Cheap PAR 64 for hard film noir shadows vs expensive frensel?

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nickn

Member
I want to do some shots with really hard shadows with the light shining through a cookie on the subject like what you see in film noir.

I've got a 1000 w britek coming in the mail that I got cheap on ebay. I understand it doesn't have an actual fresnel but has somewhat similar focusing characteristics by adjusting the mirror. My two questions are:

1.) How much sharper would the shadows be when using an arri with a real fresnel compared to the britek?

2.) If I only need a hard light and don't care about also being able to get soft light, should I just get a par 64 light with a narrow spot bulb? I'm looking at this combo which would only be like $50:


http://www.amazon.com/BulbAmerica-P...TF8&coliid=I1USJFGNA1JBRF&colid=2V13PREXRZOEI

http://www.amazon.com/FFN-Q1000PAR6...TF8&coliid=I1UQHHLVBI78V7&colid=2V13PREXRZOEI
 
The Par 64 with the narrow spot bulb will be "Harder" than light from a fresnel. Fresnel lights are not "Hard" lights. The fresnel lens actually smooths out the beam and makes the light very even over it's spread. The "Hardness"of a light is relative to how small a point the light emits from, so your hardest lights are usually open faced, bare bulb fixtures. However, they are hard to control and would need to be snooted, at least. The Par 64 with the narrow beam bulb is a good way to get a small source and relatively good control of the beam. I picked up four of those Par 64s. They are just too inexpensive, and useful, not to have around. If you want to stand mount them, pick up a TVMP adaptor and bolt it to the yoke.

http://www.filmtools.com/tvmp-bale-block.html
 
You get good hard shadows from flooded fresnels but if you want as sharp a shadow as you can get you can put the sled in flood position and in most fixtures you can open the door holding the lens itself and swing it out of the way. Then the fixtures is open face with close to a point source.

Rock and roll PAR 64s are good lights, cheap and bright. The 1200W very narrow spot globes are called firestarters in some quarters for good reason. PAR64s aren't nearly as flexible as fresnels, though, so it's fresnels that are the ubiquitous workhorses in movie lighting.

You're Britek will be useful. A 650W or 1K fresnel will be even more useful in more situations IMO.
 
nickn said:
Would a light without any reflector be sharper than the par then? Something like this?

http://www.1000bulbs.com/product/27/IN-1000PS130.html

Or would the par still be better because you're getting about twice as much light?
Click to expand...

Theoretically I think it would be. The last movie I worked on the DP liked to cover the reflector with blackwrap to just get a point source of light. You lose a considerable amount of light, but the light should be sharper. I honestly couldn't tell, I'd probably have to look at the two side by side to make any sort of real judgement, but I guess it's a thing people do.

The one thing that will really make your light harder is if you back it off. I would honestly get the biggest light you could...probably a 2k and walk it as far back as you can while still maintaining exposure.

I feel like this is easier to imagine with a bigger source of light, say you have a light shooting through a 4'x4' piece of diffusion. If there's a wall 10' behind you and you put your hand right next to the diffusion frame, you might not even see the shadow of your hand. As you walk back towards the wall, the shadow created by your hand will become more and more defined.

When you have your hand right up against the diffusion frame, the light will wrap around your hand and hit the wall behind it, making your hands shadow more diffuse. As you walk back closer to the wall though, the relative source becomes smaller and the light starts to wrap less and less around your hand, making the shadow harder and harder. That 4x4' piece of diffusion is basically becoming more and more of a point. Another good example of this is the sun. It may be a huge source, but it's 93 million miles away so it's size relative to us is very small, making the light from the sun very very hard.

So knowing all that...walk it back! Way back!
 
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A normal fresnel is a hard light with great shadow rendering. A par is also a hard light. Anything with a point light source in it like a tungsten or hmi bulb is a hard light. How hard they are does depend upon the lens and what the lens is meant to do on a particular light. If that weren't the case that fresnels were hard, you wouldn't be able to throw a shadow pattern of some kind on the wall which many people do everyday. Good shadows come from point light sources. You can't get good shadow patterns if a lens diffuses things and normal fresnel lenses don't do that. And barndoors wouldn't cut a nice sharp edge around the light to shape it to whatever square or rectangular pattern you might want.
 
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