Are LED photography lights better than traditional studio flash lights?
With more accurate color, the capacity to change the light, alter color temperature, and useable brightness levels, along with a "what you see is what you get" effect, LED lighting has advanced significantly in recent years. As a result, they are now quite popular. Why then do the majority of seasoned professionals (including myself) still choose studio flash lighting?
I'll describe the distinctions between the two types of lights, the benefits and drawbacks of each, and the ideal applications for each in order to help you understand the two types of lights and, more importantly, which is better.
What distinguishes a studio flash from a steady studio light?
Continuous illumination uses a light source that is on all the time to illuminate the topic, as the name indicates. Everything from the sun to fluorescent lights in an office or LED studio lights are examples of continuous illumination.
Due to its low heat output and ability to modify color temperature, LEDs have grown in popularity as one of the most common options of continuous lighting for photography.
benefits of constant illumination
Since you can see the outcomes of your lighting decisions in real time with continuous light, many beginning photographers think that using them is simpler.
Although you can now adjust the wattage and color temperature of many continuous lights, they still don't give as much control as flash or strobe lights. To further shape and manipulate the light, modifiers like parabolic reflectors and softboxes may be employed.
The capacity to capture video is a significant benefit of continuous illumination, especially when LEDs are used. LEDs are ideal for altering color temperature to your preferred level, and since they don't flicker, you may use them for both video and slow motion.
Having some LEDs in the studio is often extremely helpful since so many photographers are being asked to generate video in addition to still images.
Cons of constant illumination
The relatively low power output of continuous illumination as compared to studio flash is one of its key drawbacks (I go into this in more detail in the video and later in this post). Your options for aperture and shutter speed are limited because to the lesser output.
This isn't much of a problem if you're photographing fixed subjects, like still life or product pictures, but it may become a problem if you're capturing moving objects like people.
Since they must gaze directly into the intense, blinding light, models or other subjects for portraits may find the brightness of LED lights to be unsettling.
The capacity to totally darken the studio or filming location is likely the biggest disadvantage of continuous lighting, since any additional ambient light—from a window or even office lights—will contribute to the amount of light in the picture.
Strobes, also known as flash lights or strobes, as I demonstrate in the video, emit a burst of daylight-balanced (5600K) light and have both a flash tube and a modeling lamp. The modeling lamp serves as a constant light source, allowing the photographer to gain a sense of the lighting, while the flash tube produces the flash burst (which is activated by a remote shutter).
A guide to understanding studio lighting has further information on the modeling lamp vs. flash.
the benefits of studio flash
The primary benefit of studio lights and a major factor in why the majority of pros utilize them is the amount of power and fine control they provide.
As I demonstrate in the video, studio flash lights have a far higher power output than LED or other continuous lighting sources, giving you much more control over camera settings like depth of focus.
If your lighting system has a rapid flash duration, you can even freeze quickly moving things like water splashing or objects shattering with the help of a brief blast of flash.
Since studio flash lighting has been around for so long, there are many different modifiers to pick from, which allow you to further adjust the light.
negative aspects of studio flash
Studio flash has two basic flaws: it is expensive and is not appropriate for video production.
Studio flash may be rather daunting to a novice, particularly if you don't know how they operate or how to change the power, for example. However, they are really pretty simple to operate, and the modeling lamp gives you a rough concept of how the light would seem.
