I’ve been flirting with affordable LED in the studio for over a decade. And on each experiment, I’ve had change out of fifty quid. My latest sortie involved a pair of these things They have simple removable diffuser, reducing the need for a soft-box, they’re fairly robust and in addition to being dimmable they also offer colour controlled temperature (with a CCT from about 3000 Kelvin to 6500 Kelvin), c/w remote control. Overall they seem quite well-engineered and best of all, they are dirt cheap…
Above photo shows the spotlights fitted in a standard E27 studio bulb holder. Images below are from advertising literature…
Paid just over fifteen quid for the pair, inc. VAT and delivery. Seems they use two types of white LED, “warm white” and “cool white”, and then mix them to achieve an effective colour temperature. I have some RGB-CCT Mi-lights that work a similar way – and very effectively too. – only these things are a lot more powerful. Many modern smartphones also use the same technique to achieve a reasonable colour temperature for their built-in camera flashes.
I been a bit sidetracked with other projects but I plan to use them in the first instance for narrow aperture macro work (typically f/32 and f/64) where one needs lots of predictable, controllable light. Here’s where I obtained mine…
And here are some earlier budget-priced studio LED lighting experiments, that turned out to be moderately successful…
- https://garfnet.org.uk/cms/2016/12/20/converting-inexpensive-led-flood-lights-for-use-in-the-studio/
- https://garfnet.org.uk/cms/2017/02/11/cheap-but-effective-continuous-studio-lighting/
- https://garfnet.org.uk/cms/2019/11/20/safer-modelling-lights-for-chinese-flash-head-units/
- https://garfnet.org.uk/cms/2023/02/01/multifunction-usb-rechargeable-led-light/
