Coollights Question #2: Seriously, the likely hood of other HMIs?

K

Kholi

Section Moderator
Like a 75w, 250w, 350w???

And how soon? LOL

Or, if it'll make it go faster, a 300w and a 75w? =B I'm sayin', though. Gimme!
 
All thats possible. Its just a question of getting control of the fixtures I need to make it happen. The 75w would perhaps fit in a 300w tungsten body and would be the equivalent of a 300w of course. The 250w would fit in a 1000w tungsten body. The 400w might also go in the 1000w tungsten body or perhaps something just a bit larger but not quite the size of a 2000w tungsten unit. One other thing I lack is a good 250w or 400w CDM cold start bulb that's not huge in size, good CRI and can be made in a color temperature that's useful to us. We may have to go double ended on those which means a bit more complicated bulb socket. I could always use a single ended HMI bulb but the problem I see with that is, I'm back to more complex ballast and I prefer these cold start ballasts for this kind of use. No ignitor to worry about in the lamp head and that also simplifies the head immensely.
 
Richard:

Any indication on when you will have the 575 HMI back in stock?

Also, how long do you have to wait to re-strike it when you shut it down?

Dan
 
Ew Zander!

On a serious note: Richard, is the 575w HMI focusable like the other Fresnels or does it have lenses to move it from spot to flood, etc?
 
Can I ask a question about your cool light flo's?

I looked at the charts but I don't fully understand them, Is the green spike enough to see in skin from footage balanced @ 5600k with natural daylight and your cool lights? How do these bulbs compare to kinoflo's or pampa lights?

Thanks & cheap HMI's are a great idea!
 
1 x 150w HMI through the Sliding Glass doors with the screen diffusing
1 x 2x55 Dimmable bank on the other side Full Blast

White balance is at the 5600k preset. I also tried balancing with my Minus Green filter but haven't gotten used to that yet.

The wall behind her is naturally blueish/green, she likes to paint her walls neat colors.

I saw the greenish cast when I was outside at night before, it showed up in skintones but admittedly I hadn't white balanced properly in the first place. Now that I have the cards, etc, it should be better.

2.png
 
I didn't use any Minus green, actually. I think I may have balanced Minus green the WRONG way with the White Balance card because everything turned Magenta. And that's not good!

Instead, I balanced the camera to 5600k (daylight) setting. That's all raw stuff from HVX so yeah it's a little "Sterile" or cold.

I think it's just a matter of really paying attention to the light on your subject. Timur suggests getting Minus Green (Magenta) Gel for your lights, I think I'm going to do that as well this week instead of just relying on the Minus Green White Balance Card.

So, to summarize there's no minus green gel on either light source. Just straight blasts and 5600k balance on HVX.

And it's focused on her pants on purpose! I was doing some detail testing with CineD and my Letus Extreme.

letus is stopped down around F4, Camera is at about 3.4.
 
Oh Ok, your talking about a minus green white balance card? Not a minus green lighting gel?

ahh!
I would stay away from balanacing to a minus green card unless your only using floresent lighting. It will make all of your other lights (daylight ot HMI) look like they have a minus green on them (which they dont need) hense making everything look magenta.

The picture looked good though with out the minus green gel on the flo, I didnt see any noticable green-tint in the skin tones at all.

I would like to pick up a few of those dimmable cool lights sometime.
 
I thought it looked fine as well. I'm going to do more testing on the green tint but I really don't see one. Note, though, the Dimmable was at Full Blast and not dimmed so maybe that has something to do with the green tint not being apparent?

I'm no expert, though!
 
We're all cool here in the lighting forum. History shows that most all of our customers don't need a minus green gel for digital video work as long as they're white balancing with a normal white card. At least that's what I've found and have been told.
 
puredrifting said:
Richard:

Any indication on when you will have the 575 HMI back in stock?

Also, how long do you have to wait to re-strike it when you shut it down?

Dan
Click to expand...

Hi Dan,

We have maybe 3 left in stock now but the reason I have people contact me is I feel that this is a beta unit right now and I qualify that with customers so its not online ordering to just anyone. Expectations have to be set that this is a bleeding edge product which we don't know all that much about how reliable it will be yet. So far so good with the units we have out there. Little problems mostly with the yoke not holding the angle properly but I'm not overly concerned about that and it should be fixable in the final production models. Another issue is a faint electronic whine from the bulb due to the fact that we drive it at such a high frequency to avoid flicker at any FPS or shutter speed. I don't believe this noise is a problem to most people who have a subject and their microphone in a normal position and the light also in a normal position (i.e. not right next to the microphone). We may not be able to work this out of the production models as its a tough problem to solve. The fan noise on the ballast itself is acceptable and very "whisper" like.

From a light output standpoint they work fine and are comparable to an Arri 575w HMI fresnel in output, or maybe just a bit less. What can you expect for a product that's about 1/7th of the price of a comparable unit?

In any case, with this test, I want to develop a history on this ballast which is new before I put it out in full service. Once the test is over in about 6 months or so, we'll ramp up full manufacturing on it. So far, we only had to swap out one unit that failed.
 
