the full spectrum. Kino Flo lights will also highlight luminous skin tones and they come with a variety of effects.
- The Kino Flo Diva-Lite series offers a portable lighting fixture for video and film location work, providing cool, flicker-free and energy efficient lighting. This system include adjustable colour temperature, hue and saturation, and RGB control, plus built-in gels and full-range dimmers.
- The Kino 4×4 Bank is a flexible, lightweight system, updated for LEDs and perfect for whether you’re in the studio or on location. It features full RGB colour control and a wireless DMX interface.
All Kino Flo lights produce soft and precise lighting, which makes them well-suited to a broad range of cinematic styles.
What Makes LEDs Environment-Friendly?
The environmental and energy-saving benefits of LEDs come down to this: the less energy that it takes to produce light, the better.
There are two important characteristics of LED technology, which give it its environmental credentials:
- Source efficacy
- Luminaire efficacy
Source efficacy is how efficiently the LED produces light, and luminaire efficacy is how well the device and fixture work together to produce the lighting you need.
For good film and video lighting, you want a good combination of both these efficacies.
The efficiency of LEDs has several implications for the environment:
- They last longer, which means the production of fewer bulbs, and fewer resources needed for manufacturing, packaging and transporting them
- They waste less energy, therefore require less power, which has positive implications for the environment
- LEDs are non-toxic, containing no hazardous materials, making them easier, and safer, to dispose of.
LEDs are designed to last much longer than conventional bulbs. For certain standard forms of lighting, this can be as much as 20 times longer. They don’t require replacing as frequently.
This is especially useful when it comes to lighting on shoots, as it minimises downtime and boosts efficiency.
LEDs can be up to 80 per cent more efficient than conventional light bulbs. For example, fluorescent lamps will convert around 95 per cent of their energy into heat, and only the remaining 5 per cent into light. LEDs on the other hand convert 95 per cent of their energy into light.
They require less energy and are therefore much more cost effective for use on shoots.
The toxic elements in many forms of conventional lighting mean that you cannot simply dispose of them on landfill sites. They are a risk to the environment. They require specialist waste carriers for disposal.
LEDs are much easier, safer and potentially cheaper to dispose of, as they don’t require specialist waste disposal.
How Do LEDs Work?
LEDs are light emitting diodes. Diodes are semiconductor components that emit energy-carrying photons.
The material in LEDs enables them to emit large numbers of photons as light rather than heat. This means that illuminator LEDs can produce significantly bright light without also creating a lot of heat.
They combine this energy efficiency with long lifespans and instant illumination, making them extremely versatile.
This versatility also applies to lighting for video and film.
LEDs can also provide multiple colour options, involving coloured diodes. This is how Kino Flo LEDs can offer built-in gel colours and RGB control.
Why Use RGB Colour Control?
One of the features that Kino Flo LED lighting systems include is RGB control. But why is this important?
Before the arrival of RGB LEDs, if you wanted to bring more specific colour to images, you would need to add gels to your lights.
Many people still use this method, but what RGB control gives you with LEDs is the ability to add colour at the flick of a switch.
This is useful for when you need to create colour backgrounds quickly, or when you need to be able to cycle through a range of colours to decide on the best one.
With this kind of instant control, you can see whether a colour is working or not, and make any desired changes.
You can also use RGB control with your LEDs to use colour directly on the subject you’re shooting.
Why is Soft Light Important?
Many film-makers and videographers prefer to shoot their subjects with soft light. It is flattering to the features and physical characteristics of subjects.
Soft light eliminates hard edges where they can detract from the natural angles of human forms, and it diffuses hard shadows.
LEDs, such as the Kino Flo range, will produce the kind of soft light that videographers and film-makers want to shoot with.
The 4×4 Bank will incorporate FreeStyle LED tubes, which then give a single slash of light, of any colour.
These LED tubes provide 310° of light and if you fit them in the bank, then its reflector can project this soft light forwards at a beam angle of 100°.
How Durable and Practical are LEDs?
The energy efficiency of LEDs is useful for setting up lighting on shoots, since it means you can place your light source pretty much anywhere without fear of it overheating.
HMI lights, for example, require some warming-up time before use, and require cooling down, whereas LEDs will switch instantly on and off and always will stay cool.
Generally, LEDs are more lightweight than other light sources, adding to their convenience and portability.
They are also relatively durable due to the fact that they are solid state components. You won’t easily damage LEDs on a shoot by subjecting them to external shocks, or dropping them accidentally.
Tips for Shooting with Kino Flo LED Lights
As with all video and film-making equipment, to get the best out of Kino Flo LED lighting, you need to use it in the most effective way.
- Be prepared to modify the light. LEDs produce soft and precise light, but there will be conditions and situations where you need to control this in other ways, such as using a softbox or grid system.
- Maximise your lighting control by dimming your Kino Flo lights when necessary. They should maintain a constant brightness when dimmed down to any level, giving you the option of employing subtle but effective lighting.
- Don’t overdo the colour mixing option that comes with LEDs. Where you’re shooting in mixed lighting conditions, LEDs can help you by letting you use very specific colour temperatures. But if you adjust the colour balance too much from shot to shot, you can end up with footage that just doesn’t match.
Should You Be Using LEDs?
To a large extent, LED technology really is a no-brainer.
You’re saving on energy consumption, you’re helping the environment, and advanced LED technology means you have expert and adaptable lighting control at your fingertips.
These lighting systems are quick to set up, they stay cool, they consume less power and you also save on having to use colour gels. With Kino Flo LEDs, there’s more light per watt compared with tungsten lighting. You have manual and DMX remote light level control without any colour shift.
The high performance of LEDs, coupled with their durability and energy efficiency, positions them perfectly to make a real difference to your shoots.
