5000 watts of light for $90.00!!! Stop buying work lights!

[David G. Smith]

Sorry for the dime novel thread title, but it is true. Stay with me.

I am setting up to shoot a rather large night exterior scene that I have to do very low budget and I have been looking for some inexpensive bulbs and fixtures to use. Now, I have a light kit of more conventional lights that I will use to light the base action area of a night exterior scene. The thing is, as anyone who has shot a night exterior knows, there is a need for much more lighting gear than you first realize. To add depth to a scene it is sometimes necessary to throw light in a lot of different places over a rather large area, such as light for an architectural wash on structures in the background, as a back light for trees, lights to punch up street lighting, lights coming out of windows or what ever. Doing this with conventional lights can be prohibitively expensive for those of us who work low budget. So, I have been a "Man on a mission" searching high and low for some low cost, high powered lights that I could have in my kit so I can do night exteriors better.

Well, I have found a solution that I am excited about and I wanted to share.

What I have found is the Halco 104042, 500 Watt, R40 shaped bulb. The bulbs are designed and sold as replacement bulbs for swimming pool lighting (I told you I was a "Man on a mission" on the search!).

bulb photo.jpg

Here is a link to the specs:
http://www.1000bulbs.com/product/2925/HALCO-104042.html

And an Amazon link for ordering:
http://www.amazon.com/Halco-104042-R...2066229&sr=1-4

The bulbs are 120 volts, and have a standard E-26 medium base socket (Normal household bulb socket). They are NOT photo floods, which I did not want to deal with, so they SHOULD not have the dreaded color change shift over their lifetimes like photo floods do. They also have a rated light life of 2000 hours, and not the very short life span of photo floods.

I have been testing them and I have to say that I have fallen in love with these little lights.

They are frosted bulbs and have a huge beam spread that is very, very smooth. I have shoot some controlled test footage with them and ran it through the scopes in FCP and they have a color temp of 3000K. The quality of the light is very much like a good soft white household bulb, but with much more punch. I have tested the photometrics in various configurations and they are very impressive for a frosted bulb (See below). I have high wattage E-26 base socket set ups for single, double and four bulb configurations that are light weight and compact and these will make great lights. Because of the color temp, I think that these bulbs, appropriately gelled (With a combination of some CTO and Straw colored gels) , could easily match sodium vapor street lighting, at a very low cost.

That is the best part, they are CRAZY CHEAP! They are available, as noted above, for less than $9.00 a bulb. So, like I said in the thread title, you can get 10 of these lights, for a total of 5000 watts of light, for about $90.00. That is hard to beat.

Here are some configurations that I plan on using, with their photometrics. Now, the photometrics are direct readings from a Sekonic L-398A meter and the f stops listed are close approximations that I have come up with in testing.

First is in a standard high wattage scoop light:

scoop cropped .jpg

Photometrics, direct light:
Scoop photometrics jpeg.jpg

Photometrics using the light from a bounce source:
Scoop bounce photometrics jpeg.jpg

In a two bulb high wattage fixture:
two light wo bulbs cropped.jpg

two light cropped.jpg

two light front.jpg

Two light photometrics:

Halco two light direct photometrics jpeg.jpg

Two light photometrics from a bounce source:

Halco two light bounce photometrics jpeg.jpg

And in a 4 light confirguration:

Four light in box cropped.jpg

four light with bulbs cropped.jpg

4 light photometrics, direct lighting:

Halco 4 light direct photometrics jpeg.jpg

4 light photometrics, bounce source:

4 light bounce photometrics.jpg

Just as an FYI, the two light and four light fixtures are vintage movie lights that I picked up off of eBay. I have collected a lot of fixtures like this and made a rule to never spend more than $20.00 on them. Go to eBay and search "Movie Light" in "Cameras and photo". These vintage fixtures almost always have a 1/4 20 screw hole in them and to make them useable for lighting, I have picked up some umbrella light stand adapters:

umbrella adaptor cropped.jpg

These come with spigots:

spigot cropped .jpg

that I screw into the 1/4 20 tap in the base of the light fixture and secure in the umbrella stand adapters. The adapters give me the ability to tilt the fixtures as needed.

