In Broadcast - July 2014 - 60


I N T E R N A T I O N A L

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 33 - JULY 2014

N E W S

InTECH

Tiffen Adds Lowel Prime Location LEDs
T

60

if fen International has
announced the availability of
Lowel Prime Location LED lights
as a practical on-location solution
with the quality and versatility of
prime studio lights.
Lowel Prime Location LED lights
are designed for real-world location
lighting and include a rugged
housing and an IP-65 (Ingress
Protection) weather rating so they
can operate in conditions including
rain and sand or dust storms.
These primes are manufactured
to provide reliable 'studio' lighting
while withstanding the handling
and set-up conditions expected in
location operation. The rugged allmetal housing makes them suitable
for use with rental houses and grip
trucks alike.
The lights offer a high output
spread over a 50-degree beam
angle from their 1x1 LED panel.
They are available in three versions,
Daylight, Tungsten and Bi-colour.
They deliver a high quality of light
with a high Colour Rendering Index
(CRI) of 93 and can be dimmed
without producing a colour shift.
The light-diffusion front-piece
helps to reduce any LED multishadow effects.
There are further features to help
in meeting the practical needs of

location work. The lights can run
from 90-240 VAC power supplies.
Also, to connect multiple
lights Powercon AC bridging
between ﬁxtures is provided as
standard, reducing the need for
multiple AC outlets.
The lights are also supplied
with a choice of V-lock or Anton
Bauer Gold Mount plates for
battery operation.
As there are no fans, operation
is practically silent.
Light control accessories and kit
combinations are also available.
Lowel say that the Prime
Location LEDs offer practical
lighting for ENG/EFP and the
small location studio setups of
real-world production.
Tiffen is a leading manufacturer
of photographic filters, lens
accessories, software, and camera
accessories for the consumer
/ professional imaging and the
motion picture and broadcast
television industries, with 75 years
of experience.
The company has a rich history
of innovative product design,
superior optical consistency and
high quality.
Tiffen has been recognised
for its product and engineering
excellence, earning a Technical

Lowel Prime Location LEDs - Tungsten and Daylight

Achievement Award and a
Scientiﬁc and Engineering Award
from the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts & Sciences, as well
as multiple Emmy Awards.
The company offers a wide

range of products, which include:
Tiffen ﬁlters; Steadicam camera
stabilising systems; Lowel lights;
Listec teleprompters; and Tiffen
Dfx digital imaging software.

There Are None So Blind As Those Who Will Not See
By Simon Larn
Technical Director, Photon Beard

T

here has been a lot of talk about
plasma, ﬂuorescent, LED and
tungsten as lighting options, but
to make the best use of any light
source it's important to understand
the respective advantages and
disadvantages of each.

If we ﬁrst take a look at traditional
tungsten, we have a lamp that
provides a focusable near-point light
source with the highest achievable
quality of colour reproduction and
balance. Tungsten has a growing
reputation for guzzling energy
though, with
a good studio
lamp producing
about 10%
usable light
and about 90%
infrared and
convected heat.
However, with
the pressure
for
'green'
productions,
what
can
sometimes be
overlooked
is just how
little time the
Photon Beard uses remote phosphor technology
lighting might
for its 80W LED ﬂood for ENG

be switched on, and also how much
cheaper a ﬁxture can be.
Looking speciﬁcally at low energy
light sources, let's start with plasma
- a concept we introduced to the
ﬁlm and TV market several years
ago. This utilises a small quartz
bulb, ﬁlled with various elements
and bombarded with high frequency
radio waves that create a lightemitting plasma. This approach is
very efﬁcient as there is very little
heat in the beam, and the visible
spectrum is fully represented.
Importantly for some high-speed
applications, the plasma's output
is flicker-free.
Harnessing plasma technology
for image capture can be difﬁcult
though, and we're currently
exploring some new approaches
that have the potential to yield
interesting new fixtures.
With LEDs, we enter more varied
territory. We manufacture LED
lighting and with their solid-state
robustness, low weight and ability
to be battery powered they can offer
many beneﬁts for applications such
as ENG. For us the favoured route
is 'remote phosphor' technology.
Some LED products can be quite
'spiky' - the visible light produced

includes a number of peaks and
troughs. Potentially LED's from a
different manufacturer, each with
a slightly different set of peaks
and troughs, can produce a
different balance between colours
when viewed on camera. This
can be particularly noticeable
with skin tones.
Remote phosphor, which
utilises phosphor mixes applied
to a transparent surface and lit
from behind by blue LEDs, offers
advantages in terms of spectral
content, consistency and overall
efﬁciency. This is the technology that
we use in our new 80W LED ﬂood
for ENG, which provides about the
same quantity of light (lumens) as
a 300W tungsten lamp.
The other option is ﬂuorescent,
which does have spectral peaks and
troughs, but they are predictable
and perfectly suited to professional
image capture when speciﬁc types
of high CRI tubes are used.
Coupled with very good efﬁciency
in terms of lumen count when
compared to a tungsten lamp,
fluorescent is still a very costeffective option for general studio
lighting purposes in terms of energy
use, as well as ﬁxture cost.

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In Broadcast - July 2014

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