buying a light kit

This looks like a fairly nice lighting kit, but things can be decieving on ebay, such as i bought a really nice looking camera jib set up, and it of course turned out to be a piece of crap...what a suprise it was only like a 120 dollars. For 500 dollars you can not really get an "equivalent" light set to that one, assuming that it is exactly what it says it is. I bought an Arriflex Fresnel Tungsten Lighting Kit 2400w. And it is amazing, but it is upwards of 1500 dollars, but it was well worth the investment, my advice is just to check out very thoroughly what you are going to buy before you buy it, because it will be a pain in the ass to return it if you have to.
 
These types of "focusable" lamp heads are really anything but focusable, rather they are just open face heads with a small range of movement to the globe. The number of items included in this "kit" for under $500 would almost guarantee that it is just a step above "junk" if even that. If your budget only allows this level of purchase, I would recommend that you look into used quality instruments like Mole and Arri.

Places like eBay are as good as any to find good quality used lighting. The life expectancy of a Mole or Arri fixture is so long that even a very old head would still out live its next owner.
 
I agree with khmuse, buy used quality for that price, not new junk.

aside from camera, lights are your next most important investment.

the old saying "you get what you pay for" has been around a very long time for a very good reason.
 
i have a problem, that being my restrictive budget. what would you buy: a shot gun mic or a light set? which is more vital?
 
I have purchased their larger 1000 dollar kit and have been very very happy with it - especially for the price.

True they are not fresnels - they are slightly focusable - slightly.

The stands tend to need a bit of maintenance. But they have performed great for me. It allows you, for the sameprice to have more units - depends on what is important to you.
 
jimthejab- i think you NEED both lights and a mic - even if you go cheap on them. Without the mic you cant get sound - you cant use the incamera mic.

Without lights you are a slave to practicals and that isnt -- ummmm- practical.

get minimal in both depts if you cant afford more
 
1. Which should you buy lights or a mic.... Hmmm... if you can make money with either one buy it.

2. This company has been disscussed several times, I'd do a search here beofre I sent them my money

3. The quality of the lights, you get what you pay for. The ad claims to be film lights, hard to say since they're not listing a brand name. I can tell you this much I've never seen anything like those on the sets I've been on. In my expereince cheap lights cost you more, first you have to more gear to make them usable. Then the cheap lights tend to have more malfunctions which cost you down time. When production costs go into the tens of thousands of dollars its not worth the risk. When you only have 500.00 you have to make your own risk assesment.

AS most everyone else has said I'd buy quality used fixture before I'd buy marginal new equipment.
 
I once bought a used Porsche for 10% of its cost when new. It was a wonder car that got the girls and ran great and looked amazing. It was a much better investment than a new Hugo.

half of my production package has been bought used and served me well.
 
Do not buy Lowel i repeat do not buy lowell. They are really cruddy lights because they become super hot! You will melt any gel you put anywhere near it, and they burn out fairly quickly. But if you want you could use them as a smoke effect lol cause that's something they do.
 
coolguy007 said:
Do not buy Lowel i repeat do not buy lowell. They are really cruddy lights because they become super hot! You will melt any gel you put anywhere near it, and they burn out fairly quickly. But if you want you could use them as a smoke effect lol cause that's something they do.
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that's not a fair comment.

Lowel Rifa lights are GREAT!!

I don't care for any other lowel product though. not because of burning gels, because burning gels only happens when the person putting on the gels doesn't do it properly or doesn't use heat shield. gels should be away from the bulb, on barn doors or on a gel frame, and when on very hot lights they should have heat shield on the inner side.
 
Icarus2005 said:
that's not a fair comment.

Lowel Rifa lights are GREAT!!

I don't care for any other lowel product though. not because of burning gels, because burning gels only happens when the person putting on the gels doesn't do it properly or doesn't use heat shield. gels should be away from the bulb, on barn doors or on a gel frame, and when on very hot lights they should have heat shield on the inner side.
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I do use barn doors and heat shields...and on every lowell that i have used they have melted.
 
The lights on the Ebay post are Britek lights. Look at rostronics.com. Do a search on rostronics here on dvxuser and you'll find more info. I just bought some lights from them. They're good. Not excellent - but definitely worth the price. At least at rostronics, you can buy what you want - instead of a kit. The prices will be the same or cheaper in the end - but you can mix and match.
 
I'd go with the Lowell Kit. The other one is likely to be crap. And where are you gonna get parts for it when it breaks? (They all break.) Mic vs. light kit? I'd have to give the edge to the light kit. You can edit around poor audio, dub and loop, etc. But crappy lighting will always haunt you. That Azden mic is probably decent enough. If you can afford the Lowell kit and the Azden I'd do it. When I went freelance, my first purchase was a second hand Lowell Kit. I bought lights before I bought audio. I still use parts of that kit. Lowell is very supportive of it's product. And B&H is reputable as well. There's a ton of used Lowell stuff out there, but be careful. A new Lowell fixture will serve you most of your career.
 
If you burn your gels with any light; you ain't doin' it right. If you keep burning gels..well, you're just not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I use Lowell and Arri Fixtures exclusively, with and without Chimera Softbanks.

However, I must say that I'm not a fan of the Rifa. It's a quick setup. But, it can only function as a soft bank, and last time i used one...it was fragile...something about the location of the bulb when collapsing the whole thing...but I'm sure I wasn't doing it right. I'd prefer a Lowell DP or Tota with a Chimera.
 
I'm going to go ahead and disagree with everyone here and say that a mic is much more important than lights. An audience will forgive bad video far easier than they will bad audio.

On the other hand, I don't think $150 is enough to get a really suitable sound setup. For narrative work, I'd be looking at more like a minimum of $300-500, for a decent mic (look at the Sennheiser K-6, which I think is the best of the very low-end mics), boom pole, shock mount, and cables.

On the other other hand, you're in New York... so why not rent some of this stuff?
 
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