Arri, Lowel, home-made Kinos... Oh My!

evolvnyc

evolvnyc

Well-known member
Again the still photographer stumbling blindly into video seeks the advice of the lovely and talented dvx community, if only someone would ask me about strobes and stills, I would feel the debt repaid... So here's the deal: In stills, I love kinos, they are the most beautiful source. So today I made my own a' la home depot and tested the kino (whitebalanced of course) against a lowel dp and my overhead livingroom fixture. Much to my displeasure, the nicest source? My Ikea halogen livingroom lamp. Go figure. So here's my question: The kino made my subject look sickly and flat, the lowel was just way too damn bright and hard even with double spun and bounced into an umbrella... And tomorrow I have the chance to buy a basically new Arri setup with 3 lights for $1500 (new it's $2500). So what's the deal? Besdies the price and weight, what are the differences between an arri set up and a lowel? I will in fact be mixing fake daylight with real daylight, probably MOST of the time, so I will always be gelin' and maybe I'm missing something on the placement of the kinos, buut what is the general accepted wisdom? As a still photographer, I am obsessive about the most amazing light possible, and I thought I had the answer with homemade kinos... help please? I humbly thank you all.
 
To get good results with a 4' source you need to gel and flag the shape down to something usable... otherwise you need to get the light high and away... as to mimic the light coming in from a window... then use a bounce card for fill... but without good, high CRI tubes you'll always be dissappointed... and if you're mixing tungsten with daylight and you don't gel one or the other you won't be happy.
 
What kind of Arri lights are in the kit? Chances are that the Arri kit has fesnel (lensed) lights. Open faced units like Lowell DP and Omni lights have more folloff and are less controllable usually with more hot spots. Fresnel put off a more even light, narrower beam spread, have less falloff and are more controllable.
 
I'd like to see some frame grabs from somebody who has used fresnels to good effect... with a mini DV camera... I'm sure there are people who find success with fresnels, but I rarely see it.

If you get a fresnel kit you ABSOLUTELY need to get at least one softbox... I'm a big fan of softboxes... get 2 or 3 if you can afford it. A couple fresnels in softboxes will give you something to shape your subject.

Now don't get me wrong... I'm sure there are a few guys who are successfully using fresnels... I'd just like to see their grabs and know if those grabs include softboxes.

I bought $1500 worth of Mole Richardson Tweenie II's... and used 300w bulbs... I can honestly say that 90% of the time I was unhappy with the images I got out of those lights. Even at only 300w the light was SO overbearing that the ONLY way to get anything nice with 'em was the softbox. I constantly see all these comments and ads for lighting kits with these bukko high wattages and I wonder who's using these things?

There was a highly promoted short film on this forum... which I bought and enjoyed... but I could easily spot a couple times where a gelled light was blowing out the scene. I'd love for that producer to comment on their feelings about lighting and what, if anything, they'd do differently. I worked on several crappy shorts (for festival entries) using my Mole Richardsons... and after the last one... where we had some of the best looking girls I've ever SEEN... once again the ONLY thing the fresnels were good for was background cookies... so I sold 'em.

DV doesn't need that much light, but the quality of that light has to be high for good results. If you get a tungsten light then you're gonna' need a softbox... even with an umbrella the spill is going to light up your whole set if you want it to or not.
 
I think you are being a little harsh on fresnels, Matt. I use LTM Pepper fresnels mostly, but I do most often use a small frame with Tough-Lux or similar in front and just as often an opal gel in front of the lens - you can't beat double-diffusion. To control spill, the barndoors work pretty well and I also have a full set of snoots for when precision is crucial. I feel certain that the light is as soft as that from a Chimera box and I have a lot more control.
 
I don't have any Fresnels but I'm definitely looking to add them - I love hard lighting. I use the Lowell Kit (DV Creator 55) with open faced hard sources all the time. I spend a lot of time flagging them down or dimming them or what not, but I definitely like using them better than a big softbox most of the time.

