On-camera lighting is an absolute necessity for interviews and lighting an area quickly without much setup. Three things videographers always complain about are harsh light, power consumption, and heat output. LED light systems boast soft light, low power drain, long life (some up to 10,000 hours) cool operation, no UV radioation and virtually no heat output so they are a good choice for any videographer.

Questions to ask yourself when purchasing an LED light:

• Output at different distances
• Battery life
• Does it have a dimmer feature
• Wide angle / barn door / diffuser
• Colour temperature / filter application
• Ease of use
• Off camera use
• other hardware related topics (battery compatibility etc)

Major companies worth looking at:

For the professional:

Products ranging from $200-$800

• Litepanels LED view a video here
• IDX X3-Lite
• Vidled
• Zylight Z50

Semi Pro

• Mic Light - attaches to your microphone 5-8 feet away from camera-
• Flolight

Consumer level:

• Bescor LED-10
• Camera Bright X1-W

Make your own light

Last update: 07:58 PM Thursday, August 14, 2008