LED lights

Introduction

Most LED lights are pretty bad. Better LEDs can be found in video/cinema applications, or for museum exhibits. Photographers do not care much about LEDs as they do not tend to use continuous lights.

Most household lamps use E26/E27 sockets, and the most common bulbs are A19, A21, and A23. Every lamp will take A19, many will take A21, but A23 is larger and requires thorough investigation whether it's supported by indoor lamps.

Power and energy

LEDs are pretty energy efficient, but the power density is pretty low. If you need high power, incandescent or halogen is the only way to go. In general, this means you need more LED bulbs for household applications, and it's very likely new lamps supporting more bulbs are required. LEDs with more accurate color tend to have less power and be less energy efficient than other LEDs.

Light output

How many lumens do you need? My incandescent lights have the following specs:

Manufacturer	Type	Power	Luminous Flux
Philos	Incandescent	300 W	4850 lm
Powerlight	Halogen	200 W	3980 lm
Osram	Halogen	150 W	2870 lm
Philips	Halogen	105 W	1980 lm
Philips	Incandescent	40 W	405 lm

Color temperature

For general purpose household stuff you want something around 2700K. Very low power dim sidelighting can be lower (even 2000K). High power stuff can go as high as 3200K. Unless you have a special use case in mind, only look at 2700K and 3000K offerings.

Color rendering

The the most common standard is CRI. Unfortunately, CRI is pretty useless, but consumer manufacturers frequently only specify CRI. You want something with CRI over 95. An important color not taken into account by CRI is R9. You want something with R9 over 90.

A much better standard is TLCI. You want something with TLCI over 90. Another standard is TM-30.

TCLI results

• TLCI Results as supplied by Alan Roberts
• Television Lighting Consistency Index 2012 (actually results are from 2018)
• Indie Cinema Academy LED database

Notable manufacturers

Quality

• Waveform lighting
• Yuji International
• Soraa
• Solux (Nobel price winner who invented blue LEDs works here)

High power

• Cree
• Euri
• Green Creative

Notable products

800 lm class

Manufacturer	Product	Color Temperature	Luminous Flux	CRI	R9	TLCI	Notes
Waveform Lighting	Ultra High 95 CRI E26 A19 10W LED Bulb for Home & Residential	2700/3000K	800 lm	95	91/95		FilmGrade series has 95 TLCI
Yuji	BC Series A60 High CRI Remote Phosphor LED	3000K	840 lm	97	95+	97	recommended by gaffers
Soraa	Soraa VIVID A60 (E27)	2700K	800 lm	95	95
Ikea	Ledare 11W LED1304G11 E27	2700K	600 lm	93		93	600 lm only
Ikea	Trådfri LED1623G12	2700K	1000 lm			89	smart bulb
Solux	ColorView	3000K	310-1490 lm	100	100		120V only

Osram has some 95+ TLCI products in its professional spot line. It's unclear whether the A bulbs from the same professional line are just as good or not. Osram only claims 80+ CRI even for the good stuff, and the A products are rated the same. They might be much better than specified.

High power class

Manufacturer	Product	Color Temperature	Luminous Flux	CRI	R9	TLCI	Notes
EURI	A Series LED EA21-4000cec-2	3000K	1600 lm	90			120V only
Cree	Cree 100 Watt Replacement	2700K/3000K	1600 lm	90+
Green Creative	A21 18.5W HIGH CRI DIMMABLE	2700K	1600 lm	90	60		120V only
Green Creative	A23 LED 25W 277V E26	3000K	3200 lm	82

References

• Luminous Landscape Forum | Has anyone looked into the modern LED video lights as a print evaluation light?
• Ultimate LED Bulbs - Ultra High CRI - The Honorable Quest