Chimera 24x32 DAYLIGHT

taubkin

taubkin

Veteran
So a long time ago I followed Dan's advice and bit the bullet on a Chimera Kit.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=67571

I was using a 1000W bulb inside and getting great results with it. Especially for tungsten lit sets. When I had to gel it blue, on the other hand, it was always a strech, since blue gel already steals so much light and softboxes of this size still have a limited output. But I managed.

THEN, I had an idea, that also came from another DVXuser:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=58947

What If I can screw a couple of full spectrum fluorescent bulbs on my chimera?

I got myself 3 bulbs, and some adapters and managed to put the 3 60W fluoros inside. Result: almost one stop more daylight from my chimera. No heat, no circuit breakers tripping.

Now, the good news is, The lamps can go almost touching the chimera fabric, it won't burn, so we can aqctually put as many buls as we may fit inside. I'm thinking of designing a 6-lamp base so I can get another stop of daylight. Or even, why not get a cheap spftbox for photography, since it won't have to stand a lot of heat? one could build himself a pretty cool daylight softbox for less than 200 bucks.

And that is just sweet.

Thought I'd share with you guys, who knows, maybe I can take some photos later, I'm ecstatic!

Cheers,

Julio
 
LOL. That second one was the first thread I ever posted in on this site.

Glad to hear you've joined the CFL crowd. You can even use a cheaper softbox meant for flashes with a solution like this it's so safe. That is, just so long as the total of wattages going into the one socket doesn't exceed its maximum.
 
How would you go about using these for hard lighting? Are there any fresnel fixtures that these lights can fit in?
 
Sorry you can't use them at all for hard lighting. Fluorescent is soft no matter what you do because the surface area of the bulb (emanating) the light. The best and most cool solution for hard lighting (at the moment) is metal halide which we've been talking about quite a bit here recently:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=99866

The actual bulb itself gets intensely hot and so will the fixture, but the beam it puts out is not nearly as full of heat as a tungsten equivalent--therefore its more of a cool light. You can also see more about this on my website at the articles section of the Blog:

Part 1:

http://www.coollights.biz/wordpress/archives/31

Part 2:

http://www.coollights.biz/wordpress/archives/33

High wattage single LEDs may also be useful for these purposes at some point in the future when they're more available and come down in price from where they are at now. In order to get a hard light, you've got to have a very small pinpoint of concentrated, intense light in combination with a mirror to give a wider beam and a lens helps a lot too.
 
Yeah, not a lot of punch for hard lighting from those CFLs...

Now Richard! When can I see those HMIs? I'll do whatever I can to bring a kit to Brazil, man, as soon as they're ready! That is absolutely golden and if you can bring us some of theese HID bulbs, and if the color is right (or easy to get right with some gel), for the prices you are mentioning, you are going to be my personal hero. :D

Nice work! :)

And by the way, 6 lamp PL portable fixtures would rock!
 
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taubkin said:
Yeah, not a lot of punch for hard lighting from those CFLs...

Now Richard! When can I see those HMIs? I'll do whatever I can to bring a kit to Brazil, man, as soon as they're ready! That is absolutely golden and if you can bring us some of theese HID bulbs, and if the color is right (or easy to get right with some gel), for the prices you are mentioning, you are going to be my personal hero. :D

Nice work! :)

And by the way, 6 lamp PL portable fixtures would rock!
Click to expand...

When you say 6 lamp PL portable fixtures I think you mean a 6 lamp version of the 4 lamp one I'm planning right? Plastic and aluminum, lighter weight and more portable than our current studio type metal model. I've thought about that too. I doubt I can get it in this time though. Just too many different projects going on. Probably won't do a 2 lamp one though, unless demand increases for that type model.

As for your other questions, maybe I'll use this as a moment to explain some other things I've been considering that should be very interesting and again showing how we do things differently from everyone else.

On the HMIs we'll be putting up some pre-order pages soon on the website and the pre-order pages will have special shipping options too for different cases. This offer will include the tungsten fresnels which won't be too much of a stock item--mostly only special order. The pre-order customers will pay a lower price for all items pre-offered than those that wait for the items to actually be in inventory. This is a new thing we're going to offer every 6 months or so. We'll call it something like the "Cool Lights Pre-Order Sale" or some similar name. It allows us to realize five things which we've been wanting to get a better handle on:

1). Expand our buying power with more cash up front, thus helping to keep the costs low--the more we can buy, normally the lower the cost per item, thus the how we can continue to offer the kind of prices we offer and still make a profit.

