What's the best lighting for the HVX200?

[tawriqua]

i am new in the film industry, i just bought a hvx200 and i also want to buy a light kit for it. i have tried to do my research on the net but I cant make head or tails of anything i read. Can someone who has used the same camera advice me on what lights, specifically, work best with the HVX?

[Nick Walters]

What I advise is doing some thinking about where and when you'll be shooting, because you'll have the choice between getting daylight or tungsten balanced lights or a mix of the two....but even once you buy a certain kind you can slap a gel on the front of the light to balance it to your needs.

Beyond daylight/tungsten balanced lights, you have the choice of many different technologies : Tungsten, Fluorescent, Metal Halide, High Pressure Sodium, LED, Halogen, etc., etc.

The big thing nowadays is LED's and Fluorescents when building a true kit, and Halogens when you're first starting out. Halogens are our good friend the work light...they are very cheap at the hardware store, provide alot of light, but the downside is that they use alot of electricity and thus produce alot of heat, and to top it off the light can be a bit to crisp and harsh....of course bouncing the light will help with the harshness, but you can never really be rid of that heat...I've been in some amazingly small spaces with thousands of watts of Halogen and three or more people....it ain't fun.

LED's can be very lightweight and produce a very good amount of light. Lots of people have these on their camera's for handheld work. They can get a tad expensive though, and thus aren't good for building a full kit.

Now the big thing for smallish productions, 5-4-3-shot/medium-close/close on any production, in car scenes...basically anything that isn't insanely huge calls for fluorescent lighting....but not just any old crappy lamp and fixture from the hardware store though. Fluorscents for film/video use mid-ringe to high-end lamps and often specialty fixtures which allow for 25%, 50%, 75%, or all of their lights to be turned on. There are also fixtures which allow the dimming of the lamps. The big name in Fluorescents is Kino Flo and I've worked with their lamps and fixtures on quite a few productions and have always been pleased. One can go cheaper, but generally more bulky, and buy cheap fluorscent fixtures and just install Kino Flo lamps...or there are makers of Kino Flo knockoffs out in the world, as well as cheaper fluorescent models that use CFL's. Do a little Googling for terms like "fluorescent video lighting" and you'll be knee deep in options in no time.

Once you need more light your looking at Tungsten......this is one of the main reasons I mentioned deciding on going daylight or tungsten balanced, as once you need more light, you'll be mixing it up with Tungsten....you can always gel lights, but it's always easier to just mix similar lights......You'll want to get a couple Tungsten fresnel 500 watts, one or two 1k, one or two 2k, and perhaps one larger light. Of course this kind of equipment is sometimes best rented...unless you allready have a van, in which case you can store this stuff in there and start callin' it a grip truck :)

Of course this stuff all calls for extra equipment including: tapes, gloves, stingers(extension cords), gels, duvatyne, C47's(clothespins), light stands, C-stands, various grips........alot of this stuff can be browsed at places like filmtools.com or in a book like "The Grip Book" by Michael Uva.

good luck.....and I'm sure some folks here can give some specific makers of lighting equipment, rather then my more general painting of lighting stuiffs.

[Noedig]

Here's a thread (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=110561&page=1) that discusses a CFL lighting fixture option. I'm thinking of building a kit with this in mind.

[David Jimerson]

i am new in the film industry, i just bought a hvx200 and i also want to buy a light kit for it. i have tried to do my research on the net but I cant make head or tails of anything i read. Can someone who has used the same camera advice me on what lights, specifically, work best with the HVX?

Lighting is much more use-specific than it is camera-specific. While there are certain types of lights and certains cameras which don't mix, that's not true of the HVX (though there may be an oddball exception or two). Your main concern regarding the HVX is to have ENOUGH light.

Beyond that, in order to select a set of lights, you need to define your purpose, including your desired image, and then choose what will give you that.

So, don't be thinking about "what goes with the HVX" -- be thinking "what am I shooting?"

[wgzn]

So, don't be thinking about "what goes with the HVX" -- be thinking "what am I shooting?"

yeah, lighting isnt camera specific. nick's post is pretty right on for a general light primer! the kit i usually use (RENT) consists of a mix of kinoflow dimmable diva lights (tungsten and daylight on hand for either/or situations) and a few focusable arri 650 and 150s with a collection of barndoors, scrims and gels. lights arent cheap. a good comprehensive kit would cost no less than $3000 (and id say more like $5000 to $7000)

[ThunderDownCountry]

We bought an expensive ARRI light kit when we started out. It was nice for a minute. Rent. Renting gets you what you want/need and it's far less expensive than buying a kit that will ultimately limit you.

[wgzn]

problem ive seen with CFLs is they dont reach their target brightness until they're powered up for several minutes. if your needs require you to move around much, thats probably going to be rather annoying