A Decade of Vanguards, #9

LED lights such as the Nila Boxer are poised to replace traditional HMI or tungsten setups.

Although lighting doesn't get as much effusive press as the latest camcorder, the constantly improving capabilities of LED lighting over the past decade could prove as significant as the latest developments in CMOS chips.

Camcorders that are lightweight and produce high-quality images are of most interest to cinematographers. But it's the nearly parallel development over the past decade of lightweight, power-sipping, cool-running lights that could be just as important for the future of video production.

While the earliest developments of what turned into usable LED technology go back to the beginnings of the 20th century, it was only in the 1970s that advancements in manufacturing the solid-state devices allowed dramatic price drops and thus enabled their wider use.

LEDs, or forward-biased (switched-on) diodes, benefit from the same R&D and manufacturing techniques that have made CPUs and GPUs such an important part of modern life.

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While red and green LEDs became common in all manner of products in the 1980s, one piece was still missing from the LED puzzle: How can LEDs make white light, the key to full color reproduction? While phosphors and coatings could create bright red and green LEDs, high-power blue or—even better—white LEDs remained an elusive goal.

That all changed when the first stable specimens of white LEDs came to life in the mid-1990s. (A white LED is actually a blue LED employing a phosphor that converts some of the blue to white.) By 2003, new companies—including Zylight and Litepanels—had formed to take the latest full-spectrum LED technology to market.

One of Litepanels' initial products, the Ringlite Cinema, became an instant success. Replacing cobbled-together quartz rigs, it enabled DPs to shoot close to a subject without melting either the camera or the actor.

Adding microprocessor control, now standard on better-quality LED lights, enabled dimming the lights from full-on brightness to 0 percent with little or no perceptible change in color temperature.

The LiteGear LiteRibbon is a flexible strip of LEDs with an adhesive backing. These can be installed just about anywhere light is needed.

Small, lightweight LED lights first enabled news and documentary camera operators to move beyond their previous hot, power-hungry on-camera quartz lights. LEDs' ruggedness meant they held up to rough treatment, too. Now, newer generations of brighter LEDs are starting to replace standard lighting on set.

Manufacturers have accomplished this, in part, by replacing LED lights' plastic lens casings and mountings with metal housings, cooling fins, and other heat-handling techniques. This allows much more power to be poured into the lamps themselves, leading directly to more output. (D.W. Leitner's appreciation of various manufacturers' technologies in this 2008 article is still relevant.)

What's the next stage from here? As Leitner mentions in his article, companies such as Nila are pushing LEDs towards replacing high-lumen output HMIs, still the dominant set light of choice. Nila positions its 21-LED Boxer, for example, as a replacement for an 800W or 1200W HMI or a 1200W or 2000W tungsten fixture—yet it draws a comfortable 250W, which wouldn't tax a home electric circuit. DMX capability allows it to be controlled, including full dimming, remotely.

LiteRibbon from LiteGear, meanwhile, is a flexible, adhesive-backed array of low-profile, wide-angle LEDs. The strips can be cut into pieces as short as an inch, enabling DPs to install them in props, door edges, or just about any place a light is needed.

After a decade of fast progress, the future of LEDs is as bright as inventive manufacturers care to make it.