Advice needed for Smith-Victor Professional Studio 4 Light Kit

B

brotherkyle

Member
I'm freelance videographer looking for advice on light kits. I usually do a lot of on location shoots ranging from commercials, training videos, documentary interviews, as well as independent shorts. I've been getting by with other people's equipment and diy lighting. I'm wondering if anyone has any experience or advice on this Smith-Victor Professional Studio 4 Light Kit: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...ictor_401422_Professional_Studio_4_Light.html

I have been offered the kit for around 500. Is this kit practical for my use? Are there better options that I should look into?

Thank you.
 
At $500 I would take it. It will produce a lot of light (4000 watts) but not with a great deal of control. Open faced halogen lamps are awfully harsh and produce deep, dark shadows. You're going to become expert at bouncing and diffusing your sources as you use this kit. Budget for some diffusion frames and material (or go the DIY route) so you can tame these a bit to produce flattering lighting.

These things are also going to run very hot and will quickly heat up a small room. You really shouldn't put more than one of them on a standard household or office electrical circuit lest you risk blowing breakers. And given the price, their long term durability, smoothness of controls, stability and safety is probably not in the same league with professional-grade gear. You can pretty much expect that some pieces will start falling off of these after a modest bit of use. But use them to get started and start saving your money for some more professional lights and you'll probably be OK. One thing that really does concern me is that they don't seem to come with safety screens or scrims to go over the front of the lights. I actually thought that was legally required for open-face halogen lights nowadays. You certainly don't want to be in front of one of these lights if a bulb chooses to explode (it's happened to me) or a stand falls over on you. See if you can rig up some screenwire or something to shield the lamps and contain any hot glass fragments if one of them should ever fail.

Although I don't think their stuff is very sophisticated at all, I have to admit to having a soft spot for Smith-Victor, since the first lighting equipment I ever bought (back when I was 17 or so, maybe around 1974) was a three-light kit of theirs with non-focusing, open-faced 600 watt lamps. The stands didn't even have telescoping shafts and you adjusted the height by inserting and removing tube sections that plugged together. It was as primitive as all get-out, but got me through my college years and into the very beginning of my professional career before I finally upgraded to much better equipment. (I eventually sold it to a similarly struggling college filmmaker for about what I paid for it, so I got probably five or six years of use out of it for pretty much the cost of the bulbs I used.) This could do the same for you, although you'll probably want to add some kind of softbox (or even a couple of China balls) soon.

- Greg
 
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Greg,

Thank you for the advice. I did find out that the Smith-Victor lights came with scrims. I ended up passing on the deal. I came across a barely used Lowel DV Creator 44 kit for the same price. I thought that was more practical for my current needs and jumped on it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like I got a good deal for the money. Thanks again for the information.

Kyle
 
Some of the same precautions apply with the Lowel kit (learn to bounce and diffuse), but the lights are much sturdier and better built and will probably last a lot longer. I've had to replace a lot of inline power switches on my Lowel lights over the years -- that's a weak point, but easy to repair if you're handy with some basic tools. Sounds like you made a good, smart deal.

- Greg
 
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