Ebay "Pro Digital" Flourescent light kit vs. Cool Lights??

Reasons why I, Richard J. Andrewski, Jr. would never buy that solution (and thus why I didn't offer something like it):

Executive Summary: You can't compare the two at all. The concept is not the same--other than they both offer soft lighting. It's two totally different philosophies of design and quality level. What they did is closer to what you can quickly do with a DIY solution from home depot for instance. I don't offer something like this because I wanted to offer a truly pro solution at a lower price point than most are doing. This skaesar offering is very much like a DIY solution.

Detail

Umbrella? It's much more like a kit meant for photographic use than a video one. He even calls it "[FONT=arial, helvetica]professional digital "Cool Flo" 13 light photo compact studio lighting kit[/FONT]". The umbrella is more of a photographic idea for flashes. Although there are a few people that use them for video work most don't. You're far more likely to see a softbox used than an umbrella. There would be more value there with two of the softboxes with the multi-spiral units rather than that edison tree thing with an umbrella.

Flicker Free? Maybe flicker free for a photographer but we don't even know if the bulbs are truly flicker free at all video shutter speeds and settings like mine are. Flicker free is a wide term abused by many especially in the photographic light crowd. Flicker seen by eye and flicker seen by shutter are two different things. Sometimes you can see flicker and that bulb will for sure be a problem. Sometimes you cannot detect it in cheaper ballast solutions until you go to a higher shutter speed above some threshhold where there are less than 2 refreshes of the light per shutter period. In other words, if the ballast doesn't at least refresh it's flo tube(s) twice per shutter opening you will most likely see flicker. I'd love to hear someone that used this thing at a higher shutter speed. Maybe most people shoot at 120 or less so it's not an issue--maybe you won't shoot at a higher speed either so it doesn't matter to you.

Ballasts? You can't compare the quality level of a self-ballasted solution with what Cool Lights offers with an output frequency of 40Khz and power factor of .99 (which means we use almost all of the theoretical wattage available to a 55w tube and why you could categorize our fixtures as very bright). I don't offer a self-ballasted solution yet because the ballasts in those kinds of bulbs are inferior--they simply don't have the room to work with in the space they have for all the circuitry they really need to do the job right. When I find the company here in China that offers me a great ballast in the base of those kind of bulbs, with an output frequency of 20,000 or higher--I'll be offering that bulb in 3200K and 5600K on my site. And soon thereafter or at the same time I'll have a multi-spiral unit also to offer to the super budget conscious person or those that prefer this kind of solution over the longer tubes.

Color Temp and CRI? These bulbs are 5100K color temp whereas mine are the standard 5600K and also available in 3200K to blend with existing tungsten lighting someone may have. Skaesar doesn't offer a 3200K solution there. Doesn't even list CRI--I wonder if they know what that is? Normally bulbs for "photographic and video use" would list that. Also he doesn't even list real wattage anywhere--why is that? He just says each bulb is like a 150w (so maybe its really a 40w type???). Well the problem with that is that many have different opinions about what equivalences between actual wattage and tungsten wattage are so you don't really know the true power until you buy this wonder. Some multiply by four some multiply by six which is about as dishonest as they come. Personally I like to know that kind of stuff.

Cool Lights? He certainly knows how to spam off my name for sure. "Cool Lights" all over that copy!

Stands? The pretty common cheap ones available all over the place. Can't compare to ours at all. Ours are spring loaded and can hold up a serious amount of weight beyond any of our fixtures we offer.

Dimming capability? Furthermore, his solution will never be dimmable. Our bulbs can be used in a dimmable or non-dimmable fixture as can any 55w PL biax tube from any manufacturer. A future softlight model from us will be dimmable--the bulbs will be interchangeable because that's what T5 CFL and ballast technology buys you. That's why the 55w tube is seen all over the industry and has pretty much been standardized on by every major tv/film lighting company that offers a fluorescent fixture. In addition to its high lumen per watt rating and ready availability of high power factor ballasts that use the total full wattage output capability of the bulbs.

Conclusion

You'll see me in here recommending Home Depot N:Vision spirals and work light scoops to people on a budget all the time. I offer barndoor kits as well as a free template to make barndoors for such a scoop on my site. I would really love for someone to explain to me the difference between one of the skaeser scoops and a home depot one other than a stand mount. Not even any barndoors on those "professional" units. LOL!

Even a Home Depot bulb comes out at 5500K and CRI 80ish which is much closer to our video standards for daylight. In addition, the multi-spiral units could easily be built too with a piece of masonite and and a bunch of plastic E26 sockets attached to it then put a reflective surface around the sockets. Put as many switches as you like on the back to turn each one or groups of them on and off. Buy an inexpensive softbox off ebay and adapt it to this DIY fixture and you've got the same thing.

It comes down to your philosophy and what you want to do with lighting. In reality soft lighting does not make a complete kit anyway. This is a soft lighting kit and that's all it will ever be. My softlight units like the CL-255 are soft and that's all they will ever be too. It's why we're going to be offering other kinds of professional "hard" lighting instruments soon. I guess if you're just looking for cheap, quick and dirty then that may be the way to go. But, let's say you want to add a tungsten fresnel or two to your kit later on. Should be no problem right? Oops. Skaesar doesn't have 3200K spirals. In fact they can be rather hard to find although 3500K is not a problem to find though. In any case, you're looking at replacing all those spirals to match your new instruments.

To sum up though, other than stands and stand mounts and a softbox I don't see too much value added there. Did I miss something?
 
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The blue max come highly recommended by many here and I even have a couple of the 55 or 65w versions from 2006 when it was still 5500K or so. I believe the color temp is higher now. I think you could try a Home Depot one too and see how you like it. You might save a lot if you're buying 18 bulbs. Many that compare can't see too much difference. Let us know what you do either way!
 
I see. Well that certainly is an underwhelming selection there. Too bad about that. I hope in the near future if we can find a decent spiral with a high frequency ballast that we can offer that; in which case, shipping from China is a very viable and not so expensive option. As is the case for all the other stuff we offer. I do hope to keep more stock here in China now to serve this part of the world direct from China which is far more efficient than us shipping to USA and then shipping back to Australia--I think you'll agree.
 
Oh. Absolutely. I'll probably order a brand called Paralite 45W from naturallighting.com And pay 50 bucks in shipping or so..
 
Thanks for the breakdown! I was just about to order the Cool Lights when I saw your post about the home depot scoops.

I have access to all the Arri equipment I would ever need but I want to keep something at my apartment to "practice" with and thought Cool Lights were the cheapest solution. Guess Home Depot is!
 
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