I have to confess that I am total noob regarding “LED strips”,
so please excuse my ignorance…
Background:
My macro shooting workspace is lit by two filament LED bulbs
(3 W/250 lm). Lightflow is sufficient, but the measured Ra/CRI
values are horribly bad.
I can achieve Ra/CRI 100 by switching to halogen bulbs, but
then the armature risks overheating.
Theoretically, wouldn’t it be possible to affix a LED-strip
“to the bottom of the shelf above my workspace” and
steer that using a dimmer or an app?
I am well aware that LED strips that are within economical
reach are not too “colour true”. i.e. they have lousy Ra/CRI values.
But still I feel it’s worth an experimental purchase.
I have found a “starter kit”: a 2 meter strip at 1600 lm.
Silly question: does this mean that I can cut it into, say,
0.5 meters and obtain approximately 400 lm???
I’ve dabbled quite a lot in electronics but have to admit I’ve never actually played with those LED strips. But I think the answers to both questions would be “yes”, as long those strips are actually the kind that can be cut to length. I think most are, but worth checking.
I don’t think they get too warm, but again, no direct experience!
For LEDs, there are a billion different kinds that have different properties etc etc because of course there are.
Your general, run of the mill LED strip, you can generally cut to length. There are all manner of app connection thingies, and you can by the LED controller separate from the LED strips themselves.
It sounds like the OP is looking at white-only strips, so for the most part you don’t need a controller unless you want dimming, and even then, the controller needs are extremely simple.
One possible concern if dimming: Dimming is achieved by rapidly turning the lights on and off (PWM) - this can cause banding in photographs unless you’re using fairly long exposure times. (Fortunately, this is USUALLY the case when shooting something lit by only a few strips.)
The really fancy controllers happen when you go to individually-addressable strips where every LED can be a different color. But these don’t really have any photographic applications. (For those who ARE interested in controllers for individually addressable strips - WLED is open source and excellent, and runs on cheap ESP8266 and ESP32 devices - https://kno.wled.ge/ , but that and LEDfx are kinda off topic here.)
because of course there are.