I just light it how I want it and then use the iris and ND filters to bring the image to where I want it once it's lit.

Matt
 
Rogue... sorry if I came across poorly. In good hands a fresnel can be beautiful... but of course you've also (wisely) added all the proper accessories to get what you want. In my little town (saint louis) there are few people who can light with fresnels and not have it look like everybody's a star on broadway.

MattC... I can tell from your avatar that you like hard lighting... (laughing)... actually Sideshow Bob is a prime example of when a softlight would be a BAD choice... you need shadows for mystery and suspense.

Having a mix of hard and soft is good... ahem... as I'm sure you all know. I just had a hard time getting my fresnels under control... unless I turned 'em into gelled down softlights anyway...

I should add that I've got a gelly B-roll which is loaded with crumpling gels that the fresnels have worked their way through over a couple shoots... yeah I know I should have got some heat-shield... but I'm just sayin'...
 
Do you use many scrims, flags, diffusion, dimmers, etc? Even if I would use a soft source for actors I'd still like hard lighting for spots, background effects and such. But yeah, I really, really hate soft lighting and the trend towards "natural, motivated" lighting. To me the best lighting has always been film noir. I have a book called "Film Noir Style". It's a large format book and half of it (or more) is comprised of large stills from film noir movies. It's the most beautiful artwork I've ever seen.

[EDIT: You can easily make a snoot from some blackwrap.]

Matt
 
Hey matt, I take the challenge!

No crazy accessories except a piece of white foamboard and some gels and scrims.

I agree that with video, a hard key is almost certainly a poor choice for beauty lighting, but let's be honest. If you have a strong, hard controlled light to begin with, you can shape it into anything you want! A fresnel is not a lowell light, it offers much more spill control, and a much more consistent spread. That really helps!

Well all the pics are from the same doc, so some are better some are worse. they ar not a selection of my best.

Still, here it goes!

_dang! the frame grab host is down! I don't have a provider! So maybe next time...
 
Okay, so I've decided to go with 2 fresnels with softboxes and a few lowel pros as accents for the background (with diffusion)... any thoughts on what would be a good wattage of fresnels to have them close to the subject through a bank, but not blinding them, but still giving a decent f-stop on 24p? I was thinking 300 watts?
 
evolvnyc said:
Okay, so I've decided to go with 2 fresnels with softboxes and a few lowel pros as accents for the background (with diffusion)... any thoughts on what would be a good wattage of fresnels to have them close to the subject through a bank, but not blinding them, but still giving a decent f-stop on 24p? I was thinking 300 watts?
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Hmmm... You CAN put fresnels in a box, but I'm thinking it would work better the other way around. Maybe a couple of the switchable Britek 300/600W heads w/ 24" boxes, 8' HD stands and a couple of spare lamps - under $400 w/DVXUser 5% discount; then a 100/200W Pepper (you have to switch lamps on these) and a 300W Pepper and a couple more stands, some scrims and you're good to go for no more than $900 for the whole kit AND it's a lot more flexible.
 
Well the advantage of putting fresnels in a softbox, is when you don't want to use the box, you have fresnels, instead of open faced lights like the switchable briteks... That makes a lot of difference...
 
Evolv said he had decided to get 2 fresnels and 2 open face light and to get boxes for the fresnels. I suggested that he get boxes for the 2 open face lights instead AND that he chose a more flexible open face than the Pro-Light, either in or outside the boxes. He would still have 2 fresnels and they would be more useful immediately for hair, eye, back and background lighting.
 
Thank you both for the helpful advice, I saw a Lowel Rifa lite at B&H today, it's a really nice source, might just get on eof those and few small fresnels, the rifa lite is pretty cool, but can only be used as a box. Thanks again guys!
 
There are a lot of very nice things said about the rifa on this forum. The thing I hear the most is how easy it is to set it up and transport, so I don't think you can go wrong with it.

Good luck!
 
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