Photographic lighting has undergone several changes over the years. The first lighting was based around tungsten bulbs. Then quartz lighting proved to be more stable with less color temperature fluctuations. Then electronic strobes took over most of still photography, especially in the studio, and that seemed to solve most of the problems that photographers faced when using artificial lighting. With flash, they had short exposure times with adequate depth of field at low ISO ratings. Seemed ideal, but a funny thing happened when photography started to include movie making with digital HD-SLRs. Now flashes didn't work at all and the search was on for better lighting sources for video and filmmaking. For a while, florescent lighting was used, and still is a little, but then LED lighting was tried and that proved to be a significant innovation.
With LED lighting, you could have fairly bright lights that could compete with quartz lighting in terms of output, but LEDs were radically cooler. And by this, I mean that the lights remained cool to the touch. The main handling problems with high wattage tungsten and quartz lighting is that the light housing could heat up so much that you couldn't safely touch them after you were finished using them. You had to wait several minutes before they were cool enough to touch without burning yourself. LED lights don't heat up like this.
Until now, most LED lighting consisted of flat panels of LED bulbs arranged in a tight grid. And petty much what you saw was what you got. There were little or no light modifications you could use with them. But now, Fotodiox has changed that with the introduction of their new LED light, the LED100WA. This is an LED light based around a strobe style housing and made to be compatible with standard Bowens flash accessories, like umbrellas, softboxes, barndoors, snoots and more. The LED100WA is rated at 600 watts and is available in either 5600K (daylight) or 3200K (tungsten) color temperatures. It will sell for $324.95, and it can be purchased directly from Fotodiox.
