Re: LED lamp instead of flash?

ASAAR wrote:
On Sat, 07 Mar 2009 15:09:16 -0800, Paul Furman wrote:

I never tried one, hmm, OK yeah, I see with the on-camera flash... but it's just not very natural, like I can imagine just waving this thing around with my left hand to really see what exactly it's looking like from different angles. The D700 flash modeling preview is pretty bright, just seems weird to use but probably similar intensity to the LP-Micro LED thing, or more. I assume the modeling flash is not the same intensity as the final image, flash compensation doesn't seem to change brightness, this would be 100% wysiwyg.

No, it couldn't be. IIRC, it's limited to about 2 seconds, and I
guess that by that time the flash's capacitor needs to be recharged.
I don't see any need to wave a camera around since speedlights don't
have to be attached to the camera to use their modeling lights, but
it's not clear how you'd want to use modeling lights with the
camera's flash and the external light you want to get, so I may have
misinterpreted what you wrote.

I don't want to use flash at all. I was thinking: camera in right hand and the light in my left hand, move the light around different positions to see what looks good. Actually no need to look through the viewfinder...

It would also be handy for macro. At 1:1 with the thing a few inches away it would be like a powerful light box, good for focusing too when stopped down on a bellows... or maybe not, that's what I'm hoping it would be good for.

I bought a cheap hot shoe mountable light in Circuit City several
years ago. It had a bank of LEDs and it sort of worked, but not all
of the LEDs were aimed properly, it vignetted badly unless used with
a telephoto, and the light quality was poor - not the most uniform
spectrum, but OK for B&W photography, I suppose. It also needed a
King Kong to remove the battery cover, so I returned it.

The technology just keeps improving, plus this one isn't cheap. I picked up an 8-bulb cheapo headlamp at Walgreens, it's pretty bright but very blue and not dimmable. I was just curious, dismantled it & tried one of the bulbs on a single AAA battery and it burned out, melted inside. Apparently the voltage regulation has to be very precise unlike incandescent bulbs. This model is supposed to have very well balanced white light.


--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

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