$150 for a 575 HMI par?

Michael Carter

Michael Carter

Veteran
Yeah, I couldn't believe it either... but here you have it (OK, it's cold-restrike HID, not HMI).

Some years ago, a company got the idea of converting a Source 4 Par to HID - this sort of revolutionized the auto show business. The Source 4 is an insanely - insanely efficient par that uses a 575 tunsgten globe. It's been knocked off by Altman, MTB, and so on. I use a tungsten version often, they come with 4 lenses and they're wicked and versatile when you need a cutting beam of light. Someone thought "let's stick an igniter on the yoke and use a same-base 575 HID globe, triple the output". Now all sorts of companies do these conversions or even sell kits.

So apparently now a lot of these well-used show lights are hitting the used market - I saw a bunch from Canada on eBay for $300, and more searching led me to UsedLighting.com - more of a stage and entertainment vendor, but they do have some production stuff - and killer service. Where they had a bunch for $150 + $27 shipping. Included the fixture, ballast, 4 lenses, 2 safety cables, barn doors, gel frame, and all 4 lenses. thought I'd take one for the team.

enliten.jpg

I had them throw in a used globe. These take 575's that are listed as 7200k (cheap entertainment globes, 85ish CRI) and also a 6000k that's up to $200 and harder to find (the 7200 are about $40 and widely available).

My testing showed it right around 7200k - and bright as m&thrf@#% hell. My Sekonic says just over 3x brighter than the tungsten version - at 7200k. Not giving a rat's ass about CRI (I've got 80-something HIDs that gel up great) I also scored a Phillips "Broadway" globe new on eBay. Here's what I ended up with:

1/2 CTO
1/4 Minus green

Fixture 10' away, through 1-stop Westscott diffusion.

ISO 100
F 8 1/2 - F11
1/60th shutter.

par.jpg

That's ONE HUNDRED ISO folks... at F-freaking-eleven. When was the last time you shot indoors at 100 and F11??

The cons -

The ballast has a 3' Cable... and a fan. Not a really bad fan, but a fan. However, these use standard PowerCon cables, so I'll be testing an extension.

All of these pars require profanity to change the lens. Unless you have the $10 lens tool - a paint can opener also works fine.

What can you do with this sucker? Maybe fight the sun for interviews when using an overhead scrim - I know it should give me about 2 stops darker backgrounds outdoors, which is just what I need for interviews with a quick setup. Just some nice fill. I also want to test it ungelled outdoors, balance to the fixture and warm up those dull-blue shade BGs you get sometimes.

For night shots, no gels and you have blue moonlight. It makes hard beams through smoke like crazy, 4 lenses give you some variety. Or stick the wide lens in and bounce or diffuse. Great for distant bounce or overhead bounce with the narrower lenses, too.

I checked the usedlighting site - they now have a bunch of these at $395. Not sure what happened to the $150 price, but I imagine some searching will turn up more choices - this brand is "Enliten" (light still says Source 4, "Enliten" on the ballast - they did the conversion). Maybe contact them, they are super-friendly.

Not a perfect light by any means, but for $150 - man, I dig it!!!
 
Yeah I was looking at hmis on ebay a few weeks ago and saw a ton of similar 575 hmi pars and wondered if it could be too good to be true. I'm a bit tempted to go for it even at $400... I assume the lenses are needed for UV protection as well? How's the flicker? Did you test various shutter speeds? What was the color temp on your test shot? 5600k? Looks pretty good for low cri inexpensive globes. Better stock up on globes in case they are all up for sale because they stopped making the globes or something...
 
nyvz said:
Yeah I was looking at hmis on ebay a few weeks ago and saw a ton of similar 575 hmi pars and wondered if it could be too good to be true. I'm a bit tempted to go for it even at $400... I assume the lenses are needed for UV protection as well? How's the flicker? Did you test various shutter speeds? What was the color temp on your test shot? 5600k? Looks pretty good for low cri inexpensive globes. Better stock up on globes in case they are all up for sale because they stopped making the globes or something...
Click to expand...

