Have Arri Kit, want flo lights for small studio - reccomends?

N

newadam

Well-known member
I have several arri lights (650, 2-300's, 3-150's) I want to add some flourecents as my main soft key lights for my small studio. Looking at Kino-Flos Dva 400's. I would pay thif they are dramatically better quality, durability, and dimming. But looking at the cool-lights, they are far cheaper. I have bought cheap lighting before, but had horrible dependability. Any thoughts. I need 2-3 lights maybe 2 400 flo lights and maybe 1 200 flo. Thanks for suggestions. I mainly do 2-3 person sit down interviews. I will use the arri lights to add drama as needed.

Adam
 
Thanks for looking but I wouldn't call our fixtures cheap ;-). Inexpensive is more the term in fact we give quite a bit of value for what you spend with us.

There is a growing population of people here that have ordered from us and not just in the USA. The problem is you mostly see negative postings from people on different companies. You won't see negative postings from our customers because we take care of them. Not so often do people post good experiences--not sure why but that's just the way it seems to work. We'll have more testimonials as time goes on. We even have people from Canada, Albania, France and the UK ordering from us. We just had our first Cool Lights video sale in Australia too. Word is spreading quickly. Even with the huge cost of express shipping, customs and VAT taxes it's still a better deal than some of what they have available in their own countries.

I doubt you'll see much difference in photographic quality between our fixture and a kino (if any). As for build, ours is more sturdy than a Diva--hands down. Ours is sheet metal and professionally powder coated and a Kino Diva is corrugated plastic. Also we currently don't have dimming but just switching on/off by two bulb pairs. So if you're okay with more weight and no dimming ours will be sturdier and last longer and is definitely at home in a studio environment. Good luck with your choices.
 
Quick question, fotodiox makes similar kits for a lot less. Why is yours' worth the extra 70.00 US? (refering to the 4 bulb flo kits).
 
zeke said:
Quick question, fotodiox makes similar kits for a lot less. Why is yours' worth the extra 70.00 US? (refering to the 4 bulb flo kits).
Click to expand...

Hi Joe, well for one thing I learned how to spell "light" and not "lihgt" back in first grade ;-) -- maybe the company should check their graphics before they post them.

I don't own that brand so I don't know the specifics of how it's really built (beyond their description of "heavy duty metal"), what ballasts they used, etc. I do see they used a cheaper, "hammered" aluminum on their barn doors which has a tendency to scatter light. We used a higher grade "Miro" reflective material on ours. I also don't see a slide-in adapter for things like eggcrates. We don't offer an eggcrate (yet) but as you can see by the enclosed picture, we're working on it. This one is natural silver color but the finished one will be powder coated black which allows for more control of the light.

Every manufacturer or representative enters the market at a certain price point based on their overhead costs, etc. I can tell you that we also went with a bit higher cost ballast that is UL approved and gave the effect I was looking for--and we list our specs for the ballast on the site too including output frequency. I'll stack this ballast up against a Fulham any day. Where's the info on their site for specifics like ballast specs? Not too many other manufacturers are proud enough to do that for some reason. Do you know anything about their ballast specs (such as output frequency) that you can report back here on?

There aren't very many other resources on their site either are there? All that doesn't come for free. We get lots of compliments on the site and people feel there is someone there that knows what they're doing behind the scenes. And that's just going to keep getting better and deeper with more and more resources. Most of these other sites, you're not even sure "someone is home" really are you? Some of them, you get the feeling they were selling used cars or refrigerators before they started their current business--and didn't fully get educated in their new business yet ;-).

I don't see anyone from flolights or fotodiox or many of these others out on the boards interacting with people except through "shilling." I'm here quite often (even as a sponsor now) and on other boards both educating others as well as getting educated myself on what people are looking for. And there's no mystery about who I am or what I represent either. You can always see in my signature who I am and my company. Which of your favorite sites are fotodiox sponsoring or actively taking part in to find out what's going on? I would love to go there to join in the fun! ;-)

Someone needs to spend time on things like keeping in touch, product development and all that. We've got even more interesting products coming up including dimming versions of our fixtures. Can you tell us fotodiox' position on dimming?

They say they ship with Osram bulbs but where are the test reports posted on their site? Last time I was there I didn't see any. By the way, I have a test report for Osram bulbs on my site that we posted to compare our bulbs with Osrams.

I'm sure you can always find someone less expensive than someone else and there can be many many reasons why. Ultimately you have to decide which is the best one for you and just take your chances and jump in.
 

