Mixing Fluoro and CDM

[pmark23]

Anyone using the 150W CDM fresnels from Cool Lights?

I'm wondering how well they match with daylight fluorescents and HMI in a mixed-lighting environment.

[Jeff Anderson]

Just ordered a CDM to go with my Coollights daylight balanced flourescent, - will let you know when I get it. Its 5400K versus 5600K so I imagine its pretty darn close. Richard has mentioned using the two in conjuction so I'm betting they do. The flo matches just fine with my 5600K vidled if thats worth anything to you

[Barry_Green]

I got one, plugged it in and checked it out. Initial reactions are pretty good. The light is bright and blue, it didn't appear green-tinted like the Britek DayPhotos I used to have. The ballast is very small and light, a welcome change from my huge & heavy magnetic ballasts for my conventional HMIs. Biggest plus is the price, under $400.

The ballast was a bit buzzy. It seemed to get a little quieter as it warmed up; initially I was disappointed but after it settled down it's probably fine. You'll still want to keep the ballast as far away from the mic as possible though.

The light looks like an Arri; it doesn't feel anywhere near as robust as an Arri, but it's also staggeringly less expensive than an Arri. I mean, price it out at B&H: an Arri 125w HMI fresnel is $1200, then add another $200 for the lamp, and another $60 for the barn doors, and then another $1200 for the ballast... that's $2660 for the Arri, or $390 for the Cool Lights. I mean, make no mistake, I don't think the Cool Lights unit is in the same class as the Arri, but IT'S 1/7TH THE PRICE! Heck, it's less expensive than an Arri TUNGSTEN fresnel! You could barely buy two lamps for the Arri for more money than the entire light plus barn doors plus light package from Cool Lights. And the Cool Lights unit is 20% brighter than the Arri too (150w vs. 125w).

Kudos to Richard for MUCH better packaging than on the 655s I got. Nice online manual with full-color photos too. I could see picking up three more of these to round out my HMI kit. They are not Arris, make no mistake, but for a litttle spot fill-in light that takes only 150w and outputs blue light, it's really quite a deal.

[Cool Lights]

Thanks Barry for the quick review. Thats a really realistic assessment and about what I'd say too. Its doing what it was meant to do and at a miracle price.

I just want to make clear, we actually aren't trying to be Arri or Kino Flo, we are in fact doing our own thing, have our own path, and offer what we offer for a great price--but people shouldn't expect perfection at 1/4 to 1/7 of the price which is what the average is on these HMI products of ours. No one else is trying to do what we're doing with HMI. Please don't lose perspective on this fact but they are more than usable. In addition, you shouldn't lose perspective on the fact that we are a 2 person company with partners and contractors that just gets things done and we're not giving excuses, but I never said we were speedy either. It took a while to get these products done this year and get them in. You can have 2 of the 3 criteria of good, fast and inexpensive but not all three.

The message I hope people take away is that if you want perfection then pay for it, but even then, don't be surprised if you have the occasional issue with fixtures that are 10% to 400% more expensive than ours. If you want great light at a great price then look no further than here.

There is a bit of buzz at the startup of electronic HMI's and it usually goes away for the most part at warmup by up to 5m. All lower cost metal halide fixtures using electronic ballasts will have varying degrees of noise. Its just part of the price to pay. Maybe later generations will polish up and have less noise but for now it is something to be accommodated in your setups and a small price to pay to get an HMI type fixture at this price level. This is exactly what I was looking for when I embarked on this quest at this time last year: "the fluorescent of hard lights" as I call it; or, our answer to the energy efficient and economical hard light. You won't get anything else to do hard and intense, but cool light like this, including LEDs at this price point; and certainly no way to get a daylight fresnel of this intensity and price point without loss of light due to gelling.

What buzz is left on the CL-MF0150 is slight and should not be heard on a normally positioned microphone (near subject and lights not right next to subject). I have to put my ear up to mine to be able to hear it. This is a compromise that was made to keep the cost low. The next candidate ballast we had was completely silent but, twice the size, three times the weight and almost 4 times the price. Whatever small noise you can hear when you put your ear up to the unit is a small price to pay for what you are getting.

I'm really wishing we made more of these things as we are almost already out of them they were so popular.

