Ring Light...

[DVX100Shooter]

Anybody use one of those Flouro RING LIGHTS that you can attach to a DVX or XL1 type camera? How bright are they? How close do you have to be to the talent or they to the camera for them to be well lit by that light? I see B&H has one called the Kamio 6E made by Kino Flo I believe.

[DVX100Shooter]

I guess noone has any experience with these lights. I have seen these lights in larger scale used on film cameras on Music Video sets...

[Bill_Bolton]

Recently saw a demo of Reflectmedia. They used a ring lite with the LEDs colored chromakey green and a special reflective cloth. This is what they used for Harry Potters Invisibility cloak. The light from the LEDs bounces off the cloth and to the camera it looks like a highly flexible chromakey background.

[taubkin]

The Ringlight will only really show up in close ups, but will give you an in -axis fill light that can be very flattering to your lead actress... It's not very dramatic light either... very flat.

It's a nice piece of equipment, but due to it's limited use I would considering on renting it for specific shots, I'd never own it. For a CU of a lead female singer / or male boy band singer in a music video I'd definately consider it (It's not a cheap rate, but the ease of setup and use can compensate for the expense...).

[DVX100Shooter]

I have been seeing something very similiar to the ring light lately when I watch MTV's Making the Video. I see there are using full size Flouro. bulbs but there in the shape of the sun (like if you were to draw a circle with lines as flames coming off the sun) The camera fits through the opening of course. I am starting to see set ups like that pop up all over the place in various videos.

[taubkin]

Really? haven't seen it... I guess such setup should allow for longer shots even with the flouros rapid falloff... I'm not a huge fan of that kind of lighting, but whatever works for them, right?

If you work on the wedding industry, or shoot a female reporter, I guess a ringlight could be kinda useful too, I kinda overlooked the possibility...

[DVX100Shooter]

Well I shoot News/Entertainment in Philly and a co-worker of mine that was at the Convention in NY last week told me that some of the Network Photographers from like CNN were using those ring lights on their cameras for the reporter/anchors they were working with. They said those lights really added a nice touch to the shot. For as small as they are he said they put out a lot of soft light.
*

[DVX100Shooter]

There is an example of what I am talking about in the movie Soulplane that just came out on DVD last week. There is a scene towards the end of the movie where they are shooting a Music Video on the plane while it is in flight. They cut to a wide shot of the set and you see the lighting setup that I describe in earlier posts.

[readw]

I have just ordered the parts to build one. It doesn't appear to be very expensive to build one, provided it works. When finished I'll post some results. But it won't be for a week or two.

Warren

[J_Barnes]

i'm working on a design for one as well, just having a little trouble figuring out an effective way to mount the light.

I also need to test the radiation's effect on camera. I might need to go with a better ballast, as most of the ones commercially available are extremely noisey.

[Beat Takeshi]

i think the design shapes like the sun and ring are mostly for eye and glasses reflections. If you watch music videos pay close attention to the eyes on close ups, you will almost always see some type of lighting design made just to reflect in the eyes or sunglasses.

[DVX100Shooter]

yes your right....I have noticed that.

[taubkin]

Yor right oppressor, but those kinos can surely put a decent ammount of light to really change the constrast ratio of your subject in CU's.