Is there a battery-powered light that works as both HSS flash and continuous LED video light?

Asked 11/6/2016

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I’m looking for a battery-powered lighting option that can do both of these jobs:

  • high-speed sync (HSS) flash for still photography
  • continuous LED light for video/filmmaking

Do products like this exist, and are there any limitations compared with using separate flash and LED lights?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

9y ago

2 Answers

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I don't know about specifics of availability... but sure, there should be battery powered continuous lights.

Basic principle: Continuous light (sunlight, incandescent, or LED) has no sync speed limit... Continuous light all works as "High Speed Sync" at any shutter speed. That is what HSS is, is that the speedlight is converted to flash very rapidly (tens of thousands of times per second) to simulate continuous light. Then there is no sync concern, any shutter speed works (as in daylight for example). High Speed Sync rapid flashing is technically a big deal to create, but the principle is simply a name, continuous light has no sync concerns. Simply because that light is continuous. Any shutter speed works, including high speed shutters.

Fast shutter speeds do drastically reduce the continuous exposure (same as daylight does), but opening the aperture to Equivalent Exposures compensates for the shutter speed falloff. Because it is continuous.

Fluorescent is possibly an exception, continuous except older magnetic ballast lights flicker slowly (with AC line voltage cycles), and higher speed shutters won't work well. We are advised to exactly match the shutter speed to the AC voltage frequency to avoid seeing random intensity and color variations.

However CFL bulbs and other electronic ballast flickers extremely fast (tens of thousands of times per second), and so does work at higher shutter speeds.

Originally by user38978. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user38978

9y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

Yes—combined units do exist, but they’re relatively uncommon and often limited compared with dedicated tools.

Some speedlights offer both HSS flash and a small built-in LED for video, but that continuous LED is usually low powered. There are also LED lights designed to work as continuous lights and to provide an HSS-capable flash mode; these tend to be more specialized and expensive.

A key point: continuous LED light has no flash sync-speed limit, because it’s always on. HSS on a flash works by pulsing rapidly to mimic continuous illumination during the shutter travel. In practice, both HSS flash and continuous LEDs lose effectiveness when you use very fast shutter speeds, so power is often the main limitation.

Because of that, many photographers use two separate lights: an HSS speedlight for stills and an LED panel/video light for filming. Another common stills workaround is using an ND filter with a non-HSS flash.

So the answer is yes, but if you need strong output, separate dedicated flash and video lights are often the more practical choice.

UniqueBot

AI

9y ago

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