For all newbies - cheap way to begin your lighting kit

Hi all:

Glimmer - $2,500.00 is a good, realistic base to work from for a beginning lighting kit. One other point that is being overlooked in this thread is grip equipment. Grip equipment, in the level we are discussing here are basically tools to shape and modify the light. IMHO, besides lights you need a few light stands, a few C-stands, some sandbags, a reflector, dimmers, gels, diffusion, cinefoil, grip clips, C-47s, etc.

You MUST have the proper tools to control the light or you will be frustrated and unable to create beautiful pictures without the right tools. I personally agree with Taubkin, buying something like the Chimera kit I recommended is a wise choice. Is it cheap? No. Will it last you well into your career as a videographer/filmmaker/DP/etc.? Yes, definitely. I am still using two small Chimeras that I bought 6 years ago.

Personally, I would discourage you from buying a kit beyond the kit that I recommended, mainly because your needs may be different than our needs. BUT, you will need grip gear to make your lights work. The key setup that I recommended is a good start. The Lowel ProLight that GageFX recommends is a good way to go as a rim/hair light and does cost about half the price of the Arri 150 fresnel. I own three of the Arri 150s and two of the Lowel ProLights. The Arris are better because they are a true fresnel but as a hairlight, you don't really need a fresnel. For tabletop, yes, you need a fresnel but for shooting people as a rim/hairlight, the Lowel is fine.

Bosindy, your question is not dumb. The Chimera kit light is a base that can accept different size lamps, most fixtures can. The Lowel ProLight can take several voltages/wattages as well but the max is 250 watt.

China Balls are okay but be careful with tungsten, they can torch rather easily. Also, they are "sloppy" in the sense of they spread a big blob of soft light everywhere. If that's what you want to accomplish, they are fine, they are also good for walking shots but personally, I like to control the light more than that. Chimera makes a fireproof china ball/pancake that has barndoors of sorts, these are better but cost a ton more than China Balls do.

Cheap fluoros, I am experimenting with them at the moment. They are not bad but you must make sure that you buy hum-free, flicker free models. The CRI (color resolution index) is rather bad, meaning they can be tricky to try to obtain accurate colors. I am working on a homemade Kino-Flo that I am creating with six GE undercounter instruments. It looks nice, throws a nice light and seems to be around 3,050 K as far as color temp. Not sure how they will integrate with tungsten yet, still running tests.

All the best,

Dan
 
Chimera is the Arri of softboxes.
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No question about the box, I was referring to the fixture, though. Agreed on your point.

--Drifting--

Agreed about the grip equip. I would say from that $2500 to get a couple beefy rolling stands, at least one boom, a few compact, portable stands, a low BG stand, 2 Cs, and misc grip stuff. We will have to disagree on the Pro Light's usefulness as a key. It is quite sufficiant.

As for china balls, I had 8 balls suspended for a 12 hour shoot with 250w-500w bulbs in 16"-36" china balls. We certainly kept watch, but never had a problem. Just be prepared. Crap can hit at any time. I actually had more of an issue with a Lowel Tota catching some gel on fire (I hate Totas. Too sloppy. I also like control.) The balls can be controlled, you just have to work it. You also need to use it for a proper application. As a focused spot on a face or object? of course not, but as a large fill or even an unfocused key they are great.

As for the fluors, agreed about the color and flicker. I have been fortunate enough to pick lights everytime that dont flicker. As for the color, I'm not a guy that needs every light to be white. I want some various colored atmosphere in my scenes as there is in real life.

-GageFX
 
okay, I guess the three of us agreed in this!

I'd also say that depending on the type of production people are involved with, sometimes portability is much more valuable than sturdiness, durability or overall quality. For instance, a flimsy lowell stand can fit several types of softbags, that can fit in every type of vehicle... The moment you start going heavier, you start playing the game: "how the F am I going to lug this around, and how fast?"


