LED makers and sellers used to claim 100,000 hour lifespan, then they dropped it to 50,000, then 40,000, down to 25,000, and now 10,000 hours.
Isn't that curious?
We all know that the good ole days lightbulbs were tungsten filament, we could see if the filament were broken or not.
LEDs are not like this. The light emitted by LEDs is actually an arc of electricity, almost like a welder, but not.
The arc bridges across an empty space between two diodes coated in phosphors and other chemical compounds.
When the coating is new it is not charred or oxidized, meaning worn, weakened.
But it actually does not take very long for char and oxidation to occur and when it does the LED becomes dim and dimmer. As it dims it also loses its original light color measured in Kelvin Degrees, and its ability to accurately render color. Very bad for photographic lighting.
In Photography of jewelry and product we require pure white or 5,400-5,600 Kelvin. We also require a light that can accurately copy color, such as getting the true color of an emerald without having to color correct that image. This is called CRI (Coloring Rendering Index), and the fact is that when LEDs begin to dim they quickly lose this value thereby rendering them useless for photographic lighting.
Professional Photographic lighting is not at your hardware store, is not something you buy to light your garage or carport... photographic LEDs are very different and the much higher price over household LEDs confirms this.
Short and to the point... photographic LEDs have a much shorter lifespan than a garage light because the demands put on the light to meet photographic specifications are far greater, far stricter, which in turn makes their lifespan shorter because the threshold of acceptable tolerances is much shorter or narrower, meaning that it takes much less burn of the phosphors and diodes cross over to the wrong side of the specifications tolerance threshold.
Basically a Photographic LED may last 1,000 (more like 500) or so hours before it crosses the threshold and now is no better than a garage light . Because of this it should be on top of your list that whatever LED photographic lighting you are looking into, that you must be able to easily and affordably replace the lights themselves.
Only PhotoCubics does that for Jewelry / small product photography light box. We know what LEDs can and cannot do, We have been testing them in house for more than a decade and we know they don't last long for professional photographic lighting. That's why we make it so easy to replace the lights modules in our desktop photo lighting studios.
If we did not do this, and those Chinese light boxes do not do this, you would much sooner than you would ever expect have a boat anchor instead of a photographic light box.
PhotoCubics Video & Photo light studios are designed and built to last you a lifetime with responsible use.
