What’s so great about LED?
As a Theatre manager, you have probably heard about LED technology and somewhat already understand the many benefits of switching to these high power, low energy diodes. It may be your first time hearing anything about this, but it will provide you with the utmost best quality and may even benefit you more than you would probably expect.
To help give you a better understanding of what we are talking about, and convince you in the direction of LED lights here is a list of reasons what makes LEDs so great.
But before we start listing all the advantages that you would get from LEDs, we’re going to have a little lower on what exactly LEDs are and get back on track.
What are the LEDs?
When thinking about LEDs what it stands for and overall everything behind it starting from its science, gives off a very complex outlook towards it but in reality, it is pretty simple to follow along.
It consists of tiny light bulbs that are all connected to an electrical circuit, these lights are completely different from the average light bulbs that are usually used. LEDs don’t get very hot which makes them less likely to be flammable or resulting in them burning out.
LED Technology
In an abbreviated term, LED stands for Light Emitting Diodes. They can be found in various types of devices that source light. Some examples that people may find interesting and not have known what was the source would be on digital clocks that display the numbers for the time.
Most TV remote controls today may use LEDs to help send signals. Televisions themselves consist of the use of LEDs along with wristbands that light up (usually seen in a concert) and road traffic lights. The fact that all these everyday properties are have been using LEDs shows how impactful they are in society and everyone’s daily life.
They illumine light through the actions of electrons going back and forth a material that would be a semiconductor. Through this movement the result of light would be released, emitting through the LED bulbs.
An interesting fact about LEDs would be how, though they seem like something recent from a few years ago, in reality, they had been created since 1962.
Now understand what exactly LED technology is, it’s time to go back to the list of all the reasons and benefits that make LEDs so great to use.
1. To Start With, LED Saves You Money
To begin with, the main advantage of LED-based lighting fixtures is that they are up to 80% more energy efficient than traditional tungsten lamp-based lighting fixtures.
LED technology also offers a higher Lumen to Watt output ratio. Meaning that LED lamps can produce the same brightness as a traditional lamp of the same rating, but require far less power to do so. Higher brightness with lower power consumption means reduced Electricity bills and increased cost saving for your facility.
2. Hey, LED Is Nearly Maintenance Free.
LED luminaires to run cool and last up to 10x longer than traditional Lamp based on stage lights of the same intensity means fewer lamp changes and maintenance of devices by qualified technical staff who could very honestly be doing more important things.
Quality LED’s are rated at over 20 000 run time hrs. which is the equivalent of running the light fixture for 8 hours a day for 7 years before even thinking about a lamp change. – Basically, Time is money! If you save time, you save money!
3. What You See Is What You Get, (ON CAMERA)
The final task of any LED is to accurately reproduce the colors we see onto film or recorded video, this is where CRI becomes important. CRI or Color Reproduction Index is the ability of LED technology to accurately reveal color in comparison to a natural light source.
CRI extends a little further in that it is an indication of the uniformity of the light you will get when trying to match lighting fixtures. Basically, a CRI of below 75% means each light looks slightly different on screen. Anything above 90% will be fairly uniform and balanced ensuring consistent color reproduction throughout the set.
CRI should be important to any theatre director looking at broadcasting events for TV or direct Youtube streaming. Ultimately color graders are lazy and if your talent looks a slightly different color under each light fixture you are going to have problems in the edit.
4. Ready To Buy? Wait for Just A Second….
Throw a stone in China and you are bound to bounce it off a warehouse that is manufacturing some form of LED light, but what sets quality LED products apart from every other supplier is that the LED chips are designed and manufactured by world-leading LED light manufacturers.
Many International Lighting Brands outsource a large portion of their LED engines to third-party manufacturers. Who does not adhere to quality high standards?. Sadly this outsourcing can reduce the cost of the products. So this affecting the overall color reproducing ability of the LED and the overall quality of the product. Moreover, RGB controllers allow you to create a cool color-changing effect with your LEDs
All these points are the reason why LED lights are very popular to use. In comparison to the regular bulbs that you can find being used. As they are so small and tiny they were to the advantage of television creators and were the result of today’s modern televisions making them thinner and flat compared to the tubes that LEDs replaced.
Ultimately investing in LED is about thinking long-term. The quality LED luminaires will most likely cost a fair amount more than traditional Tungsten lamps. But the return on investment in LED will be accumulated in the long term.
So in my opinion, if you were to ask whether the switch of a regular light bulb and LED is worth it for you. I would say “YES!” as the outcome would be the best and most inexpensive and efficient option to go forward with.