Britek HMI's (was Woah, now wait a minute...)

[taubkin]

I think I just read that Britek is selling low budget HMI kits. Like US$ 800 for a 500W with ballast, bulb, stand and softbox and about US$ 600 for the 250W. Am I being mislead?

http://www.shutterbug.com/test_reports/0699sb_britek/

UPDATE - http://www.brightphoto.com.tw/info.p...&serno=261

Anybody from Taiwan?

[taubkin]

Now I was thinking, correct me if I'm wrong, that instead of spending 2,5K on an Arri tungsten kit, you could buy a couple each of these (ok, close to 3K, so dump a 250) and have a pretty equivalent HMI kit with softboxes for everyone. Granted, tough, they are not fresnel (And they didn't seem focusable to me, although they could be), it seems the advantage is clear. Lower heat, lower wattage for location work (Considering a 500W HMI can blow a tungsten 1K away), Daylight balanced lights, cool balasts you can make you gaffer carry all over the place and exercise his back muscles, well, to cut short, HMIs.

[Barry_S]

The price is right--but magnetic ballasts--yuck. Someone will have to test these puppies to see if they flicker on video. It's encouraging that Britek is considering electronic ballasts--I'd gladly pay extra to avoid magnetic ballasts. On a small production, a 15 minute warm-up time is not acceptable. Interesting, though.

[Barry_Green]

Since the rule of thumb is that HMIs produce 4-8 times as much light as halogen or tungsten lighting

Er, no. An HMI produces about 3 times as much as halogen or tungsten lighting for equivalent watts. Also, about heat... I'm not sure what he was smoking, but I've got 575 and 1200 watt HMI's, and they get plenty hot. Not as hot as equivalent tungsten, but they're not like fluorescents! Maybe the Briteks are different, I don't see how but maybe.

With that said, I LOVE HMI's! 75% of my lights are tungsten, and I hate 'em. Daylight is what humans were built and designed to see, tungsten is artificial and bogus. Tungsten is extremely inefficient, wasteful of power, and create so much heat that they're uncomfortable (and dangerous) to work around -- if someone knocks a light over, there could be trouble. Fluorescent is lovely -- cool, daylight-balanced, and power-efficient... but no punch. HMI's are like a perfect balance between the two: the light-efficiency of fluorescents, low power demands, all the punch of a tungsten type hard light, and that beautiful daylight color.

Only knocks against HMI's are that the bulbs are enormously expensive, and they're big clumsy lights with their ballasts. A 1200w ballast weighs about 75 pounds! Oh, and they're obscenely expensive: a 400w Joker HMI light goes for, what is it, $3500 or so at B&H?

And there's two types of ballasts (magnetic and electronic, just like with fluorescents). Magnetic ballasts are less expensive, more demanding to work with, and can flicker under the wrong circumstances (for example, you couldn't shoot with a 1/500 shutter speed under HMI's with magnetic ballasts). For 1/48 or 1/60 work, the magnetic ballasts are fine, but they also make a slightly audible hum. Electronic ballasts can overcome all those restrictions (often they're called "flicker free") but they're more expensive.

Now, with all that said, bring on the Briteks! If I read what that guy wrote, he's talking about a 400 watt (let's just call it what it is, not what Britek labels it), a 400 watt HMI light head, with lamp and ballast, filter frame, softbox, stand and barn doors -- for $795? That's outrageously inexpensive. I've bought used 575's off of ebay for $600 or so, and that's no stand and no softbox, and that's USED. A new 400 watt HMI will put out about 1200 watts' worth of light, but you could run three of them off of one household circuit! I've wanted to round out my HMI kit with some 200's but can't justify the expense -- I think I'd gladly be the guinea pig to get a 200 kit for $450 (less our DVXUser discount at Rostronics, right?)

[taubkin]

Yes... But the hopes are up for the eletronic ballasts, since that article's 4 years old, I think. I guess a phone call to one of the famous britek dealers (as rostronics) could clarify "in english" if those taiwanese guy's really did come up with those, if they are still selling, etc...

But it sounded so very sweet I guess it's worth some more research, isn't it?

[Barry_Green]

Yeah, I saw that after I wrote my response -- that article is from 1999? Where are the DayPhoto's? Maybe they never came out, or maybe they got pulled off the market, or maybe they're only sold in Taiwan?

I asked Rostronics if they'll carry the DayPhotos, I'll let you know what they say.

[Barry_S]

1999? Maybe they flopped in the market or they had production problems.

[Barry_Green]

Just heard back from Britek. The DayPhotos are discontinued. Didn't say why, but they came out, they were offered for sale, then they were discontinued. So, no HMI's from Britek...

[taubkin]

Yeah, that's what I feared... I guess they are probably extremely hard to find these days... What a shame...