Hello all,
Last night my crew and I tested a few lights at night to see what it would take to light a house at night enough to allow us to catch decent footage with the DVX100A, without using a F-stop lower than 4.0
We have been toying with the idea of buying shop lights, portable street lights, and the like. Even tested a few (shop lights) with disappointing results.
Then I remembered over a year ago I had purchased an old (70's) light from a theater shop that was clearing out their warehouse. The guy who sold it to me didn't know much about the unit. It was big, heavy, has an AC and DC ballast.... yatta-yatta. So I turn that puppy on and it will light an whole apartment building from the sidewalk across the street. I was most impressed. I white balanced and was pleased to discover the light was sufficient, even looked good.
Our next test was with a flood light. We put it on a scoop and tested it. I was shocked. The light traveled the same distance and 'appeared' to have the same intensity to the naked/untrained eye (although the color temp was obviously different). We mounted two flood lights with scoops on a board and tested them from the same distance. The apartment building was well lit. The flows allowed us more flexibility.... allowing us to mount 2 or more lights cheaply to cover a great distance. I white balanced and to my horror the image came up dark. I walked my DVX100A towards the apartment building to see how close I needed to be to get a difference in the image without touching the iris, etc. I walked across the street to the curb in front of the building and nothing! It was way too dark with an f-stop of 4.0. I'm by no means a lighting expert (duh, hu?). My only guess is the color temperature of the floods and the build in diffusors (in the glass head of the lamp) contributed to the difference.
As it turns out the lamp/light that had great results has a
CID 99-0211 bulb/lamp rated at 5600k. It is Italian made, by a company in which I can't currently recal the name (Tusen?)
So, could anyone provide any additional advice as to why I had poor results with the flood lights? Is there something I may have did or didn't think of that made the results turn out poorly?
Thank you for your advice, wisdom, experience, and taking the time to answer this post.
Your friend,
Kugar
Last night my crew and I tested a few lights at night to see what it would take to light a house at night enough to allow us to catch decent footage with the DVX100A, without using a F-stop lower than 4.0
We have been toying with the idea of buying shop lights, portable street lights, and the like. Even tested a few (shop lights) with disappointing results.
Then I remembered over a year ago I had purchased an old (70's) light from a theater shop that was clearing out their warehouse. The guy who sold it to me didn't know much about the unit. It was big, heavy, has an AC and DC ballast.... yatta-yatta. So I turn that puppy on and it will light an whole apartment building from the sidewalk across the street. I was most impressed. I white balanced and was pleased to discover the light was sufficient, even looked good.
Our next test was with a flood light. We put it on a scoop and tested it. I was shocked. The light traveled the same distance and 'appeared' to have the same intensity to the naked/untrained eye (although the color temp was obviously different). We mounted two flood lights with scoops on a board and tested them from the same distance. The apartment building was well lit. The flows allowed us more flexibility.... allowing us to mount 2 or more lights cheaply to cover a great distance. I white balanced and to my horror the image came up dark. I walked my DVX100A towards the apartment building to see how close I needed to be to get a difference in the image without touching the iris, etc. I walked across the street to the curb in front of the building and nothing! It was way too dark with an f-stop of 4.0. I'm by no means a lighting expert (duh, hu?). My only guess is the color temperature of the floods and the build in diffusors (in the glass head of the lamp) contributed to the difference.
As it turns out the lamp/light that had great results has a
CID 99-0211 bulb/lamp rated at 5600k. It is Italian made, by a company in which I can't currently recal the name (Tusen?)
So, could anyone provide any additional advice as to why I had poor results with the flood lights? Is there something I may have did or didn't think of that made the results turn out poorly?
Thank you for your advice, wisdom, experience, and taking the time to answer this post.
Your friend,
Kugar