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I've messed with the fotodiox lights... and there is another thread in here somewhere in which an owner of them talks about them. You can search around for that but the synopsis was: a good sturdy unit for the price, but the bulbs that come with it are crap. From having used one, I'd agree they seem well-built, although I can't attest to the quality of the ballast or the photometrics or anything like that, as I wasn't doing any hardcore testing or a side-by-side comparison with anything else.

I'm afraid I don't have any experience with the Cool Lights, but once their dimmable models hit the streets that will most likely change. :)

As for your original question: I don't think the Kinos are dramatically better quality or durability. The things I like about them are the dimmability (which Flolights do cheaper, and they are really solid fixtures), and the Diva's ball-joint mount that lets you quickly adjust the light any-which-way. They're also a bit lighter, [presumably] at some expense of sturdiness. Depending on what type of shooting you do that could be good. Is a fully-accessorized fixture from Kino worth what they charge for it? Heeeeeeeell no; that's why people like Andrewski there need to keep coming out with more reasonably priced alternatives.

Hope that helps,
Kevin
 
hemophilia said:
...and the Diva's ball-joint mount that lets you quickly adjust the light any-which-way. They're also a bit lighter, [presumably] at some expense of sturdiness. Depending on what type of shooting you do that could be good. Is a fully-accessorized fixture from Kino worth what they charge for it? Heeeeeeeell no; that's why people like Andrewski there need to keep coming out with more reasonably priced alternatives.

Hope that helps,
Kevin
Click to expand...

Oh that's true about the "lollipop" as they call it. Isn't that great? That is one other advantage of a Kino. For mounting on a grid, I don't think I would want the lollipop (just give me a good sturdy pipe clamp and no extra adapters which could slip out) but on a stand it sure is nice and flexible and most here are using stands as their mounting.

You know the problem with someone like me offering a lollipop type mount is that I believe that is patented so therefore protected. Nothing stopping anyone from going out and getting an articulating ball adapter from filmtools though and making their own version ;-)
 
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Cool Lights said:
Hi Joe, well for one thing I learned how to spell "light" and not "lihgt" back in first grade ;-) -- maybe the company should check their graphics before they post them.

I don't own that brand so I don't know the specifics of how it's really built (beyond their description of "heavy duty metal"), what ballasts they used, etc. I do see they used a cheaper, "hammered" aluminum on their barn doors which has a tendency to scatter light. We used a higher grade "Miro" reflective material on ours. I also don't see a slide-in adapter for things like eggcrates. We don't offer an eggcrate (yet) but as you can see by the enclosed picture, we're working on it. This one is natural silver color but the finished one will be powder coated black which allows for more control of the light.

Every manufacturer or representative enters the market at a certain price point based on their overhead costs, etc. I can tell you that we also went with a bit higher cost ballast that is UL approved and gave the effect I was looking for--and we list our specs for the ballast on the site too including output frequency. I'll stack this ballast up against a Fulham any day. Where's the info on their site for specifics like ballast specs? Not too many other manufacturers are proud enough to do that for some reason. Do you know anything about their ballast specs (such as output frequency) that you can report back here on?

There aren't very many other resources on their site either are there? All that doesn't come for free. We get lots of compliments on the site and people feel there is someone there that knows what they're doing behind the scenes. And that's just going to keep getting better and deeper with more and more resources. Most of these other sites, you're not even sure "someone is home" really are you? Some of them, you get the feeling they were selling used cars or refrigerators before they started their current business--and didn't fully get educated in their new business yet ;-).

I don't see anyone from flolights or fotodiox or many of these others out on the boards interacting with people except through "shilling." I'm here quite often (even as a sponsor now) and on other boards both educating others as well as getting educated myself on what people are looking for. And there's no mystery about who I am or what I represent either. You can always see in my signature who I am and my company. Which of your favorite sites are fotodiox sponsoring or actively taking part in to find out what's going on? I would love to go there to join in the fun! ;-)

Someone needs to spend time on things like keeping in touch, product development and all that. We've got even more interesting products coming up including dimming versions of our fixtures. Can you tell us fotodiox' position on dimming?

They say they ship with Osram bulbs but where are the test reports posted on their site? Last time I was there I didn't see any. By the way, I have a test report for Osram bulbs on my site that we posted to compare our bulbs with Osrams.

I'm sure you can always find someone less expensive than someone else and there can be many many reasons why. Ultimately you have to decide which is the best one for you and just take your chances and jump in.
Click to expand...

I think you explained quite well. Your's do have a higher quality look to them. The Fotodiox use the cheaper Osram bulbs that only have 85CRI at best. Plus you offer 3200K which can be important. If your bulbs match the quality of the GE Cineplus, then thats a plus too. The Cineplus are rated at 90 cri by the manufacturere. Your 40khz ballasts should satisfy even the pickiest.

Thanks
 
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