Impact - The new Britek?

interesting - I've got a few impact stands I like alot (for the price at least), but havent seen their fixtures before... If I recall this is BH's house brand.
 
I literally just picked up one of these last week to use as a background light. The focusing knob behaves like my Lowell ProLight... when you turn the knob to "narrow", the bulb pulls back into the fixture. Effectively, the narrow beam is really a hotspot in the center and the light falls off quickly towards the edges of the light.
 
kevin01 said:
I literally just picked up one of these last week to use as a background light. The focusing knob behaves like my Lowell ProLight... when you turn the knob to "narrow", the bulb pulls back into the fixture. Effectively, the narrow beam is really a hotspot in the center and the light falls off quickly towards the edges of the light.
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all focusing heads do that except most call is "spot" and "flood"

I do not like the Britech lights, the light's body are made of plastic. Just something I do not want. The body is the one piece of a light that you cannot replace easily, everything else you can replace or rebuild. If you have to replace a body then you might as well buy a new light. You can get much better deals on used lights on Ebay. Most of my lights cost me around $20-$40 each shipped, including a few babies and a mighty. My Junior cost me $200 but that is the most I have paid for a light.
 
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Interesting - maybe worth picking up - I love the Prolights just for portability and you can stick the little suckers anywhere to get a beam of light on something. $98 including barndoors is a pretty good deal though.
 
It's that plastic body.

On my Briteks the top vent parts actually melted, not to mention the abuse they will have to put up with if you ever take them out of the house.

I'm sure they are $100 for a reason. Good for someone starting out but I don't see any professional carrying these in their kit and liking it.
 
'nother option is a ProLight for a few bucks more - $140 should get you fixture + barndoors. They're small but sturdy and a pretty good workhorse. Few more $$ but tried and true.
 
Since its been mentioned a few times, I thought I'd throw up some quick comparisons between the Lowel ProLight and the Impact Qualite.

First, here are the contenders...
http://www.sn-films.com/Photos/DVXUser/ProLight_vs_Qualite1.jpg
http://www.sn-films.com/Photos/DVXUser/ProLight_vs_Qualite2.jpg

Obviously, the 250 watt ProLight is much smaller than the 300 watt Qualite. As for the light patterns, please see the following.

Lowel ProLight
http://www.sn-films.com/Photos/DVXUser/ProLight_flood.jpg
http://www.sn-films.com/Photos/DVXUser/ProLight_spot.jpg

Impact Qualite
http://www.sn-films.com/Photos/DVXUser/Qualite_flood.jpg
http://www.sn-films.com/Photos/DVXUser/Qualite_spot.jpg

Obviously, the Qualite fills a much broader area than the ProLight. Because of this I wasn't sure how useful the barn doors were going to be. Afterall, you can get barn doors for a basic scoop light, but you really can't shape the light from them. I was rather pleased that I was able to create the following using only the included barn doors.

Barndoors on Qualite (sorry 'bout the white balance)
http://www.sn-films.com/Photos/DVXUser/Qualite_barn1.jpg
http://www.sn-films.com/Photos/DVXUser/Qualite_barn2.jpg
http://www.sn-films.com/Photos/DVXUser/Qualite_barn3.jpg

For the money, the Qualite is not a horrible lighting unit but it's definitely not the first light I'm going to reach for. I hope this helps.


And for extra low budget fun, here's my uber-pimped worklight that refuses to be retired...
http://www.sn-films.com/Photos/DVXUser/worklight.jpg
http://www.sn-films.com/Photos/DVXUser/Worklight_mod1.jpg
http://www.sn-films.com/Photos/DVXUser/Worklight_mod2.jpg
 
William_Robinette said:
I'm sure they are $100 for a reason. Good for someone starting out but I don't see any professional carrying these in their kit and liking it.
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I have 3 Briteks in my kit and use them a lot. Will they take a hit like an Arri? No. But I take care of them and have never had a problem through many, many interviews and productions.
 
Stick with Arri, Mole, and B&M, all are tough life-time lasting lights. Just because they are bigger names doesn't mean they have to be expensive. It can be hard to find good prices but you just have to be persistent.
 
Don't forget altman prolines...they're consistantly 30 t0 40 bucks cheaper per light and same build quality as the arri. I'm very happy with mine.
 
dlang said:
Don't forget altman prolines...they're consistantly 30 t0 40 bucks cheaper per light and same build quality as the arri. I'm very happy with mine.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I wouldn't give up my Altman 650L for anything. It's bulletproof.
 
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