The LED's Dark Secret (2009)

...and the realization of the reality of toxicity when one breaks on tile right in front of your toddlers.

Methinks if CFLs were promoted by one political party instead of another as a tactic for a particular sociopolitical strategy, we'd be hearing loud denunciations of promoting a product which uses a toxic & environmentally-unfriendly gas encased in a fragile housing.

Speaking of that, laims of LED longevity are troubling.

You better save your original receipts carefully. What if you get something that is supposed to last 25,000 hours but in reality it only lasts 15,000? I can imagine getting a refund, even a partial one, will be difficult, even with the original receipt.

Firstly how do you prove it was only used 15,000 hours? It depends on how many hours it was lit per day. How do you prove that the bulb you have in your hand is the one for which the receipt was issued? A newer receipt could be used to return an old identical item.

Is the store even around where you bought it? It's 30 years later now (so at least your receipt is credible, by the date printed on it), but you have nowhere to go. You only used that bulb 10,000 hours in its deployment location, by your calculations, and it turned into toast. You have to turn to the manufacturer for a refund. (A good argument for sticking to name brand LEDs like Phillips.)

Many LED bulbs claim outrageously long lifetimes, but as of now, this has not actually been tested; no deployed LEDs are anywhere near that many hours old. Basically, it's a matter of faith. People are gambling that if they pay more for and LED, it really will last as long as it claims.

(Don't get me wrong; I use LEDs. I have eight LED flood-lights, one LED room light, and two LED range hood lights! I just wonder about the longevity. I write the installation date on every bulb and try to save the receipts.)

Have a Home Depot near by? Go in and look at their Cree bulb displays (both warm and daylight colors).

The diode itself produces only a peak in the spectrum. Phosphors are used to convert the light to a wide spectrum. There are different kinds of phosphors, and there can be multiple coatings of different types. So you can also have different qualities -- and the quality can be very good.

They have both elements and allow you to dial in a ratio between them (just as multicolor LEDs are actually made up of very very small primary LEDs sandwiched together). They're not as good as HMIs or incandescents in terms of quality or power output capability, but they're 'good enough' for many situations where you just need a little extra light and it's more important to get a good shot than to go to a lot of logistic expense to get a perfect one - on a film set, time is money and there are literally hundreds of cost decisions that have to be made every working day.

The other thing they have going for them is that almost every film now comes under the hand of a colorist who adjusts the elements of every scene to favor a particular color palette - ideally one that was chosen in advance of photography and that is supported by lighting, costume, and production design. A tightly constrained color palette provides thematic unity and makes a big contribution to a film's 'atmosphere,' and generally takes precedence over photographic realism. The extreme example of this is making a film in black-and-white for aesthetic reasons; although that's a bit extreme for most mainstream audiences, many popular films are almost monochromatic with a strong tint. This creates visual tension and where the plot revolves pretty clearly around heroes and villains, strong visual contrasts underline the moral contrasts of the narrative. Comedies generally have broader colors palettes and colors are more saturated, reflecting the dramatically unpredictable and chaotic interactions of the characters.

Anyway, since shooting features on digital media became practical, and high quality digital scans of film stocks became affordable, filmmakers have exerted more and more control over the color of a film Because They Can, and the increasingly minor deficienices of LEDs are that much more likely to be smoothed away in post anyway because the white balance of a scene can be so easily manipulated in the digital realm.

Yup, prices have become quite palatable: still high, but between longevity (1 LED ~= 10 incandescent) and eliminating replacement hassle (obviate 9 climb-on-something replacements), and that the color issue is resolved to my satisfaction, they're preferable.

Only issue now is consistency in group replacements. While I'm replacing independent bulbs as they burn out, things like a vanity with 12 bulbs means dropping some $150 at once to replace all the bulbs so they will all be exactly the same model. Styling & performance is still changing rapidly enough that occasional replacement of a burnout in a group will result in inconsistent bulbs, looking sloppy.