I remember a few years ago when it was still a debate about which option was better: LED or incandescent. I believe it’s no longer a debate as LED is now the definite winner. Not only all major satage lighting manufacturers got into the LED market but the technology has evolved enough to compete in every spec, even the so criticized lack of point source from LED lighting is now good enough to take over many conventional lighting equipment.
• Cost: This is hard to compare because it’s hard to find a fixture with incandescent lights that will do the same as a led lighting system. LED fixtures offer more options, dimming, different colors, among others, besides the bulb light life is long and power consumption is lower. But this also means that the regular LED fixture with the same lumen power as an incandescent will be more expensive.
• Color: LED stage lighting is commonly used adding and mixing a combination of different colored LEDs. A fixture with all three lighting primary colors, Red, Green and Blue (RGB) LEDs blended together in different combinations gives the lighting designer easy access to many color choices in one fixture. More complex LED color mixing fixtures use additional sources such as RGBA (Amber), RGBW (White). The color functionality of all these fixtures does away with creating color subtractively using gel filters completely.
• Longevity: LED lighting manufacturers usually show the number of hours a LED light source will last in comparison to sources such as traditional tungsten halogen lamps. And we are talking tens of thousands of hours for a LED vs conventional counterparts.
• Safety and Environment: Although LED stage lighting does produce heat, fixtures produce light without getting extremely hot as their tungsten or discharge counterparts. In some environments, the lower heat properties of LED stage lighting are very desirable.
• Brightness: Although when considering power consumed for brightness LED stage lighting fixtures are really efficient, many units lack the punch of their conventional lantern relatives. Cheaper LED lighting units have neither a lens nor a reflector, the light they produce scatters and struggles to maintain intensity when thrown much of a distance. However, great strides have been made regarding the optics in the last few years and the top LED fixtures really blast out some light.
• Lightweight and portable: LED fixtures can be made in small packages which suit applications where size and appearance are important such as exhibitions stands and smaller events.
After considering all these points, I believe it’s clear that LED lights are the future, and we can see how everyday more and more customers are using LED Gobo projectors. Note that LED or incandescent, our gobos can work with any fixture as we use stainless steel that can handle high heat.