Are kino flo florescent lights still a good buy in today's lighting world?

N

nataraja

Member
i am looking for opinions regarding purchasing kino lights versus other options in todays market.

specifically is it worth to get a 2 light diva kit and a tegra ( 4' 4 bank ) at their cost instead of other solutions such as led?

for example the above kit would cost $4535.00 without bulbs but w\cases and accessories

alternate options would be: celeb by kino, astra by light panels, area 48, ect.......

the least expensive is astra @ 1,350 each or a 3 kit price for $4201.00

this is for a soft lighting purchase to add to my kit

i know the kino is a tried and true product on production for years i am just wondering if todays tech offers better value for a new purchase

thanks in advance

have a great day!

- nataraja
 
I still like my Diva kit and use it constantly. Diva 400, Diva 200 and an Astra Bi-Color has been a great general purpose kit for me to bring along. I would like to have a Celeb, but they are a bit more $$$. Overall the divas were a great investment.
 
Nate - How do you like your Astra 1x1's? I have some biax flow lights I find a pain to pack and transport and have thought of replacing them with Astra panels (through 4x4 for softer light). Owning both I would love to get your feedback.
 
If you need a Fluorescent source then Kino Flo would be a good choice. I still use Biax flo lights quite often. I would check the used market before you dropped hard cash on a new kit though, unless you just need to spend the extra money on new. For example, I just picked up a Kino Flo Barfly 200 for well
under $500.
 
The Kino 4-foot 4 Bank is VERY hard to beat. Now that's a lot bigger fixture than a LED light panel, but if you're after great lights for great lights then they are used dang near everywhere for a reason. The light quality is great, and the fixture itself is SUPER useful with all those separate controls per bulb.

The "Diva" style lights that use the 21-inch biax-type bulbs are also great lights in a much smaller package.
Personally I like the 4-bulb Diva style lights over the 2-bulb for versatility, but you can fit a 2-bulb in a lot of small spaces - so it has that benefit.

Dollar for Dollar the Kino-Flo's will give you more light. But they are not BATTERY capable like the LED's are.
So they are really 2 different tools. I almost always prefer the light I get off my Diva-clones over my LED panels, but DANG if they aren't the most handy things ever when you cut the cord and go on battery power.
 
I have 2 four Divas and they get the most use. They are big and heavy in the road case but the light quality is fantastic.
 
In my opinion, the 4' Tegra is an awesome light for lighting "sets" - it's just awkward for me to transport and use in most of the work I do, so most of the time I'm using the smaller Divas and rent the 4' fixtures when the project calls for it. Right now I've got a Diva400 and a Diva200 with both 3200˚ and 5600˚ bulbs that fit nicely inside a Pelican 1650 rolling case. I also use the half-floziers quite a bit. Two 400s would be better for versatility (as noted above), but they wouldn't fit in my nice Pelican case...

I really like the Astra. I have one right now but could probably use 2 in my kit. Right now I bring the Astra, a K&V K4000 and a couple Z96 lights with me when I travel. It seems to get the job done. It's very bright, but I should note that you need the right batteries to make it work at full-power. I cheaped out and got some used Sony V-Locks on eBay for about $40 a piece and they'll only run the Astra in fanless-mode (half-power). I did try some newer V-locks at the local rental house, SWIT maybe? Anyways, it had the juice to run the light at full power (fan on). That being said, half-power is still quite bright!

Couldn't agree more with this:
DPStewart said:
So they are really 2 different tools. I almost always prefer the light I get off my Diva-clones over my LED panels, but DANG if they aren't the most handy things ever when you cut the cord and go on battery power.
Click to expand...

As far as replacing Biax fixtures with LEDs through a 4x4, I'm not really sure what to say. I figure you'd need at least two to get the same kind of output, and to be honest, the Astra isn't the most packable shape, so not a whole lot smaller in the long run once you add the diffusion frame and grip equipment. Dunno - I'd say get em anyways ;)
 
I have a set of two Astra's and I really like them. I use them more than my Diva's, now. BUT I would not call or consider the Astra's "soft lighting" sources. At least not without added diffusion(more than the diffusion panels made for them).
 
It's a really tough call. A four foot four bank Kino, is an absolute work horse, and a large enough source to be genuinely useful as a direct source on talent. However they are large an unweildy without the precision offered by some of the better LED panels these days (particularly remote phosphor units). A two-foot kino is a different proposition, and I'd find it hard to recommend one over a good remote phosphor unit.

Now by their very nature, a four foot kino, and a (generally 1x1 sized) LED panel are very different kinds of fixtures. But the precision, battery operability, smaller footprint and superior colour rendering of remote phosphor LEDs give them the edge over Kinos in most situations in my opinion.

For that money on the Kino kit, I'd suggest getting two Area48 remote phosphor panels instead. It's a decision I made a year ago, and it's a decision I'm glad I made every time I'm working with both Kinos and my Area48s (generally, I find myself wishing I just had more Area48s instead).
 
Run&Gun said:
I would not call or consider the Astra's "soft lighting" sources. At least not without added diffusion(more than the diffusion panels made for them).
Click to expand...

Nate Haustein said:
As far as replacing Biax fixtures with LEDs through a 4x4, I'm not really sure what to say. I figure you'd need at least two to get the same kind of output, and to be honest, the Astra isn't the most packable shape, so not a whole lot smaller in the long run once you add the diffusion frame and grip equipment. Dunno - I'd say get em anyways ;)
Click to expand...

