Diva 400, foto flo 400

M

max123

Member
Today I did some tests. My brand new foto flo 400, 4X 4' tubes; against my old diva lite 400, 4X 2' biax tubes.

Guess what, the Diva has more output and covers as much vertical space, even though it is half the height.

I put the Diva and foto flo side by side about 10 feet in front of a white background. I measured the light with the spot meter in the hvx 200. From the bottom of the background to its top, the Diva gave me between 5% and 10% difference (looking at the spot meter % of course)

Is that normal? Could the foto flo be defective?
 
If you have the 75w tube then its a bit strange (or the tubes are old) as they claim a bit more output than a 55w tube but it should be since its 20 watts more to drive it and 4 foot long. If you have the 40w four foot tube then its normal but as far as I know, Kino only sells a 4 foot 75w tube. A more common 40w T12 tube would be obtained from another supplier probably.

The normal output of a Kino 4 foot 75w tube is 3300 to 3400 lumens and the normal output of a 55w tube is 2900 to 3000 lumens. In general, the higher the CRI, the lower the lumen output unless the tubes are being overdriven.
 
Oh wow!! Could you PLEASE do a test with a real person? I've been dying to see a side-by-side of a 4banker vs the biax tubes. I've heard TONS say they prefer the light quality of the 4' tubes, whilst you are only checking lumens out
 
shawneous said:
Oh wow!! Could you PLEASE do a test with a real person? I've been dying to see a side-by-side of a 4banker vs the biax tubes. I've heard TONS say they prefer the light quality of the 4' tubes, whilst you are only checking lumens out
Click to expand...

I'd imagine many would prefer the 4' tubes more simply because they are softer.
 
I will do tests this weekend and post the results. If someone told me, I would have bought a cool light 6X 55 biax instead , save the money and be happy! Now I have this HUUUUGE light with a case so big you need a van to carry it , and it doesn't give any more spread and output than a portable light! The 4 tubes are F75 T12/HO and I just bought them!
 
And thats why we didn't work too hard on a 4 foot tube fixture (at least at this time). They simply aren't portable no matter what you do.
 
>I'd imagine many would prefer the 4' tubes more simply because they are softer.

yup.

We have both a Diva and a 4' 4-bank, and the 4-bank gets used about 90% of the time due the soft quality of the light. It's the wrap around quality that's desired, not the light output. If we just wanted light output, we'd just use a fresnell and be done with it.
 
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