caselite, daylight "and" tungsten!

T

themagickite

Well-known member
just reading up bout these cool lights,

has anyone tried putting 2 daylight bulbs and 2 tungsten bulbs in a caselite4? switching bulbs on and off depending on the lighting situation, effectively making it a switchable colour temp caselite2?

or the same with the caselite2, with 1 daylight and 1 tungsten.
 
There's no reason you couldn't do this with a 4x55 of any kind. However you cannot do that with a 2x55. Usually all the models I'm familiar with switch bulbs on / off 2 at a time thus if you put two bulbs of different color temp in a 2x55 you will have both the tungsten and daylight on at the same time.
 
The CaseLite lets you individually switch three of the tubes. It has four power switches on it -- one on the cord (the master switch), which always turns on one tube, and then three additional switches on the case itself that control tubes 2, 3, and 4.

So no, MagicKite, you can't quite do what you want, because tube 1 will always be on, and that'll be either tungsten or daylight.

The better solution is to just load it up with daylight tubes in all four slots, and keep a sheet of CTO gel in your kit. That way you just clip in the CTO gel when you need tungsten, and remove it for daylight. But you want to use daylight tubes in the unit for this, because when you need the most output is when you're battling daylight, so you want ungelled daylight. When going to tungsten I frequently find that I use only one or maybe two tubes in the unit, so the 2/3 of 1 stop light loss that CTO introduces is no big deal at all.
 
I think the Select bank Kino's are one of the few lights that can do this. I have my 4ft 4bank loaded up this way most of the time - bulbs 1 and 3 with daylight and 2 and 4 with tungsten so I can flip between the two quickly. Sometimes I spark 1 daylight and 1 tungsten together which sometimes suits the color i'm looking for.
 
You can do it with the Cool Lights 4x55 or 6x55 models also. I think the caselite is rare for a 55w model if it can switch on / off by single tube. Normally it requires a ballast per socket to do this and most manufacturers won't spend that extra money to dedicate a ballast per tube to allow switching on/off single 55w tubes.
 
You may want to consider The Lumen or Lumen Mini. You can come by the American Film Market to see them. We'll begin taking orders at the AFM.
 
barry, there are 2 versions of the caselite (the CE and ETL versions) seems to be just different test approval kinda companies for different regions, but the 2 versions operate differently.

http://www.lowel.com/instructions.html

the version you have is the etl i think, which can have 1,2,3 or 4 lights on at once. the CE version you have to have 2 or 4.

from the ETL manual
Light intensity is controlled through
the individual lamp switches. In each
Caselite, the first tube is controlled
by the AC switch in the power cable
and remaining lamps are controlled
by the switch(es) on back of fixture.

from the CE manual
Light intensity is controlled through
the lamp switches. In each CEmodel
Caselite, the ACto the fixture is con-
trolled by a switch on the power cable,
and then the lamps are controlled in
pairs by switches on the back panel.

so i guess the CE version would allow this (i think my region is CE, i see it on every electrical appliance) but won't allow the same level of control.
 
That is indeed news to me, I didn't know there were two versions. So it may be possible on a CE, but definitely not on the ETL. (but I still say a sheet of CTO is the easiest/guaranteed answer). :)
 
Barry_Green said:
Almost though; CTO = 2/3 of a stop.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I should have clarified - I meant when shooting with the daylight bulbs.
If you go with the option of using different bulbs in the fixture then you effectively have a 2 bank light instead of a 4 bank.
And when you're shooting with daylight - that's usually when you'd want to get the most bang out of your light.
 
yeah cto seems the way to go
so do ya think these lights are worth it?
i'd be using them for super8 productions.
i started looking for daylight balanced lights so i don't have to cut 2 stops of light when using ektachrome 100d. that and it just makes it easier when mixing lights and sun.
barry, do you think the 2 scandles + 1 caselite4 = good kit for small productions? or just go with 2 x caselite4?
i'm used to working with a 3 light ianiro kit, 1 x gulliver 2 x lilliput, which i'm not overly fond of, but they do get the job done. and more recently a 3 x lowel tota kit, which i found a little uninspiring.
 
The CaseLite is my #1 go-to light in my whole kit. Whenever I set up for anything, the CaseLite is the first thing I reach for.

But I don't know that I would buy 'em again; they and the Divas were the only things on the market when I got 'em, but they're awfully expensive as compared to some of the alternatives like the Cool Lights and the FloLights. The FloLight 4-bank is about half the cost of the CaseLite 4-bank.

The CaseLite works pretty well, and it's very small, but frankly I get tired of packing it up and unpacking it every time I want to use it. The simplicity of the FloLight is rather appealing from that aspect.

The Scandles are huge; I've got a 2-unit kit of that. It works well for what it is, but frankly I'd get the $69 Cool Lights softbox kit instead of a Scandle again. Not that there's anything wrong with the Scandle, but 90% of the time the way I use it, it ends up doing the same job as that Cool Lights softbox, and the Cool Lights thing is 1/10th the price.
 
I can't speak for the caselite as I haven't used it.

But, for what its worth, I have two of the FloLight 4-bank lights that Barry mentioned, and ever since I've gotten them they're the first thing I reach for (granted they are also the only flourescent lights I have in my kit and I LOVE the lack of heat coming off them).

But the set up is quick - the light output is nice and even - and they are also switchable , but only in 2 and 4 light configurations. One nice touch on the ballast wiring is that the two outside lights are wired togehter and the two inside lights are wired together. So you can either use all 4 bulbs, the 2 outside bulbs, or the 2 inside bulbs. Makes a bit of a difference, and depending on the situation I've gone with one of the other.

They're also nice in that you can mount them vertically or horizontally, which has also come in really handy on a few occassions.

The only thing I will say about the FloLights is that I'm not really a fan of the mount.
It has two mounts on it, one along the length and one along the width of the light.
The light fixutre itself weights about 10 lbs I think - it just seems like a lot of pressure to put on that joint. It also makes it more difficult to tilt the light too much, because then you have all that weight hanging out in front of your stand - pulling it forward.

I've actually taken to setting it up on a grip arm if I need to tilt it significantly, that way I can keep the center of gravity below the light instead of hanging out in front of the stand.

That's my 2 cents anyhow.
Well worth the money - I'd just like to see some sort of Kino-like lollipop configuration.
(which I believe Richard at CoolLights is rolling out soon).
 
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