Reddit mentions of YONGNUO YN300-II 300 LED Camera / Video Light With remote For Canon, Nikon, samsung, Olympus, JVC, Pentax cameras and camcorders, 3200-5500K adjustable color temperature

I have lots of both for weddings. The primary drawbacks to LED panels are that that they put out a LOT less light and that they have to be on all the time. The second drawback may not be a concern for you, but the first will be. Once you put an LED panel behind diffusers you are going to loose a ton more light. You can still use them direct (even with a diffuser gel/filter) or undiffused for portraits but they are certainly not ideal. I have just started using them for some wedding portraits but I am shooting wide open. If you want to try it I would strongly recommend getting a panel with more output than the Neweer that you linked. Yongnuo makes the YN-300-ii which is a good starting point.

While I did not write it, I was heavily involved in the production as Cinematographer and Associate Producer for the 2016 film Layover (not 2017 The Layover), which we produced for around $6,000.
Trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEAoz4uluc4)
When you are writing to produce yourself (individually or as a cooperative effort) you need to really asses your assets and be completely honest while making your top sheet budgeting.

The Top Sheet

This is the most important part when writing and producing for low budget. Before you start typing, make a treatment and start plotting your Top Sheet.

A Top sheet is a estimate of your budget. Tongal has a pretty neat template in their website.

Why doing this? So you can keep your budget constrains before you even type a word of your script.

While writing your treatment, you can start adding items to it. Do a bit of googling to find estimates and round up (this is the part of being honest about it, as you can't always get the best price, or you might have overseen the sales tax, etc.). The moment you type "They are arrested by the police" check the internet for how much you can rent a cop uniform and props and add it to your top sheet.

Once you are done with your treatment, look at your top sheet's total. If you are over, it's time to start cutting stuff out.


What will affect your top sheet? Everything you don't already have.


Your assets

Look around you. What do you have access to? Make a list of:

• Locations
  
• Props
  
• Actors
  
• Crew
  
• Equipment
  
  _____________________________
  
  Props and locations
  
  Based on your props and locations, choose a setting. Limit your locations to those you have access to.
  
  For interior locations, the easiest and cheapest options is to go for your or your friends places, but you can try using Airbnb. You can scout locations through their website and have access to properties you wouldn't dream of ever having for relatively cheap.
  
  This being said, you don't necessarily have to settle for a "regular people drama" set in houses. It is the easiest, no doubt, but not your only option.
  
  Horror is another viable option and pretty forgiving genre. "Campy" in horror, can be a virtue.
  
  You can be really creative here and use green screen and small sets built in your spare time to do sci fi. You can go to the desert and shoot a film about a stranded astronaut in mars, for example.
  
  Green screen, while seems a good solution, can get either expensive or incredibly time consuming. It requires a lot of planning, but it's doable. Avoid digital integration of CGI characters as, unless you are Weta you are going to have a hard time selling the effect. If you must, non-organics are way easier to make look realistic.
  
  Using Matte paintings can be relatively easy if you are good at photoshop (and After Effects, to apply it) and can expand the possibilities of your setting.
  
  Actors
  
  Shooting for almost no money might limit your casting options. You might be lucky and find extremely talented actors hungry for experience or you might know a remarkable actor willing to do it for free or for sag minimums.
  
  If you can, try to make the production non-union, but if you can't, allocate budget for it. Even with some of the most affordable agreements (depending on your distribution) you still are supposed to pay minimum wage.
  
  If you talent is so-so and that's the best you can get, don't write over dramatic scenes where we will see their flaws. Try to keep it simple.
  
  Crew
  
  The bare minimum you will need is the director and a sound guy. But this is a very stressful setup, especially for the director that would be producing, dpeing and directing. If you can, get a crew of 4 people:
  The director, a DP, a sound guy and a producer.
  
  Equipment
  
  Equipment should be your last concern. You can shoot a movie with a phone in 4k nowadays.
  
  For out production of Layover, we used a Canon 5D MKII (at the time it was already a 6 year old camera) which was what I had available at the time. Shooting 1080 requires more planning and getting more shots than 4k or 2k, but it's also more affordable to work with. If I were to shoot it today, I would have go for a Sony a7s II.
  
  Using this kind of cameras can make your production way easier. They are small and discrete, they have excellent quality and in the case of the a7s II, you cam get away with less powerful lights.
  
  Lighting equipment.
  
  We didn't break the bank here. We used a YN-300 which costs around $50 (a bit more at the time) and china balls.
  
  China balls are DIRT cheap ($6)and give a beautiful lighting. You will need a fixture and a dimmer that can hold at least 250w, which would cost you together like $20 (Ikea used to sell them). The bulbs are about $6 a piece.
  
  But, you can use household lightbulbs and cheap clamp reflectors. You can remove the reflector dish and use the fixture in your china ball (respect the wattage limits to avoid fires).
  
  
  Xmas lights: This is a cheap thing everyone has laying around and can enhance your scenes by creating a background.
  
  That was about all the lighting equipment we used.
  
  ADDITIONAL EXPENSE USUALLY IGNORED BY FIRST TIME FILMMAKERS:
  
  
  FOOD
  
  You are going to have to feed this people. It's the least you can do. If you keep your days short, at the minimum, you will need water and some snacks. Don't forget it in your top sheet.
  
  ________________________
  
  Conclusion:
  
  
  Gather all the elements above, put them in your Top sheet and tweak your treatment until you find a budget you are comfortable with.
  
  
  Keep your logistics as simple as possible to avoid nasty surprises. So maybe don't shoot your film in 20 different locations with 20 company moves, but try to limit it to a number you can manage. Time is really money. The more days you shoot, the more money it will all cost.

[LED color temp question]

Hi guys,

I use the two following products from China for my ghetto light box set up:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/DEEP-new-generation-of-LED-light-box-softbox-80CM-professional-photography-studio-equipment-photo-shoot-props/32250977867.html
http://www.amazon.com/YONGNUO-camcorders-3200-5500K-adjustable-temperature/dp/B00COGKPLM

While they claimed that their color temperature is 5500k, when I process the RAW files from my camera (Sony A7M2 and RX1), the auto value is 4600/4150 respectively (and they are really the best). It is really bugging me. So my questions are:

1. Are the LED not color accurate at all?
   
2. Does the diffuser (cloth, semi opaque plastic plates insert) or the reflector (those metallic interior or matte box) affect color temperature?
   
3. Why the optimal color temperature to each camera seems different?
   
   Please help. Thanks guys!
   
   Result is here. I only calibrated my monitor recently and aside from the most recent four pictures, all color in the previous shots are off. Hard luck.
   https://www.flickr.com/photos/133640171@N07/?