I guess I gave a poor description. I'm personally looking to supliment my existing 4 bank biax flo units and pull them out only when I need a lot of soft light. What I've been looking to add to my kit is a daylight flood with solid output that I can bounce or diffuse to get soft but can also add more punch than my flo units. My short list is...

Astra 1x1
Pro
- Great output
- easily colour temp adjustable
- Solid light quality
-Battery operation

Con
- Build quality and form
-Expensive accessories (doesn't use my old accessories from tungsten fixtures)


Hive Bee
Pro
-Lots of daylight
-true single point source
-uses traditional accessories from my hotlights.
-Solid build quality
-Solid light quality

Con
- Gel for tungsten
- Over $1K more than Astra
- scrim to dim


I might just start my own thread rather than jack the OP's thread. Although discussion of new daylight cool light options is relevant to the topic.
 
Throw in that there's many kino biax knockoffs out there, and many are better than some of the Kino designs (as far as barndoors and yokes), and much cheaper (4 banks as low as $200 if you shop around). They tend to use Osram tubes which aren't as nice as Kino truematch (but they're a bit brighter). I find they're a little yellow and need 1/4CTB and 1/8 minus green. Still, I have a couple 4 banks and 4 or 5 duals and spent less than 1k on the whole mess. Once you find a decent case for the 4's they're very handy in many scenarios.

I've rented the 4' unit and while I liked it, I didn't think the output was worth the size and hassle and how damn delicate the whole thing seemed.

Still, a pair of 4 bank biax isn't a lot of light if you have, say a window in the BG. A 575 HMI seems like the minimum of you want to really control a sunlit BG without gelling windows.
 
I use my 4x4 Kino's with Arri Juniors all the time why I'm shooting at home. Use 1x1s when I travel, but will replace those with Astras.
 
Michael Carter said:
Throw in that there's many kino biax knockoffs out there, and many are better than some of the Kino designs (as far as barndoors and yokes), and much cheaper (4 banks as low as $200 if you shop around). They tend to use Osram tubes which aren't as nice as Kino truematch (but they're a bit brighter). I find they're a little yellow and need 1/4CTB and 1/8 minus green. Still, I have a couple 4 banks and 4 or 5 duals and spent less than 1k on the whole mess. Once you find a decent case for the 4's they're very handy in many scenarios.

I've rented the 4' unit and while I liked it, I didn't think the output was worth the size and hassle and how damn delicate the whole thing seemed.

Still, a pair of 4 bank biax isn't a lot of light if you have, say a window in the BG. A 575 HMI seems like the minimum of you want to really control a sunlit BG without gelling windows.
Click to expand...

Concerning the fluorescent tubes, can the Kino truematch tubes be mounted on the kino biax knockoffs, instead of the Osram tubes?
 
The kinos are definitely a great fixture that will keep working for years to come, but I'm definitely starting to see new ways to use them with new technology. Doing a show now where we are using standard kinos, but with quasar science LED tubes. The tubes are 50% brighter than standard kino tubes, have ballasts built into the lamps, are daylight/tungsten switchable, and dimmable with a standard hand dimmer. So instead of buying a normal kino and ballast, you can just get the fixture instead. Then buy the proper LED tubes for each lamp. It'll either be slightly cheaper than buying a kino brand new, or a hundred or so more expensive depending on the fixture.

The advantages I think are pretty clear. No need to deal with ballasts or extra tubes, just have to press a button and you can start to warm up or cool down your light very quickly.

Give it some thought, I think it's the new way forward with kinos.
 
FrameFarmMedia said:
Hive Bee
Pro
-Lots of daylight
-true single point source
-uses traditional accessories from my hotlights.
-Solid build quality
-Solid light quality

Con
- Gel for tungsten
- Over $1K more than Astra
- scrim to dim
Click to expand...
One interesting note about the Hive. It has a pot to adjust color temp from about 4600K-7000K. When it gets shifted warmer it also increases in strength (you're actually pumping more voltage into it). At 4600K, a 1/2 CTO gets you almost exactly to 3200K, and the light absorption of the gel is offset by the increase in output. The result is that the light is almost (within 10% I'd guess) the same brightness at 3200K as it is at 5500K. It's also a LOVELY quality of light at 3200K and with no heat coming out the front, so it's great with a Chimera pointing directly at your talent.
 
RyanT said:
The kinos are definitely a great fixture that will keep working for years to come, but I'm definitely starting to see new ways to use them with new technology. Doing a show now where we are using standard kinos, but with quasar science LED tubes.
Click to expand...

I started using the Quasar Science tubes on my last show, after I tested them against various other LED tubes and they came out on top. Great experience. I would be just as happy to never use another Kino tube again. To be honest, I've been having serious matching issues with the Kino tubes, never sure if its the ballast or tubes themselves but I'll see a wide variance in the green/magenta shift from unit to unit and without the ability to dim, I'm pretty much over that technology. We started off with Kino softboxes in our swing sets and by the end I had them all switched over to Cineos, with Quasar two and four banks on the floor.
 
CharlesPapert said:
I started using the Quasar Science tubes on my last show, after I tested them against various other LED tubes and they came out on top. Great experience. I would be just as happy to never use another Kino tube again. To be honest, I've been having serious matching issues with the Kino tubes, never sure if its the ballast or tubes themselves but I'll see a wide variance in the green/magenta shift from unit to unit and without the ability to dim, I'm pretty much over that technology. We started off with Kino softboxes in our swing sets and by the end I had them all switched over to Cineos, with Quasar two and four banks on the floor.
Click to expand...

The last set of Kino Flo tubes that I bought seemed very magenta to me. I've been moving away from Kino's for a while, too.
 
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