LED grow light panels for continuous lighting?

[Neal Chaves]

The major competitor for LED lighting today is induction lighting. Induction has high power, long tube life, accurate daylight color balance, cool operation and instant start-up. One of our forum members, my friend David Mendelsohn, http://www.davidm.com
is leading the way on this and has a distributor agreement with a manufacturer. The induction sources beat LEDS on power and price for continuous light sources for film, digital and video applications. Contact Dave for more information.

[Jay DeFehr]

I saw this article recently-

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/08/ff_lightbulbs/

Very interesting.

[jp]

I received the two panels I ordered. The color temp is a bit cooler than cloudy daylight, but it won't matter for B&W film. I haven't done a white balance card with digital yet.

I took one apart. It's economically constructed of chinese origin and simple design. Its rugged, but unfinished inside. The 225 LEDs are on one big circuit board (with a white finish or mask on the front). No UL or CE listings that I saw. I took the back cover off, and the power cord that goes from the internal switching power supply was hand soldered to the board, tied in a knot for strain relief and goes out the corner. It was free to abrade against the circuit board, where the LED's leads are were not trimmed after wave soldering. Basically a cord flopping around against a board covered with sharp metal pins. As is, I can't recommend it for unattended use unless you want to provide a sleeve, tiedowns, or standoffs for the cord inside the box. The switching power supply circuit board on the back of the LED panel board was attached with adhesive foam like weatherstripping. A higher quality design would have used plastic or metal standoffs to connect the circuit boards together mechanically.

The light output was plentiful and fairly directional. It was lighting up the wall 15 feet away in normal interior lighting. I put a person beside a full height glass door, where it was getting cloudy diffuse lighting from outdoors (gray day but not gloomy), and put the LED panel on the other side of their face, and it provided a comparable amount of fill. I haven't shot any portraits with it or measured it with a light meter. I'll do that within a couple weeks.

Kinda got what I paid for for $32 shipped. I have no idea if more expensive chinese grow light panels are built better but wouldn't count on it.

[Jan Harvey]

What these lights produced sun spectrum for plants ?

[Jeffrey Arthur]

Amazon has a wide selection of led lights for photography with barn doors.

[Jan Harvey]

Thanks jeffrey for sharing information about best source of grow lights.