Re: LED lamp instead of flash?

On Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:04:56 -0700, Paul Furman wrote:

Checking the reviews on B&H's website, many of them noted that the
amount of light produced was sufficient to illuminate faces close to
the camera. So it wouldn't be much more useful than that, but could
come in handy as a hair light or for producing catch lights. But
for that purpose, a slave adapter attached to any cheap flash that
can be dialed down to 1/64 or 1/128 power would be much less
expensive, and at that power the batteries could last much longer.
For these purposes the modeling light feature wouldn't be especially
useful, and a $5 or $10 LED light could do that chore just as well.

Perhaps several cheap LED flashlights bundled together but without any
way to match the strength of the effect. Will it act as fill or
overwhelm the main light?

LEDs, whether flashlights or the expensive 48 LED light you
discovered would make for very poor fill lights. The amount of fill
light needed must be balanced with the ambient light, and the camera
can do that easily with the built-in flash or a speedlight. Doing
it manually with the 48 LED light's dimmer control would probably
result in a lot of test shots, but it might be ok if the scene
doesn't change much. If you have to walk around or shoot different
subjects, you'll spend most of your time chimping. :)


My on-camera flash dials from -3 to +1, that would be
1/8 compared to your 1/64 or 1/128, right? Sounds like
another benefit of an external flash. This thing has 48
bulbs, like 4 of my cheap 12-bulb flashlights.

Right, but going down to -3 with a smart flash is more than
adequate for fill light purposes. If you just need a lower output
that's fixed in output power, the on-camera flash can be changed
from TTL to Manual mode, and (for instance with the D300) can then
be set to any output from full power to 1/128, just like the
external flashes.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: LED lamp instead of flash?
    ... and at that power the batteries could last much longer. ... The amount of fill ... light needed must be balanced with the ambient light, and the camera ... can do that easily with the built-in flash or a speedlight. ...
    (rec.photo.digital.slr-systems)
  • Re: LED lamp instead of flash?
    ... and at that power the batteries could last much longer. ... The amount of fill ... light needed must be balanced with the ambient light, and the camera ... can do that easily with the built-in flash or a speedlight. ...
    (rec.photo.digital.slr-systems)
  • Re: TTL Flash and In camera meters
    ... I would go for manual control of the flashgun so that you are in control of ... Now does the flash use the camera setting and shoot ... with less power or does it meteer again and then lessens its burst. ...
    (alt.photography)
  • Re: Flash vs. Ambient light...
    ... The paper states "Canon EOS cameras always default to fill flash mode when ... when you let the camera meter it and set the shutter ... Okay, so, the camera exposure is obviously set so low ... lot of extra power... ...
    (rec.photo.digital)
  • Re: LED lamp instead of flash?
    ... The D700 flash modeling preview is pretty bright, ... I don't see any need to wave a camera around since speedlights don't ... it's not clear how you'd want to use modeling lights with the ... It had a bank of LEDs and it sort of worked, ...
    (rec.photo.digital.slr-systems)