Anyway... Good points in all the posts...
 
puredrifting said:
HappyGobo - The Chimera isn't much of key? It's what about 95% of all DPs here in LA use as a key for small shoots. Of course on bigger shoots, bigger soft sources with 4x4s, bigger lights and lots of flags but for a newbie without much gear or budget, it's the best, easiest way to obtain a nice soft keysource with some control from the 40 degree eggcrate. Makes a good fill source or backlight too for that matter. I guess if you are looking to light a noir with hard sources, it's not great but for 98% of situations, a small chimera with 500 to 1,000 watts through it is a great key source.
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I'm all about that noir lighting.
 
taubkin said:
I'd also say that depending on the type of production people are involved with, sometimes portability is much more valuable than sturdiness, durability or overall quality. For instance, a flimsy lowell stand can fit several types of softbags, that can fit in every type of vehicle... The moment you start going heavier, you start playing the game: "how the F am I going to lug this around, and how fast?"
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Man, I so agree. In my photo studio and the past years I've been shooting stills, I have big Bogen CineStands (not C-stands) with long boom arms and casters. I have a number of C-stands, and I even have some standard medium duty light stands that sometimes see use. When I got my Lowel kit, I was appalled at their portable stands and insisted on lugging my big stands for film (motion video) shoots. Well, I still bring them if I need them, but I am all too happy to leave them in the studio now and just throw my Lowel case with 3 portable stands into the car. That little foldy thing aint my beasty Bogen, and it can be a tad wobbly at full extension, but it is so much nicer to bring back after the shoot.

-GageFX
 
For those in LA who are looking to put together a nice, versatile, inexpensive lighting kit, I'd go check out Pyramid Films up in Sun Valley; talk to Dave. They have a bunch of used Disney lights.

I went up there and assembled a used Mole Richardson kit. Two 650 watt Tweenies, two 200 watt Inbetweenies, and 4 baby roller stands all for $800. Only one had a bad globe, and all of them need a little touch-up paint, but they worked beautifully. Throw in $100 worth of gels, clips, diffusers, and other expendibles, and I had a great little starter kit.

I had both a day and night shoot for a CSI type short comedy and they were great.
 
Hi Pluimer:

Great tip! I own three different light kits, two Arris and one Lowel and over the years, I have basically disassembled each of the kits and picked and chose the key components to assemble my own kit.

Taubkin, I couldn't agree more. I have begun using the Arri kit stands along with some 40" grip arms and grip heads instead of dragging half a dozen heavy C-stands when shoot on location. Not as stable as a C-stand but a heck of a lot smaller and lighter. I have traded out my Arri 650 Fresnel that I was using in my small Chimera for a Lowel V-Light, it weighs much less and is much smaller. Light and small is good, especially when shooting alone or with just a sound guy or a PA.

Dan
 
Yeah, when you drive a small car... You suddenly realize there are more important things than shooting with te best and most powerful fixtures you have availiable.

Anyway... At least I don't have to overcompensate for anything special... :)
 
I am considering this light, thanks for bringing it to light. (very bad pun intended). Don't know a great deal about light but learning and would like to buy this to play around and use later on my indy. I was also thinking about getting a flolight as well http://www.flolight.com/fl220.htm as a dimable fill. (I know kino's are better, too pricey for my level). So if I add a 150 for a rim/back/kicker, would this work okay as a 3 point lighting?

With the flolights, do I want to get the daylight balanced an knock it down? I really want to have one flourescent because of the cicuitry in the small apartmnts I will be in. Blowing circuits worries me, especially if I convince a look warm shop owner to let me shoot and then problems happen. Thanks.
Jim
 
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I think a Flolight and a chimera are a little bit redundant, for such basic light kit. Get some sources of harsh and more powerful light instead. One soft source is more than enough. Remember you can always make a hard light soft, but not the other way around...

Your fill, for interviews, can certaily be just a well positioned white foamcore board.

I'd trade the flo for a nice fresnel, at least 650W...
 
Hi guys:

I am curious about the Flolights, sure do wish I could try one before buying. The only thing appealing about Kinos and fluorescents to me is the option of shooting 5,500K light cheaply. I am sure all of us have setup in a room that had beautiful, diffused sunlight and have had to make the choice to either close all of the curtains and blinds and or duvetyne the windows to use our tungsten instruments or have had to but full CTB or dichroics on and lose all of our output while punching up the wattage and heat.

The idea of a daylight balanced key source for under $1,000.00 is very appealing as I love to shoot with sunlight streaming through windows. If I am in a true interior with no sunlight to deal with, I like the light quality of the small Chimera much better. It would be nice to have an HMI kit but they are a bit too rich for my budgets these days. I almost bought a Kino Flo Diva 400 kit yesterday at www.filmtools.com as I was shopping for speedrings and gaffer tape but at over $1,000.00 for the Diva 400 kit, I decided to think on it for a while.

Taubkin is right about the redundancy, if you buy the Chimera, there is no reason to get the Flolight unless you are going to use it in daylight situations where the Chimera's 500 watt tungsten would not work.

