a simple lighting setup

stonebat

stonebat

Veteran
I want two light sources. Battery powered, light weight, and adjustable light for both studio and event. To setup off camera lighting, I plan to use stands from starving student off-camera kit.

How about any two combination out of Z96, 600 LED, BL-1200? e.g. Z96 and BL-1200. Z96 seems small enough for ENG style. Is there a way to make Z96 as a spotlight?
 
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I have a pair of Z96's and they put out a lot of well-balanced white light. I bought a pair of $30 Lenmar 3700mAh handycam batteries to go with them and they last over two hours on a charge. The plastic Z96 case is a crappy piece of design, but it's manageable. I don't know about using it as a spotlight, but you could try mounting it inside an aluminum light bulb reflector. The Z96 work;s well as a small key light, on or off-camera. It's too focused to work well as a flood or fill light at an event.
 
the z96s are great ultra minimal lights to have in any portable kit, especially if you combine them with a www.Coollights.biz 256 LED and power them all on the cheap Sony batteries. The 256 comes with a quick softbox so you could use it as a soft key with a Z96 as hair/backlight. this is a super minimal kit, using the same Sony batteries and works decently for 1-person interviews, especially if you also throw a reflector in there some where.

the next level up would use the Coollights.biz 600LED or one of the FloLights.com 500 LEDs as the key, the 256LED as fill and the Z96s for hair/backlight and bg lighting. both the 600 and 500 use the larger, heavier and more expensive Sony V-mount batteries. the battery alone adds both significant cost and weight to your kit.

i find the Z96 without any filter plates on it to be too hard and focused for my taste. you may find that it is spotlight enough, depending on your needs. i always throw a couple of diffusion gels on mine as i like using them as fills to save the shadows from being crushed into oblivion.
 
Has nobody built their own lighting rigs yet? I was considering buying a pile of Cree LEDs and making my own Sun ;-) The light output is amazing and with the correct reflector and lens you can turn night into day.
 
averan said:
and while you're at, be sure to pick up a few ultra compact and light weight stands!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001M4HXB2/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DERt
this stand is one of my favorite pieces of gear...you'll be amazed how tall it'll go. and it is a perfect match for the 256, Z96 and a collapsible reflector with holder.
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I just bought the Litepanels MicroPro, more or less similar (for the purposes of this conversation) to the lights you mention. When you use a stand like this with LED lights, do you add some kind of joint to the top to make it easy to angle the light? If I put the MicroPro on the stand, I wouldn't be able to angle it, right? Is there an adapter to go from the screw mount to a hotshoe-style mount so I can use the flexible hotshoe adapter that came with my light? Or is there some other kind of ball-joint or other-style adapter??
 
Gerson said:
I just bought the Litepanels MicroPro, more or less similar (for the purposes of this conversation) to the lights you mention. When you use a stand like this with LED lights, do you add some kind of joint to the top to make it easy to angle the light? If I put the MicroPro on the stand, I wouldn't be able to angle it, right? Is there an adapter to go from the screw mount to a hotshoe-style mount so I can use the flexible hotshoe adapter that came with my light? Or is there some other kind of ball-joint or other-style adapter??
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The Z96 comes with an hotshoe/threaded adapter for this purpose
 
what are you going to use the Z96 for?
just saw one at the shop. i passed.
it's tiny and weak... and not so cheap (at least in Israel).. not even comes with a battery..

only use i could thing of is on camera, or a tiny room (toilet?) , or for a simple car lighting.
 
Has nobody built their own lighting rigs yet? I was considering buying a pile of Cree LEDs and making my own Sun ;-)
Click to expand...
if it was effective, from either a cost, logistics or end result standpoint. id imagine it would be ALL OVER this forum.

for budget clients i currently use a 3 head britek florescent softbox rig. it works nicely, is controllable. and does what i need it to do. but the setup and breakdown is overly time consuming! so ive been looking for a fast and easy, 3point lighting rig for a while, and LED in theory looks very attractive...

the reality is that from a real-world, video standpoint, LED is still a series of compromises. at nearly ANY price.

living in houston (where ikan is based) i went into their office last week and did a side by side comparison of their new 1k LED to a britek 8 blub florescent softbox. as far as naked lighting punch they were comparable. and in fact center-weighted, the LED was better. but the LED was much harsher and once you added proper diffusion. the numbers went the opposite direction.

