Black Friday Specials

My hypothetical future wife loves when I buy gear because she knows the gear is profitable and will enable her to live a more comfortable lifestyle as a result of the vast profits.

She sounds like a smart woman. Hopefully the imaginary kids take after her in that regard.
 
Cool light. But for the $1,500.00 on sale, I could buy three of the Godox VL300s and have more flexibility assuming I only occasionally needed to key
with that much power like through a 4x4, 6x6 or 8x8. I like the two and three light bars from Matthews. But seems like a good deal for a powerful single instrument.

The one thing I'd say is that I regularly use a 330w (from Nicefoto) cob through a 60" octabox with 2 layers of diffusion. It's an umbrella open softbox and setting the whole thing up is wicked fast and only requires one light stand.

There have been situations where I wanted to use both layers of diffusion but had to pull one because the light wasn't strong enough. If I had some more power, i could probably keep both layers or pull the light back to light more area when wanted. Could be useful!

And I bought my 330w for $700ish when I got it... definitely a cheap chinese light, but the build quality has made me happy so far. Color is good. Happy customer. Basically the same price as the CLAR

Still, I dont think I'm personally going to buy the CLAR 500 because I'm basically doing fine. Maybe next year
 
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My hypothetical future wife loves when I buy gear because she knows the gear is profitable and will enable her to live a more comfortable lifestyle as a result of the vast profits.

Yeah but that's not GAS. But I tell my wife the same thing ("this is going to make us so much money!")
 
I don't know if I should be proud of myself but I didn't buy any new gear. I wanted the VL300 but I'm not dropping $500 on a light that I don't have to have and won't make me more money. Unfortunately I don't have the clients who will pay for it. I don't find these Black Friday sales very good. The vast majority of retailers use it to move of less desirable items. On the one hand I like getting gear before I need it so I'm fluent with it before taking it on a job. On the other hand you can buy gear then have it sit and depreciate.

We are currently in a weird time where there is not a lot of video work and yet very high demand for all video related gear. I'm tempted to buy things for the fear in the event I need something for a job it will be out of stock.
 
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Here's a NameCheap 20% off domain renewal coupon code: COUPONFCNC (I don't think this is even a Cyber Monday coupon, I just happened to need to renew my domains).
 
Interested in what 60" soft box you're using. I scooped a cheap one off of amazon, and it takes longer to set up than I prefer and it's super shallow so it's a tad spotty even with the baffle...
 
I got a Nice Photo 90cm (35") which is 24" deep with double diffusion. It's plenty deep the only problem is it soaks up a lot of light. The subject needs to be 3-5ft for a key (with 150w)
 
I got this 60" Glow octabox from Adorama - https://www.adorama.com/glsbez60octa.html?CategoryID=251327

I got it on sale but right now it's selling for $109 (with 2 layers of diffusion and grid)

26" deep

Using both layers of diffusion, the front really does glow evenly

I dont think it's totally even when using just the front layer. But probably close enough that you won't notice the difference much on the subject. It also comes with a dish to block direct light
 
wow 60" is gigantic I can't imagine wanting use something that big. What are you doing head to toe full body interviews?
 
I just bought two CLAR Illumi Max 500w and one 350w. 1350w on a tri stand thingy should get close to an M18. Maybe add an Aputure 600D later which gets the four up to 1850w.




That's what she said.

Let us know how they work for you!

One thing I'm curious about is how the output compares to the 600D and it it's actually 5/6 as bright or in reality it's dimmer
 
wow 60" is gigantic I can't imagine wanting use something that big. What are you doing head to toe full body interviews?

It's just very soft. People like to put up 4x4 and 8x8 fabrics and push through those. This is sort of in-between the 2 (closer to 4x4). But yes you can pull it back without it getting super hard, and for lighting head to toe softly and evenly

The height/width is not unusably big in practice. But it's about 3' from front of modifier to back of COB housing, so you can't use it in a tight space
 
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