I'd contact used lighting and see if they have any at $150; but there are a lot out there.

I **recall** reading spec sheets for these globes saying they need lenses or UV gels - better safe than sorry! The lens sets for any of these type include a stippled" fresnel" lens (which ain't really a fresnel but is soft).

I get no flicker until I hit 1/400th - that's a high frequency ballast. This is the "Enliten" ballast, so others may vary?

Color temp was 5600k, clip was ungraded - Nikon D7100, neutral profile.

Those globes are, far as I can tell, really ubiquitous in entertainment, used in a lot of beam projectors and automated - motorized lights. Even the DJ supply places seem to have them.

I think until you hit $500 and up, you can't even find a 200 HMI par used - those are still about a grand. And pars give you at least a stop over a similar powered fresnel, and the source 4 is efficient as hell. So yep, if you can live with a ballast fan (or if these will work with say, a 12' extension to get the ballast in another room, etc) - these could be killer tools. Kinda overkill for a normal indoor shoot, but maybe good for lighting windows from outside - the lenses give you a lot of choices.

It is a large-ish fixture, at least the ones with external igniters - they replace the yoke with one twice the length and the igniter is bolted on there. Add the barn doors and it gets a little, umm, impressive! For now I have a hook attachment for a superclamp (made for seamless paper but for still shoots I use those hang the packs from the same stands their heads are on) and hang the ballast on the stand.
 
Maybe the $150 was a price error? Seems too good to be true otherwise...

How loud is the ballast? How many feet away till you stop hearing it or till it might seem fine to record sound?
 
No, they said they had like 20 at the time. Not sure, I did email them with a link to this thread.

The fan is on the quiet side, but these things were designed to be 50 feet up on a truss in an auto show. It really depends on your micing technique and gear, but I'd guess if I did my most expected use of this, which is:

Interviews outdoors with people scrimmed overhead (1/4 silk usually, just to cut the harshness and need less fill) or in the shade, with a full sun background behind them;

Light 12-15' away, ballast hanging on same stand as the light, through a 4x4 or 6x6 diffusion panel for fill;

AT4053a Hyper in a blimp (or maybe an OST/Senn. G3 combo)...

...I'd bet the fan would be audible over the general outdoor noise. Indoors it would need to be in another room. Hopefully these will work with a powercon extension of at least 12'... that would get you in another room indoors, and outdoors get the ballast farther away, where you could "wall it off" with some cases as well. 20' would be even better.
 
are there any higher CRI lamps that would be compatible with this unit? the fixture is so cheap that i could see myself spending extra to get some better colour, if that is a possibility.
 
Where are you seeing 7200k bulbs for $40? I'm mostly seeing both 7200k an 6000k bulbs with CRI85 for ~$100.

From my searching it seems the globe to look for is a 95v 575w gx9.5, does that sound right?

There is some info here, sounds like gx9.5 will never be hot restrike, but I guess I can sacrifice that. I kind of always assume I'm going to have to wait for a cold start when using HMIs and am pleasantly surprised when they hot restrike properly...
http://www.coollights.biz/wordpress/archives/41
 
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Michael Carter said:
...I'd bet the fan would be audible over the general outdoor noise. Indoors it would need to be in another room. Hopefully these will work with a powercon extension of at least 12'... that would get you in another room indoors, and outdoors get the ballast farther away, where you could "wall it off" with some cases as well. 20' would be even better.
Click to expand...

Sounds like the ballast is really loud, hmm that might be the dealbreaker... Having to run the ballast from another room is not always possible.
 
nyvz said:
Where are you seeing 7200k bulbs for $40? I'm mostly seeing both 7200k an 6000k bulbs with CRI85 for ~$100.

From my searching it seems the globe to look for is a 95v 575w gx9.5, does that sound right?

