RWR Loc: La Mesa, CA

Someone said they ordered them from Costco.

Mojaveflyer Loc: Denver, CO

A friend invited me to come out and do some night photography on the ramp at a local airport a couple of months ago. He works part time at Home Depot and had a couple of work lights with him. He set them up around a helicopter that was visiting but I thought they worked well....

This was shot on the 'dark side' away from the ramp lights using his work lights.

(Download)

Dr.Nikon Loc: Honolulu Hawaii

Nice work ....

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Very nice work, James.
--Bob

rfmaude41 Loc: Lancaster, Texas (DFW area)

Find some with a CR of 95 (or greater). The normal LED's have "holes" in the visible spectrum.

CR = Color Rendering.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

Absolutely CRI is VERY important. If you have a low CRI then colors can be difficult to properly differentiate.
You could check with the manufacturer for specs or try using a color checker card. If you can't get the specs from the manufacturer the answer is that the bulbs are not good.

The manufacturer usually brags about high high (>95) CRI.

Gourmand Loc: Dallas

Look at the frosted shower curtains at Walmart for diffusion material. They come in three strengths of opacity. Don't put the lights right up against the curtains, but move them back a bit for safety and downright beautiful dispersion.

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

All very interesting. I had a similar need for LED lights for macro work. I am currently using a pair of bicycle headlights rated at 800 lumens each: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PSJG9G3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1. I don't have color temperature info, but I consider it bright white. Stripped down to the lamp, the cord, and battery pack.
The thing is, LED headlamps gives you lots to choose from. There are tons of these things out there.

aellman Loc: Boston MA

This kind of light is singularly unsuited for photography unless you want to flood the whole room with flat light with no directional modeling. If you try to use them as you would studio lights, their relatively small size will cause harsh shadows on human faces and some other subjects.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Bob,

Costco has them for $20.

https://www.costco.com/duracell-600-lumen-worklight,-3-pack.product.100664991.html

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

No, I don’t use.

White balance of discontinuous spectrum light sources is not predictable. Now if you have LEDs made for photography and video...

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Thanks Bill.....

I'll continue to lust over a $300 set of Lume Cubes and, while waiting, will have to accept my video color quality will suffer from the discontinuous spectrum.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1507565-REG/lume_cube_lc_v2prolk_lc2_professional_lighting_kit.html?sts=pi&pim=Y

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Actually, Ecosmart 100-Watt equivalent 5000-5500K LED bulbs aren’t awful. And IKEA makes better ones.

A 120-Watt, 12-120-Volt Inverter on a car battery seems okay with them, but keep the shutter speed at 1/60. Banding and flicker occur otherwise.

a6k Loc: Detroit & Sanibel

Yes it is. BUT let's work with that idea a little bit. Assume for the sake of argument that about 5300 Kelvin is daylight and that the sensor is going to do best at that WB. If you don't agree with that then skip the rest of this.

A different color light source may (probably will) have at least one of the primary colors lower than daylight would. Logically, it seems to me, a non-expert, that the only way to bring that back to daylight WB would be to selectively lower the other two in sufficient amounts to match daylight's balance.

So it also seems to me that you would be reducing your exposure and giving up some image quality.

You could also do this thought experiment in reverse and assume that two colors were brighter than for daylight and it would still affect exposure and perhaps image quality as well.

I don't know how important this is or what the practical limits of post processing for WB are so I will leave that to folks with more experience.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

In practice, this is about what I've seen. The sun and incandescent bulbs are continuous spectra sources. They have SOME energy across the visible spectrum at all frequencies. Our eyes are tuned to the sun. But they adapt easily to about 3200K incandescent, and okay at 2700K incandescent. A custom, preset, or manual white balance using a reference target can do a great job of neutralizing any spectral differences and revealing most colors very accurately. A profile made with an X-Rite Color Checker Passport can do a REALLY good job getting it right.

However, fluorescent tubes, sodium vapor lamps, mercury vapor lamps, halogen metal iodide (HMI) lamps, high intensity discharge (HID) lamps, electronic flash, and LED lamps all produce *discontinuous* spectra. Some or many frequencies of the visible spectrum are missing entirely from their output, which makes it difficult to produce all the colors our eyes and cameras expect to see. Despite the custom, manual, or preset white balance or a Color Checker Passport, without some of these frequencies, or with too much energy at other frequencies, certain colors will appear brighter, dimmer, or different from what we should expect to see.