As of late LED lights come up in every discussion I have about lighting. This newer, low power consumption fixture has many features and advantages, but like anything new there are some current “shortcomings” that should not be over looked.
What’s good about LED?
1. Low Power Consumption. As I mentioned above one the main draws for LED is the efficiency of the technology. Reasonable light output can be gained from a fraction of the power consumption of conventional lights, or better put, the “brightness to power consumption ratio” is far superior.
2. Light weight, portable and no external dimmer required. This is a huge draw for the small to mid-sized church. With a lighting board that talks DMX512 (lighting control protocol), a LED fixture can be connected to the DMX signal chain and then plugged into a standard 120v outlet. The infrastructure required is simple (DMX cable, looks just like a mic cable) compared to a standard dimming system and it there is a 120v outlet near no electrical work is required.
3. Small, compact and generates very little heat. If you have ever been in a small space with conventional light fixtures you know how warm it can get just from the heat that the lights produce. LED lights radiate a fraction of the heat that conventional fixtures produce.
4. Lots of colors. Well sort of… (more on this below) With a multi-color LED (usually Red, Green and Blue lamps or RGB) you can mix and match the colors at different intensity levels creating different shades of colors. This is done thru what is referred to as additive color mixing.
What to watch out for with LED.
1. Brightness. Currently, the brightness of an LED fixture does not compare with that of a conventional fixture. This is very much the case on the lower level, less expensive fixtures. Make sure you find out the output of the LED fixture to see how many you will need to stack up against a conventional fixture. By the way this can be very frustration because of how light output is measured. The three main way output is measured is Lux, Lumens and Candlepower. As each of the measurements is taken by different means and represent different values of the brightness it is hard to rank Lux vs. Lumens vs. Candlepower (comparing these are a whitepaper unto itself).
2. Color. First and foremost I have yet to see a good quality “white” from any of the RGB LED lights. Also additive color mixing produces color that is different from the color you get when you put a gel in front of a conventional fixture. Thus, matching colors between LED and Conventional fixtures is difficult and in many cases not possible.
3. Focus. With a conventional theatrical fixture you usually have a way to focus the light. With LED not only is the focus “soft” and not controllable (other than moving the fixture closer or farther away) if you are too close to the object being light you can get “shadows” or red, green or blue around the edges of the light.
Where to use LED.
For almost 5 years I have used LED as accent lights. I have a number of them mounted about 8 feet in front of and at the same trim height as the curtain that closes off the back of the stage. The fixtures are the $150 ea variety of LED lights and do a fine job of lighting the curtain. If you have a low ceiling and the fixtures can be mounted close to the front of the stage (10’-12’ away) you can create a nice color wash for your stage, with the added bonus of not giving every person on stage “sunburn” from a conventional fixture.
I would recommend looking at LED lights when you already have a DMX512 lighting control console and are trying to light something from a relatively close distance. In general if you can stay closer that 15’ away from the object you will most likely get acceptable results. If you need more light level another option is to just increase the quantity of LED lights that you are using. Yes this obviously makes it more expensive, but if you compare it to adding conventional lights, dimmers and then having to change the gels when you want to change colors, using multiple LED fixtures might cost less. This is without even mentioning the power savings.
If you do decide to go LED and have never played around with a LED fixture, I strongly recommend that you “demo” one before you purchase. LED is a different “animal” that conventional lights and that is neither bad nor good unless of course you end up with a dog and you really wanted a cat!
