I had a very nice shoot earlier this week at Le Manoir, the hotel and restaurant of highly regarded TV chef Raymond Blanc. The subject of the shoot was a discussion between Raymond Blanc and another TV chef, Heston Blumenthal about how things have changed in the world of fine dining since Raymond Blanc opened Le Manoir. The conversation between Raymond and Heston was lively and often humorous. We had to deal with a few interruptions from noisy delivery trucks and amorous pigeons, but there were no complaints from anyone when we had to stop and start again. To add some added interest to the shots I used a small camera jib to track left and right as well as booming up and down. Even though we were outside with plenty of natural light I used a 600w Fresnel just to lift the faces of the chefs just above the background which helps keep the audience focussed on them. An HMI would have been better for this as by the time you add a full blue gel to a tungsten lamp the light output is greatly diminished. Really need to invest in some HMI’s!
Reading your posts, always a pleasure. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Alister, I use LED lights and they are far superior having a 5600K for fill-in in daylight. The other major bonus is the “V” lock battery holder on all my lights, this one feature alone is a major H&S bonus, no more cables to trip over not to mention the heat free barn doors.
A few companies now produce both focus “Fresnel” lights and Kino Flow do an LED version of the long in the tooth soft tube light.
I’ve yet to find an LED fresnel that has the punch of a tungsten or HMI light. In bright daylight a typical LED panel is not going to do much and the light spills all over the place so it’s difficult to light just the faces. The closest I’ve found so far to a decent fresnel is the LitePanels Sola 6, but even that is only around a 600w tungsten equivalent. For the price of a Sola 6 I can get two 575 HMI’s with electronic ballasts. These have the output equivalent of a 1.5K to 2K tungsten lamp and are full spectrum daylight balanced, so no funky skin tones as often encountered with LED’s.
LED is a technology that’s advancing rapidly, but it’s still not quit there yet.
I use a combination of two K5600 400 HMI’s and two LED’s.
small units that can handle almost anything with today’s super sensitive camera’s.
Having a small HMI gives your light kit a great punch. Worth saving for.