There is some info here, sounds like gx9.5 will never be hot restrike, but I guess I can sacrifice that. I kind of always assume I'm going to have to wait for a cold start when using HMIs and am pleasantly surprised when they hot restrike properly...
http://www.coollights.biz/wordpress/archives/41
Click to expand...

I did drive myself up a tree researching these globes - for this fixture:
575 Single ended MH, GX 9.5 base, 95v

7200K: MSR 575/2 HSR575/2
6000k: MSD575
6000k: HSD575

The 6000k globes are $250 or so.
Search eBay for "MSR575" for under $40 (7200k) globes. All over the place.

I don't think it's worth the bucks just to avoid using 1/2 CTO (which worked for my use anyway) - the pricey 600k globes aren't really high CRI, if that matters. Sometimes low CRi can gel out beautifully, sometimes not - it's a more random figure than color temp.

Ballast - it's not "noisy" but it's there (for all I know there are conversion like this with no fan??) but it would be a problem indoors. For my uses and the way I shoot, I doubt I'd use this indoors (I have several Photoflex "starlights" running 6000k 95 CRI 400w moguls with aquarium ballasts which are pretty kickass indoors - and no fans!) So my hard light needs are more in the 650-1k range when the moguls are in a softbox - I usually give a tungsten fresnel 1/2 CTO, and I've also got a thread here on how to mod a fresnel into a 150 HID (about 650 daylight) with a $50 Amazon ballast). Since I'm not running 6k HMIs for my usual client shoots, I'm more psyched about these 575s for outdoors, window light, night shots, and potentially music videos... the only scenario I'd worry about ballast noise would be using ;em for fill outdoors - YMMV.

I'd say if you can score one for, say, under $200 - kinda hard to pass up if you have a need for something like that!
 
Wait is this it? Looks like it popped up for 200 bucks. Tempted to get one so I at least have one hard source thats daylight balance. Wish it was quiet for indoor bounce but still for the price of 200 bucks I could get use out of at least one. Also you guys mentioned UV light lenses? What all do I need to know about these lights for safety as these are all new to me.

http://www.usedlighting.com/14612/tmb-power-par-hmi-575w

and there looks like one for 75 but its missing a ballast.

http://www.usedlighting.com/20152/behringer-ultrapar
 
The first link is the HMI (HID) converted par.

The 2nd one is an unconverted 575 tungsten - a great light but not daylight. Doesn't need a ballast. Read the first paragraph of my original post for comparison and history.

The lenses that come with the pars will block UV (according to the manufacturer anyway...) UV gel is cheap though and will go in the gel frame.

When I bought mine, I asked and they threw in a used globe. Changing globes is tough, you disassemble the back of the unit - phillips screwdriver and a wrench, takes 10 mins. or so.

Mine is 7200k so needs a bit of gels to get to the 5500 range, but very nice and very bright.

In the next week or two I'll get a powercon extension and see how far I can get the ballast away.
 
Michael Carter said:
The first link is the HMI (HID) converted par.

The 2nd one is an unconverted 575 tungsten - a great light but not daylight. Doesn't need a ballast. Read the first paragraph of my original post for comparison and history.

The lenses that come with the pars will block UV (according to the manufacturer anyway...) UV gel is cheap though and will go in the gel frame.

When I bought mine, I asked and they threw in a used globe. Changing globes is tough, you disassemble the back of the unit - phillips screwdriver and a wrench, takes 10 mins. or so.

Mine is 7200k so needs a bit of gels to get to the 5500 range, but very nice and very bright.

In the next week or two I'll get a powercon extension and see how far I can get the ballast away.
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Ah okay yeah even with a 7200k bulb it seems like its worth picking up at least one to have a daylight balanced unit. Might have to see if I have the money for one laying around to spend. I mean there really is nothing in this price range to compare it with anyways right?
 
ReelFilmGeek said:
Ah okay yeah even with a 7200k bulb it seems like its worth picking up at least one to have a daylight balanced unit. Might have to see if I have the money for one laying around to spend. I mean there really is nothing in this price range to compare it with anyways right?
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The only thing I could think of is if you get very lucky on a used HMI par - but you're still looking at $500+?