Best,

Dan
 
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And Dan, to complement, although the Fluorescent light is beautiful true 5600K and matches daylight very nicely, the punch is still not impressive. There are a lot of daylight interior situations where a 400W flourescent can't handle.
 
So, just so you know, I bit the bullet and got myself one of those babies...

You pay a little over what you pay for a cheapo softbox, but you get:

-Incredible Avenger Light stand, the best I have in my kit now...

-Very effectve Eggcrate

-The best softbox money can buy

-A very smart head, that accepts screw in sockets, including photofloods, and fluorescent bulbs like fullspectrum-lighting.com ...

It's very light and beautifully built. Easy to assemble (but far from a Rifa) and dissassemble, a very nice punch (I got the 1000 Watts lamp - it's rated for it too...) and beautiful light quality. It's a nice feeling knowing that for that particular model of gear, you got top dollar, and some clients like the feeling too...

Anyway, If you need a small interview softbox, and want more than those photography/ cheap solutions, this is on the budget, and will last you a lifetime.

Good luck light-seekers...

Cheers!
 
Taubkin:

That's great! I know you will enjoy using it. Let us know how it goes and post some stills from your best looking lighting setups with it.

Enjoy!

Dan
 
taubkin said:
-A very smart head, that accepts screw in sockets, including photofloods, and fluorescent bulbs like fullspectrum-lighting.com ...
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Taubkin,

does this mean you can put a daylight balanced bulb in this like a Kino? What watt would you get?

Jim
 
Hi Bosindy:

I am afraid that the kit comes with a tungsten-only light. To use a "daylight balanced bulb", you would pay the $4,000.00 for an HMI or the Kino is the lowest cost daylight balanced lighting.

Best,

Dan
 
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Well, not exactly, dan...

It's, a screw-in socket, and plenty of room inside the Chimera. So I figured I could fit a Fluorescent daylight lamp in the socket through an included adaptor the big screw to a standard edison screw... (really any regular bulb can be screw in that!), and I did, with one of those:

http://www.fullspectrumsolutions.com/65w_power_compact_69_prd1.htm

And of course the punch is still very limited, even though, mathematically, it should be comparable (it's a 200W equivalent, while my 1K tingsten, through a full blue gel, is 250W equivalent), but unfortunately it doesn't work that way.

Now, I am still experimenting, but I'm sure I could fit two of those bulbs inside the chimera, and maybe three and in an ideal scenario, even 4. 4 of them inside the chimera would certainly surpass it with a 1K tungsten and full CTB. At 1/4 the power consumption. So I'm going after something like a Y socket adapter, where I can take 2 or more sockets from one. Who knows...


EDIT:

http://cinemasupplies.stores.yahoo.net/memafeadea.html

Ah-ha! If I can get my hands in three of those, and a couple of extra bulbs, I might end up with something cool!
 
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Wow, interesting if this works because I am really torn between this kit and the flolight. I like the idea of having the low power consumption daylight option even if I lose punch with the tungsten bulbs in the flolight. But if you could adapt flos into the chimera, then done and done.

I was wondering when correcting the chimera tungsten. Do you use the ctb chimera screens (as shown on the B&H site) to correct or just ctb gels. Would there be a difference in the wattage output?
 
I don't think there's any difference in wattage, I guess the CTB screen just looks neater... I'm using Gel only because BH had it back-ordered when I got my kit. Someday, if I see the need for a corrected screen, I'll use it.

I'm going for a shoot tomorrow and the day after, simple seated interviews, so I'll have more to say on the chimeras.

For now, although I'm studying using the fluorescents, I still suspect even 4 bulbs won't have enough punch to be really useful inside a chimera... First of all because most daylit situations need more punch from the keylight, to remain interesting visually, so it's always a challenge - I'm not even sure if I'll ever use it corrected with gel...

BUT, I'll take quite some time to confirm that, because those parts are impossible to find around here...
 
Hi Taubkin:

Hmm...interesting idea. Anything is possible but those CFL fixtures, regardlesss of wattage, don't seem to have much punch. Sounds like worthwhile experiment but I will be a little surprised if you are happy with the end results.

Fluoros have such a rapid falloff, I can't see them being practical in this way, especially with the small surface area of the CFLs versus the Biax tubes or regular tubes.

Let us know what kind of results you obtain from trying this or better yet, post some stills of the unit and some screenshots of the end result. After all, the end result is all that matters, right?

Best,

Dan
 
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