Kholi said:
Ew Zander!

On a serious note: Richard, is the 575w HMI focusable like the other Fresnels or does it have lenses to move it from spot to flood, etc?
Click to expand...

Its just a normal fresnel with all the properties any other fresnel has--focusing knob for wide or narrow beam and a fixed fresnel lens which is not easily removable.
 
Cool Lights said:
Hi Dan,

We have maybe 3 left in stock now but the reason I have people contact me is I feel that this is a beta unit right now and I qualify that with customers so its not online ordering to just anyone. Expectations have to be set that this is a bleeding edge product which we don't know all that much about how reliable it will be yet. So far so good with the units we have out there. Little problems mostly with the yoke not holding the angle properly but I'm not overly concerned about that and it should be fixable in the final production models. Another issue is a faint electronic whine from the bulb due to the fact that we drive it at such a high frequency to avoid flicker at any FPS or shutter speed. I don't believe this noise is a problem to most people who have a subject and their microphone in a normal position and the light also in a normal position (i.e. not right next to the microphone). We may not be able to work this out of the production models as its a tough problem to solve. The fan noise on the ballast itself is acceptable and very "whisper" like.

From a light output standpoint they work fine and are comparable to an Arri 575w HMI fresnel in output, or maybe just a bit less. What can you expect for a product that's about 1/7th of the price of a comparable unit?

In any case, with this test, I want to develop a history on this ballast which is new before I put it out in full service. Once the test is over in about 6 months or so, we'll ramp up full manufacturing on it. So far, we only had to swap out one unit that failed.
Click to expand...

Richard:

The loose yoke would be a big deal for me as I shoot a lot with Chimeras and I need the lights to stay where I lock them down, that is one thing I like better on my Moles over my Arris, the moles have a metal yolk and lockdown and they stay put, the Arris with their nylon lockdown have a tendency to slip. My advice would be to spend a bit more and use a metal yoke with a metal lockdown ala Moles. This is a big deal for many DPs and gaffers, and it always has been for me. I have figured out workarounds but it's a PITA.

Do you anticipate the price on them staying the same or increasing when you finalize and ramp up?

BTW, I did a shoot last weekend with a rented LTM HMI 1200 watt PAR and most of the HMI heads make a high pitched whine anyway so thats not a big deal. It's in a frequency range far above the voice so it can be removed without killing your dialogue.

For certain shoots with live music, it could be bad but for dialogue, I have never had a problem with it.

Best,

Dan
 
puredrifting said:
Richard:

The loose yoke would be a big deal for me as I shoot a lot with Chimeras and I need the lights to stay where I lock them down, that is one thing I like better on my Moles over my Arris, the moles have a metal yolk and lockdown and they stay put, the Arris with their nylon lockdown have a tendency to slip. My advice would be to spend a bit more and use a metal yoke with a metal lockdown ala Moles. This is a big deal for many DPs and gaffers, and it always has been for me. I have figured out workarounds but it's a PITA.

Do you anticipate the price on them staying the same or increasing when you finalize and ramp up?

BTW, I did a shoot last weekend with a rented LTM HMI 1200 watt PAR and most of the HMI heads make a high pitched whine anyway so thats not a big deal. It's in a frequency range far above the voice so it can be removed without killing your dialogue.

For certain shoots with live music, it could be bad but for dialogue, I have never had a problem with it.

Best,

Dan
Click to expand...

That's my position on the noise too. It's just difficult to explain it to people that aren't used to working with an HMI.

The yoke on this unit is in fact a metal yoke with all metal parts including the clamping handle which is metal. What's wrong at the moment is that the surfaces between yoke and fixture are too smooth. Getting a yoke to stay in place is quite an art actually. Its not as simple as having a metal yoke and a clamping handle. You need some uneven surfaces in contact with each other in the area of clamping. The more uneven, the more you get a good lock. If the surfaces are all fairly smooth, you won't get the sticking action you're looking for.

On final pricing, I think we'll raise the price by about $200 to $300 when the test is finished. This will help cover the cost of what I perceive to be the added support necessary for this kind of product which is far likelier to have service issues than a fluorescent ballast. When you're charging $5000 to $9000 for a fixture, obviously the extra support is well built into that price. When you charge $699 to $999 for one thats not so much support.

One aspect of all this is that when you're making low cost HMI that just about anyone can afford, you get people that want one that haven't even used an HMI before and will compare it to a tungsten or fluorescent fixture which are mature, silent and pretty stable and predictable. This is a big problem of support for me because HMI is a different animal which has its own quirks due to the high voltage pulses which are very stressful to bulb and ignitor as well as ballast too. Someone like you who is used to working with them knows the cons as well as the pros. On the noise issue, some hear the hum and say something like, "well a ($5000) arri that I rented recently didn't have this noise that your ($699) light has." Of course, they leave the prices out not admitting that my unit is 1/7th of the cost! Even if we raised the price to $999 that's still 1/5th of the cost. Expectations have to be set that there are some compromises in something so inexpensive and that metal halide is not tungsten nor is it fluorescent and should be considered in its own context.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top