are tungsten lights becoming obsolete?

V

Victor Nhat Nguyen

Well-known member
As the technology for HMI, LED, and Fluorescent gets better, do you think they will replace tungsten for good and we'll see incandescent lights becoming obsolete in the next 15 years?
 
Victor Nhat Nguyen said:
As the technology for HMI, LED, and Fluorescent gets better, do you think they will replace tungsten for good and we'll see incandescent lights becoming obsolete in the next 15 years?
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I hope not. I love the tungsten look. My last trip to India was sad. All the street lights and lights in the homes have been taken over by crappy LEDs. No sexy warm glows anywhere to be seen :(
 
As long as there are enough people wanting to use the bulbs, then the cost should stay relatively low and people will continue to think its a good bargain. Otherwise, if enough switch to other technologies and factories can't keep up the quantities they need to keep the cost low then it will become a "specialty item" which will be bad news for tungsten users in terms of bulb cost. I am talking about professional use--like what people here are doing. Household and commercial use will become less and less and that process has been underway for a long time.
 
I suppose if they can get the throw issue worked out...LED lighting is more versatile in some ways but just doesn't have the same punch.
 
bgundu said:
I hope not. I love the tungsten look. My last trip to India was sad. All the street lights and lights in the homes have been taken over by crappy LEDs. No sexy warm glows anywhere to be seen :(
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Yeah, I am sad about that also. It is kind of ironic... now that we have a lot of cameras that will allow us to go out into the real world at night and shoot, the real wold at night now looks like crap! We switched out our household lighting to consumer warm white CFLS a few years ago and now shooting home movies, with a DSLR, is a chore. Everything has that sickening green cast. I know, I know, I could switch the old CFLs out for high CRI bulbs and gel them with some minus green... Yeah, I'll get right on that!

As for the future professionally, who knows. I mean, not many people saw the internet coming for example. I don't think it will happen real soon, but who knows.
 
I love the light from tungsten but hate the they become hot. LED's have a long way to go but fluorescent in 3200k often looks fine.
 
I think that tungsten will have a long life in movie making. When I read about how the bigger movies are lit there's a lot of tungsten, 5K, 10K fresnels, par cans bounced off muslin into 12 X 12 silk in a studio. I think that the proliferation of smaller elements that are switchable daylight/tungsten like the kinos are really valuable for those of us in mixed light conditions on location. The main benefit of these newer solutions is that you don't need serious distribution due to lower consumption. Again, I think this works best for smaller operations, like mine, where I'm using house current.

I have these mole 416s which are 2Ks bulbed to 1K that have a 10" lens. I love the light from these but I can only get one on a circuit (8 amps). I'd love to set them up with a big bounce for a big soft source but its' so much easier to push in the kino when I'm shooting in an apt in NYC.
 
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Let's not forget that for every nice tungsten lamp, there are plenty that had hard, peaky and red-hot housings. So while I love the look, LEDs have come a huge distance in just 5 years (since I bought my first disappointing one). My latest ones are much nicer, brighter and effective. In another 5 years we could easily find tungsten gone. We said the same thing when camera tubes were replaced by chips, and when transistors overtook valves, and CDs replaced vinyl. A few folk still persist and keep the old kit going - but emulations are now so much simpler than trying to use the real thing.
 
Tungsten lighting is beautiful, but the energy consumption both in their direct draw and the related air conditioning bills is simply too demanding. I think that before we're really ready to give them up they will be legislated away. Studios mindful of energy costs will begin charging a premium if tungsten lighting is to be used, or will simply charge separately for power consumption, which is a new line item for line producers to balk at. In the end I think 15 years is generous for tungsten quartz lighting.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Tungsten lighting is beautiful, but the energy consumption both in their direct draw and the related air conditioning bills is simply too demanding. I think that before we're really ready to give them up they will be legislated away. Studios mindful of energy costs will begin charging a premium if tungsten lighting is to be used, or will simply charge separately for power consumption, which is a new line item for line producers to balk at. In the end I think 15 years is generous for tungsten quartz lighting.
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That's just silly.
If they still look better (which right now they utterly destroy any LED on the market, it's not even a competition) People, especially with large budgets, will use them.
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
That's just silly.
If they still look better (which right now they utterly destroy any LED on the market, it's not even a competition) People, especially with large budgets, will use them.
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Not sure about that. I bought those fresnels I referred to above from the Rachel Ray show who were swapping them out for more efficient, cooler light.
 
hscully said:
Not sure about that. I bought those fresnels I referred to above from the Rachel Ray show who were swapping them out for more efficient, cooler light.
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For a TV show, where you are running them day in, day out, in a confined space you have to cool, and aesthetics of the image is not a top of the list of concern. Many "Studio" format shows, news programs, etc... have been running those god awful ugly Flos forever for the same reasons.

Ultimately fine with me. I'll take all the cheap used Moles I can get. They still utterly destroy anything else out there as far as quality of the light.
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
That's just silly.
If they still look better (which right now they utterly destroy any LED on the market, it's not even a competition) People, especially with large budgets, will use them.
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It's not silly. Domestic incandescent bulbs have been banned for general sale in many countries and it's only a matter of time before the energy inefficient industrial bulbs are banned too.
 
Light Emitting Plasma, i.e. Photon Beard and Hive Lighting. Might take a while for the cost to come down, but that's probably the future.

Unless you fancy some D.C. carbon arcs!
 
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