Britek Softbox 600 or 1000 watts

[GregM]

I have two Totas, an Omni and Pro light, and none of them are soft enough with just a gel as diffusion (except the Pro). If I bounce off an umbrella the light is too soft.

So in my search for a reasonably priced softbox I came across the Britek brand of lights. It appears I can get a 600 watt or 1000 watt light, stand and softbox for less than a softbox and speed ring for either a Tota or Omni.

I have never used a soft box before so I don't know if 600 watts will be enough or if I'll need the full 1,000. Lighting would be interview style with one or two people on camera. Occassionally I may need to light a small room with maybe three people.

I know soft boxes are usually placed fairly close to the talent and in tight quarters, maybe 600 watts would be enough.

If someone with softbox experience and chime in, that would be great. Anyone buy from photographylighting.com?

Greg

[boo]

according to jarred, one of the softbox lights can take a 1000w or 500w bulb.

[Zoomforce]

actually, they take 2 500watt bulbs.. so you an turn 1 on for 500w or 2 on for 1000w.. essentially a dimmer without color dip.

[taubkin]

1K might seem a lot for video work, but remeber that if you ar shooting with outdoor light leaking in and would like to gel the softbox with Full CTB, the light output will fall about 2-3 stops... (If I'm not mistaken)

[Barry_Green]

Gelling to blue costs you 2 stops, so your 1000 watt light would put out about 250 watts worth of blue light...

[dmitriandsnow]

Depending on the amount of light that is leaking in, you can save yourself 750 watts and gel the leak. Speaking of which anyone know where they sell broad gells? Balancing from daylight to tungsten is harder when you have a whole window of leaked daylight. But it does result in more usable light. Balancing from daylight to tungsten CTO only looses you around 2/3 a stop. From tungsten to full CTB is around 1.5 to 2 stops.

[taubkin]

Depending on the amount of light that is leaking in, you can save yourself 750 watts and gel the leak. Speaking of which anyone know where they sell broad gells? Balancing from daylight to tungsten is harder when you have a whole window of leaked daylight. But it does result in more usable light. Balancing from daylight to tungsten CTO only looses you around 2/3 a stop. *From tungsten to full CTB is around 1.5 to 2 stops.

Certainly. And you can always put a 1/2 or 3/4 CTO on the window and have a slightly double coloured lighting with less loss still. Very chic. But sometimes you are just on the 10th floor of an office building with full windows on every wall... Ah, I want some HMI's...

[Student]

Once again I'm confused.
Why not just put a filter (incandesent or 85) in front of the lens and white balance? All light in the room is white balanced to the the color of the filter - Right?
Thats to simple - What am I missing?

[Neil Rowe]

no that will not work. imagine the incadescent light, and the tungsten brightek lights are reddish orange in color (they actually are..3200k). and that sunlight is white to blue in color (it is 10000-5000k). now what white balancing does is tell the camera what is white. if you tell it the reddish orange color is white, it shifts the colors to make it white, but the blueish sunlight will be weird. if you tell it the blue is white.. the orange will be weird. if you hold up any color filter in front of the camera, the orange and blue light will still not match.. they will still be differnt colors.. for example if you used a red filter:red and blue make purple, and red and orange make nasty red.. you can white balance like that all day, and the light will still not match color. you have to somehow get the light in the room to match in color.. so you either correct the reddish tungsten lights to match sunlight..or you correct the blueish sunlight coming in to match the tungsten .

then when you tell the camera that the color of the light is white by white balancing.. since all the light will be the same color.. it will all be corrected to white by white balancing.. which easily done using the 3200k preset for tungsten, and the 56k preset for daylight.


however its not against the law to mix color temeratures within a scene.. you can get amazing results if you know what your doing.. i mean, what painter of light would only want one color to paint with right?.. it would take alot of post work to make different areas of light different colors.. again though you should know what your doing before you open the big box o paints.. cause otherwise you always end up with muddy brown.. and nobody likes poop.

well, except flies.. and beetles and stuff.. and nobody likes those.

[Student]

Man, sometimes I Just don't think very straight.
Thanks for waking me up - iamloser