The closest thing I've found is a 6000k, 90+ CRI 400w Mogul HID ($30 or so) with an aquarium ballast - the mogul globes are huge, but the setup works fine in a Photoflex Starlight setup... and if you shop around, you can find a starlight, softbox, and grid for under $200 used... and the Starlight will take a tungsten mogul of 500 and 1K. So that's a pretty badass softbox solution (I also made a space light with one) that gives you about 1200+ watts daylight (needs 1/2 CTB in my experience) or 1k tungsten. The small starlight softbox is a decent open-faced hard light for bounce or diff. panels, too.

But that Source 4 par is as efficient as a fixture gets - fills a different need than the softbox setup.

DSC_5598.jpg

spacelight.jpg
 
Cool with have to look into those. Looks like I might be picking up the 575 just to have at least one strong daylight source that is hard light. Now it looks like the light uses a L6-20 connector, will that still work on a regular wall outlet? Getting into these higher power light sources is new to me and I know a little bit about the basics (like how you can only draw so much power from an outlet) but I'm trying to learn more.
 
ReelFilmGeek said:
Cool with have to look into those. Looks like I might be picking up the 575 just to have at least one strong daylight source that is hard light. Now it looks like the light uses a L6-20 connector, will that still work on a regular wall outlet? Getting into these higher power light sources is new to me and I know a little bit about the basics (like how you can only draw so much power from an outlet) but I'm trying to learn more.
Click to expand...

These only pull about 6-7 amps - that may be a connector for lighting/show rigs or something - you can just splice an edison on it. Should be able to run 2 or even 3 of these on one household circuit.

Mine had a regular edison plug, and the power connector to the ballast was a standard computer-printer plug, so I have about a dozen cables that will fit it.

Shooting a bunch of footage for a Yoga web site today, will take the 575 as my key and see how it goes - audio is only scratch today.
 
Sweet would love to see the footage. Probably going to order one of these in a week or so. Might even look into getting a 2nd one if I have the funds
 
Used it for a 5 hour shoot yesterday, yoga teacher doing web classes for her private students - it ran the whole time. We weren't recording audio, but with this setup, if I were close micing, I doubt the ballast would have been an issue.

I made two big walls of diffusion with c-stands and crossbars. The left got the 575 with 1/2 CTO and 1/4 minus green - the right got a 400 watt mogul HID with the same gels, in a small photoflex starlight without diffusion (basically a big open-faced light) - that purple box is the 400 ballast, no fan. I splashed a 575 tungsten source 4 on a dimmer across the back of the cyc.

The 575 daylight par has a built-in dimmer on the ballast, less than 1 stop difference to my eye, ran it full.

Really pleased, it kicked a lot of light out - shot it with an AC-130 on a crane with remote focus, zoom, iris & trigger (I just stick a kessler on a tripod dolly for shoots like this, we shot a lot of details, overheads, etc. so it's just way faster than a tripod - I use that sucker whenevr there's time to set it up).

The talent (OK, my wife as well!) has very white, kind of almost-blue pale skin, esp. her legs. Not much to do about that other than makeup - that's why her legs look so pale.

I only had a narrow lens in the unit and didn't bring the other lenses, so I had a real hot spot on the diffusion (a wide or stipple lens would have been better for this use). In the pic, I added a layer of diffusion in the center, but it killed a stop or so. I removed it and found the hot spot didn't matter, I still got very soft light.

In the past (before I found the 400 HIDs) I'd usually use a bunch of 4-bank biax flos behind diffusion for this sort of look. I think I much prefer the one par, cases for 4-banks are a ***** to find. And I 'm not a huge fan of those moguls, they're a cheap way to get a ton of daylight but mogul sockets are such flimsy crap, and some sockets won't accpet some bulbs... I've broken starlight bulbs just trying to screw the bastards in!

yogashoot.jpg

Ungraded frame grab:

Clip #47.jpg
 
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