[Barry_Green]

Richard, I think we're on the same page. I do worry about people's perspective on this so I try to spell it out -- these are not substitutes for equipment like Arri. They are not the same. You're not getting something for nothing. I mean, Ketch Rossi is trying to sell a FilmTools 1200W PAR for $4500 and people are saying things like "forget that, get a Cool Lights HMI" -- and an attitude like that shows that they don't understand what the differences are.

This little 150W HMI is a STEAL at its price. But it's not in the same class as an Arri. And that's okay -- you're getting way more than 1/7th the performance, at 1/7th the cost. As far as actual light output you're getting pretty close, and the tradeoff is somewhat flimsier construction and a little buzz in the ballast. AT 1/7TH THE PRICE!

Point is: you could buy one BMW 750iL, or 7 Hyundai Elantras. Is the Elantra as good as the BMW? No, obviously. But you could have 7 of them! And they get better gas mileage. And they will get you from point A to point B just fine.

If I was a rental house expecting to charge top dollar to rent gear out to potentially abusive rental customers, I wouldn't buy Cool Lights gear, I'd spend the bucks to get the top-line stuff. But if I was an individual shooter trying to piece together my own light kit? No question I'd buy this stuff, and just be more careful and attentive with it (which you're likely to do when it's your own stuff anyway!)

The true competition for this stuff is the used 575w HMI fresnel on ebay with the big ol' magnetic ballast. I picked up some of those at $500, and the 1200w PARs have gone for $1200. I'd consider a DeSisti or Ianiro 1200w PAR at $1200 vs. a Cool Lights 1200W PAR at $2800, certainly. The 150W HMI is a little bit of a niche product; it's nowhere near powerful enough to be useful outside, but for those of us putting together daylight-based greenscreen or interior kits it's great. And for Red shooters it's even more interesting; the Red sensor is balanced for 5000k and the blue channel gets much noisier if you shoot under tungsten lighting/tungsten white balance, so an affordable tungsten-replacement blue light kit is very very interesting for Red owner-operators.

[Drew Ott]

Does a 1.2k PAR output the same as a 1.2k HMI?

I've heard of "PARs" being used in all sorts of ways, but it seems sometimes they are 3200k spotlights and other times they are narrow-beamed HMIs.

[Barry_Green]

I'm talking about a PAR version of a 1.2k HMI. You can get 1200w HMIs in PAR or Fresnel versions.

[Leo Versola]

I've been using two of the CDM-150's and one 6-lamp daylight-balanced portable flo for about three weeks now as my primary interior kit and I've been very pleased with the way they've mixed together. The 5600K light from the CDM's is very similar to HMI's I've used in the past and seem a touch cooler than the daylight flo primarily because of the 'crispness' of the harder beam.

IMHO, the Cool Lights CDM/HMI's are some of the 'hottest' deals on lighting you can get right now; I'm looking forward to more variations of these lights from Richard. Get 'em while you can; they're sure to sell out fast...

[Cool Lights]

I never tell anyone they're getting a direct Arri substitute nor should they be buying my gear to rent out and I discourage that. The idea is to make it inexpensive enough so you don't have to rent.

In addition, I didn't catch what the point about the Filmgear par is in comparison to our forthcoming 1200w HMI par. Many will tell you Filmgear is way overpriced for what it is. Its made here in China, not far from where we live and I passed over it for what I'm doing now which is NOT made by Filmgear. I'll stack the 575w/1200w pro ballast that goes with our 1200w hmi par against most of what's out there including Filmgear.

While my 575w HMI is not in major distribution yet, when it is, again you won't be able to touch the price even close with anything including many used models. Our 575w at $699 will again be a new price level benchmark once the unit is out of test and I feel comfortable with putting it into major production.

[Leo Versola]

Originally Posted by Cool Lights

The idea is to make it inexpensive enough so you don't have to rent.

This is a very key point. The next price points for anything similar to the Cool Light CDM/HMI's put them out-of-range for most indie filmmakers to own themselves.

I'm still amazed by the costs of not only the lights themselves but all of the incidental gear you will need to properly control the lighting; you could easily exceed what you've spent on all your camera/audio/editing gear without trying very hard.

It's chilling to think how much you can spend putting together a decent filmmaking package; talk about a slippery slope! Even more so when you're doing it out pure love for the craft and aren't receiving any immediate income from it.

I for one, am grateful to Richard for putting his heart and soul into his Cool Lights company and providing affordable, high quality lighting I can own myself.

I hope he makes a mint doing it; just as long as he doesn't raise any of his prices