it becomes a question of how youre going to use your lights. in a fairly tight situation. LEDs will be be SUPER. but if youre doing standups on a 12x12 or larger set, the value of LEDs (at least budget-friendly LEDs) will fall away QUICKLY.

ikan has this one light (actually two, but i have the smaller one) its a dimmable, temperature selectable on camera/hand-held LED. and the cool thing is that the temperature selector isnt just preselected steps, but an actual potentiometer where you can dial the color in precisely (more or less) as you need it. if you had three of them, you could probably build a close head and shoulders interview kit. like any of the ikan stuff, the color accuracy is up for debate. but since you can dial to suit, i say who cares! the build quality isnt top-notch. but at the price-point. its not trying to be. and from my experience, their customer service makes up for any losses there.
have a look:
http://www.ikancorp.com/productInfo.php?id=296
so far, there are things i like and dont like about it. but it does what i need it to do.
and it does it for a good price.

you might also look at these:
http://www.flolight.com/led-lighting/microbeam-1024-high-powered-led-video-light.html
 
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@stonebat:
to answer your original question, i handmade some flags/barndoors for my z96s that attach easily to the light and allow me to at least control spill. i think something like a hoodman lcd cover, but large enough for the light might work well to minimize spill and narrow your beam.

i absolutely love my z96s, especially mounted on a Manfrotto Nano stand! i'm close to ordering a 600LED and think that combined with a 256LED i'll have an amazing lightweight and totally portable light kit that will work for 95% of my gigs. i'm not trying to compete with the sun or replace the sun. these are for interiors mostly, maybe the 256 or 600 as fill outdoors, but i'm not lighting entire sets with these. for that i'll rent or use fluorescent panels.
 
I just want to add:
The Z96 (at least some Z96) makes a high frequent, whining noise when it's not at full brightness. You shouldn't have your mic near the light.
Besides of that it's really a good light, but the price was much lower some months ago.
 
wgzn said:
if you want to use a light that small as effective fill outdoors. you'll have to be about 8 inches from the subject
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not that close, but yes, pretty close. works fine for interviews. i prefer to simply use a reflector though in most cases.
 
faultiersid said:
I just want to add:
The Z96 (at least some Z96) makes a high frequent, whining noise when it's not at full brightness. You shouldn't have your mic near the light.
Besides of that it's really a good light, but the price was much lower some months ago.
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good point. i mostly use them off-camera.

you can find these cheaper on ebay for about $70.
 
wgzn said:
if it (DIY Lighting) was effective, from either a cost, logistics or end result standpoint. id imagine it would be ALL OVER this forum.
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To me, lighting would be one of the easier DIY type projects. Some of the projects I've seen in the DIY section for more mechanical stuff, seems pretty complex, relative to getting sockets from Home Depot, or equivalent.

The most significant element of lighting seems to be in the use of Compact Fluorescents is the Color Reinder Index (CRI), actual Lumen output, and color temperature.

On looking into it, there are high CRI bulbs available online, they're pricer than what is found in a local store, etc. but one could buy them having assembled the sockets and frame from local sources.

I've also looked at using 'grow' bulbs as well, since people who are setting up plant growing environments want high light values as well, but the spectrum of such bulbs may not be good for 'color' photography.

Which leads me to... why not shoot with an eye for monochrome as the final 'color', and so several issues with 'cheap' bulbs become minimal, namely CRI and Color Temperature. (There are still issues on how the
sensor+DSP handles certain colors/combos etc... but one won't typically get 'gosh why is that guys face green'... unless one goofs on what monochrome 'tint' one selects...

And remember B&W (aka monochrome...) is much more artsyfartsy than banal color renditions anyway...
 
roei z, yes Z96 is tiny and weak, and that's just fine. I got it at $79.50 and the battery pack at $22.95. Mostly for off-camera lighting. Occasionally on-camera ENG style.

As averan said, Z96 + CL-256LED can be used for indoor interview setting. Spot light, fill light, hair light, back light, etc. I like averan's idea about attaching flags/barndoors on Z96.

Based on photo lighting experience, I know how two so-so two light sources + a cheap reflector could do wonder if used effectively.

averan, is the holder strong enough? Can the angle be adjusted easily? Thanks for the suggestion.
 
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