I just wanted to share this. Like I have said, I have been searching for some low cost alternatives for lighting and I am excited about these inexpensive, but powerful bulbs. What really impresses me is the very, very smooth, wide, beam pattern of these lights. I have tested quite a few low cost bulbs and most of them do not have smooth light over their entire beam spread. The Halco lights are an exception and are very smooth. Of course, with a wide beam spread, control is an issue, but that is true with most lights actually. Being able to put powerful smooth lights in small light weight fixtures that can be mounted almost anywhere is very handy. For DIY savvy types, getting high wattage sockets and wiring up some batten lights or the like, should be no problem. These bulbs would be great for use in a "Covered Wagon" type light also,

http://www.creativeplanetnetwork.com/node/16688

I got these bulbs for use on a specific shoot, a night exterior, but I think that I will be using them more and more for all kinds of different types of situations.


Just thought I would share.

[adamrahn]

awesome find - would love to see some screen grabs after you're done with the shoot

Adam

[David G. Smith]

awesome find - would love to see some screen grabs after you're done with the shoot

Adam

Yep, I will try to get some shoots of the light set ups and screen grabs of the footage.

[David W. Jones]

Not to be critical but I have seen a 500w halogen work light for $7.99 ready to run. Don't forget to factor in the price of a cord/fixture for the bulbs in question, so double your price to make these work. Which in all honesty is still not bad at all.

Good find!

[David G. Smith]

Not to be critical but I have seen a 500w halogen work light for $7.99 ready to run. Don't forget to factor in the price of a cord/fixture for the bulbs in question, so double your price to make these work. Which in all honesty is still not bad at all.

Good find!

Ha, Ha, Ha.... Yeah, you can nickle and dime yourself to death with accessories and such. I have never seen those halogen work lights for that cheap. I have worked with the halogen work lights and I do have to say that I do not like them at all. The heads are too heavy, IMO and the stand set ups that come with them are not really very useful for other uses, that I have found. What I really like about the high wattage E-26 base fixtures is that they are usually pretty light and they are very versatile. Almost any E-26 bulb can be put in them from bulbs like the Halco 500 watt light to household bulbs, to photofloods, or to CFLs (Which I don't specially care for either actually, but that is for another thread).

Thanks.

[Gary Huff]

David, I'd really like to see some footage utilizing these lights. Preferably a narrative scene of some sort (can be really short). Very interested in what you've put together here.

[hscully]

Cool solution. I'm working on a low budget night shoot. I just picked up some Par 64's used but the darn bulbs turned out to be 300w, so now I'm looking at new bulbs for them to get to 1000w. It's always something. I bet those lights you have would look great behind a 4 X 4 with 216 inside too.

[David G. Smith]

David, I'd really like to see some footage utilizing these lights. Preferably a narrative scene of some sort (can be really short). Very interested in what you've put together here.

I am shooting two projects back to back starting the end of next week and I plan on using these bulbs for sure. I will post some picks when I can.

Cool solution. I'm working on a low budget night shoot. I just picked up some Par 64's used but the darn bulbs turned out to be 300w, so now I'm looking at new bulbs for them to get to 1000w. It's always something. I bet those lights you have would look great behind a 4 X 4 with 216 inside too.

I have some PAR 64 lights also and I like them as well. The Halco's are not a replacement for them, but more as an adjunct. There is no way the Halco's beat the PAR's in photometrics. I tested my PAR 64's with a 1000 watt Very Narrow Spot (VNS) bulb and with a 1000 watt Medium Flood Bulb (MFL) bulb. Here are the results.

With 1000 watt VNS bulb:

Par 64 VNS Photometrics.jpg

And with a 1000 watt MFL bulb:

Par 64 MFL photometrics.jpg

Edit: On the VNS photometric chart, the first line FC measurement should read, "Off Scale".

[Mitch Gross]

I guess if all you want out of a light is illumination than these will work. But this is some of the harshest, ugliest light out there. You cannot shape or direct this light much at all. But for cheap footcandles, it's second only to the sun.

[hscully]

I have some PAR 64 lights also and I like them as well. The Halco's are not a replacement for them, but more as an adjunct. There is no way the Halco's beat the PAR's in photometrics. I tested my PAR 64's with a 1000 watt Very Narrow Spot (VNS) bulb and with a 1000 watt Medium Flood Bulb (MFL) bulb. Here are the results.
.

These are hugely helpful. Thanks for posting them.