I Still Love Tungsten

[Run&Gun]

It's hard enough for us Brits to convert measurements and money into things the American members understand, plus we have to say 'tube' and 'ground' quite often too, so 'brolley' is understandable - even though my US browser wants to change it to trolley anyway. I think I may spend a week posting in real English once I've gone down the apples and pears and got off the rag and bone.

I've only got into bi-colour recently but have to report the slightly lower brightness limits me a bit. I'm quite content now working at 5500K or so 100% LED. I tried to mix tungsten and LED at first, but it never worked that well. One thing I do know is that Fresnel microgroove lens are not a patch on an old fashioned Fresnel of the Arri style. My 650W and 1K Arris are by far the nicest 'quality' light. All the different LEDs are somewhat bland by comparison.

This if from the thread on panels vs. point source, but it is the perfect quote to start this.

I've been on the record as saying I still prefer the look and feel of tungsten and how it's superior for skin tones. Well, it was just reinforced, again, a few weeks ago. I did a shoot for a church that was using the former studio of a famous(infamous) former mega/televangelical church from back in the day. The grid is 100% tungsten, with big Arri 5K fresnels and the like. My Lord(no pun intended)... Skin tones just look so good. Everything just looks so good. Everything is just so rich and warm and vibrant and alive. There is no need for color correcting or even any kind of grading besides laying a "709 LUT" on top of the slog 2.

My buddy that recommended me for the shoot said they loved my stuff, but I told him the tungsten lighting did the real work and heavy lifting. It made my images look great. It made me look like a hero. I didn't do anything except point my camera at what was going on.

[mcbob]

Completely, utterly, emphatically agreed. Still hauling at least one ancient Lowel V-light and Pro-Light with me on every single job.

Also got into weekly church service recording at an Episcopal church building dating back to the 1820's. Beautiful gothic architecture, lots of ornate wood, Tiffany stained glass, and a diffused 1K and 650 are all they need to set the whole thing off perfectly. Since I do it for very low budget, they're cool with me using the job as a testbed for different setups, technologies, etc, so I've deployed every light I own at one time or another. The good ol' hot lights just do the job best.

If I know a location interview has 0% chance of being in front of a window, you bet your ass I'm lighting with W.

[ahalpert]

It's always a little demoralizing to have someone seated by or passing by a tungsten practical and glimpse a brush of color on their skin so much richer and healthier than what I'm shining

For overall interview quality, though, I think it's a wash between making them comfortable and not totally sweaty with LED vs optimal skin tones with tungsten

[Jim Feeley]

On Weds I fired up my old tungsten lights (LTM Peppers + an Arri). Been a long while. Ya, they made skin look great. Luckily, there were gloves in the case and I remembered to turn off the lights to cool before we packed up everything else.

So beautiful. So hot... :-)

[morgan_moore]

Its not hard to not be suprised.

If you look at all those graphs of LEDs... they dont have any deep red.

And shooting with no deep red is the same as shooting with a (physically) blue filter in B+W - any skin imperfections go from dark red to black.. which is bascially ugly.

Shooting with red light lowers skin contrast .. ie smoothens the skin.

Googiny 'black and whte photograhy blue filter portrait' demos the rough skin look of not enough red light and googling I guess 'hollywood classic portrait' shows the opposite - the smoothening effect of tungsten.

[puredrifting]

Still hanging on to my Arri Softbank kit but my open face 1K sort of fell apart at the yolk but it was 25 years old.
Count me as a fan, I still use my 150 and 300s as hair/rims when using daylight LEDs. Debating about trying to hunt down
a used Arri 1K open face as the key to my kit (1k open, 650 frensels x 2, 300 fresnel x 1, 150 fresnel x 1). If I have a
cool room with good HVAC, I agree, Tungsten is still a great tool, just not quite as convenient as LEDs. The skin tones and smoothing
are really missing from modern LEDs.

[rob norton]

Still hanging on to my Arri Softbank kit but my open face 1K sort of fell apart at the yolk but it was 25 years old.
Count me as a fan, I still use my 150 and 300s as hair/rims when using daylight LEDs. Debating about trying to hunt down
a used Arri 1K open face as the key to my kit (1k open, 650 frensels x 2, 300 fresnel x 1, 150 fresnel x 1). If I have a
cool room with good HVAC, I agree, Tungsten is still a great tool, just not quite as convenient as LEDs. The skin tones and smoothing
are really missing from modern LEDs.

Look out for the arri 750 plus too. They replaced the 1k open face lights and have a built in speed ring.

[Run&Gun]

Still hanging on to my Arri Softbank kit but my open face 1K sort of fell apart at the yolk but it was 25 years old.
Count me as a fan, I still use my 150 and 300s as hair/rims when using daylight LEDs. Debating about trying to hunt down
a used Arri 1K open face as the key to my kit (1k open, 650 frensels x 2, 300 fresnel x 1, 150 fresnel x 1). If I have a
cool room with good HVAC, I agree, Tungsten is still a great tool, just not quite as convenient as LEDs. The skin tones and smoothing
are really missing from modern LEDs.

Look out for the arri 750 plus too. They replaced the 1k open face lights and have a built in speed ring.

I bought two several years ago. I believe the reflector design is supposed to make them equivalent to the old open face 1K's, if not stronger.

[ozmorphasis]

Is there ANYONE who doesn't agree? I mean, plenty of people say this or that LED is good enough or well worth, but I don't know anyone who prefers any type of light (from a pure IQ standpoint) over Tungsten.

[ahalpert]

You can't beat a blackbody radiator