On camera LED lighting - Great if you can afford it

These are the LED lighting units from Zylight. While I've not seen these first hand, I have read quite a bit, seen video demos, and so on. If I had the money, one (or more) of these babies would be my first choice. The ability to tune the color temerature is amazing.

Do I now use LED lighting on camera? Well, no. I use a Luxman dimmable 50 watt halogen mostly. Why you may ask? After all, arn't LED lights better in every possible way? In a word, no. For one thing, they are expensive. An entry level Zylight kit is about $750. Sure, you can get lights in the $300 to $400 range, but there are problems will all of them as far as I can see. First of all, virtually every one is a default 5500K or so in color temperature. What was the thinking here I wonder. Virtually all event video work I do is at night, or indoors where the color temperature is 3200K, not 5500k or more!

For those that may not know, mid day sun is about 55oo to 6500K in color temperature. Tungsten lighting is about 3200K, a much cooler light. Our eyes adjust quickly, but the camera sees sunlight as bluer, and indoor light more in the yellow/orange range. Sure you can put gels on these lights, but that just knocks the output way to far down. A couple of models offer flip up gels, but looking at units such as the one offered by Varizoom look way too fragile. In fact, several lights I've looked at in the price range look rather fragile.

Don't even consider one that lacks a dimmer, as you will piss of the guests, and then the client in that order. Also, you will probably want some sort of diffuser with most LED based units. Unless I have some sort of winfall, I suspect I'll stick with my halogen.