2). Lowers our cost of storage of the items when they hit the states since we don't have to store them--some part of the inventory will already be sold therefore we just ship them immediately to customers they were promised to.

3). Helps us get a better idea of what's popular and what is not so popular so we don't spend so much time on products that aren't as popular. The pre-orders are like votes in a way, telling us what people really want. Right now, it's a guessing game about how much of each item to buy for inventory.

4). Some of these items will be so popular (based on the amount of email I'm getting) that the stock most likely won't last long so it gives you a chance to insure you'll get an item and not have to wait another 60 to 180 days until we have the item in stock again.

5). Allows some in other countries to get the items a bit less expensively and get the items shipped directly from China to them which is more efficient than shipping the items to the states and then shipping to England, Brazil, Australia, or wherever.

It's a win/win for both you and us. The process would be something like this: We run our pre-offer for about 15 days giving those who want to, a chance to opt in and pay in advance for a lower, discounted price. The average USA customer will put down the total amount for their pre-order+a flat UPS Ground shipping and handling fee from our US warehouse to their address. Others will put down the total amount for their order+special shipping options for shipping direct from China to them (but I'll explain a bit more about this special case in a moment). At the end of the 15 days the offer is stopped and the manufacturing begins which takes an average of 30 days. We manufacture a few more of each item than those pre-ordered (for our inventory and those customers that will wait or haven't even discovered us yet).

After manufacturing, the items are shipped via air to special customers or sea cargo to our US warehouse and that takes about 20 to 25 days. We'll also keep some stock here in China for some countries in this area that are starting to be interested in what we're doing. The US-targeted items arrive at our warehouse and are separated and categorized. Those targeted for pre-order customers are instantly labeled and shipped UPS Ground. The rest of the items meant for stock go in inventory and on sale on the website at an interesting price but certainly a bit higher than the one's that were bought in advance. We'll be trying it for the first time this time to see how popular it is.

Now let's explain the special cases of direct shipment from China to other customers. This is for people in other countries than the USA (like your request for shipping to Brazil) and also for those that have some projects this summer that they need the lights for. For all these cases, we will offer a special expedited air cargo service direct from China. Air Cargo is a bit different from Air Express. Air cargo is "airport to airport", so you have to go pick the item up at your local international airport rather than having it come to your door, but the shipping costs can be a lot lower this way than the normal "air door-to-door express" option. For sure, this option still costs a lot more than waiting for normal shipping but those in dire need or those in other countries will get the items quicker than everyone else. We could be shipping these items by the end of July whereas the sea shipment won't arrive until the September time frame.

In fact, for those in other countries, it's more efficient too as we don't have to ship to the states then ship to you. We'll go direct from China. Of course, container sea shipping is always more reasonable and the bulk of our products will go that way to the states which is our main market, but it takes a lot longer. If we used air for everything we couldn't keep the price so low.

Each individual special air shipment case will have to be quoted separately though as its impossible to make a blanket estimate that covers all the different combinations of products you buy, their weight and size, distance from China to your country, and the air carrier we would choose that serves your airport. Of course, you're also on your own for customs fees and duties in your respective countries; but many of you already know what those are and what you can expect, as I know a lot of you have dabbled in this kind of thing before.

When the pre-order pages are up, you'll probably see a "contact us for shipping quote" link for all these special cases for direct shipment from China. For the US customers, you'll already know what your price will be for both shipping and the actual products.

This is a lot of stuff so it may take a moment to soak in but of course, feel free to ask any questions and I'll clarify.
 
That sounds fantastic. Please sign me up. Any date on when you are going to start off ?
 
Richard - Please make sure you give us notice when pre-ordering is ready for your HMI lights. I'm definitely a buyer. :thumbsup:
 
Taubkin - I made a post a few years ago (MattinStL participated) about the daylight balanced CFLs. I've been using them almost four years on occasion. One thing you should know is those lights are almost like being in a tanning booth because of their UV rays. Don't let your "cool to the touch" giddiness get the best of you. Be careful.
 
Yes, we'll keep the "window of opportunity" open for about 15 days and I'll make sure everyone knows about it. If we didn't have a cutoff then we wouldn't know how much stuff to manufacture so it's really a necessity. In the future as our buying power expands and we have more capital, perhaps the 15 day period can extend a bit into the manufacturing phase -- we'll just have to see how it all goes this time. Kind of a new idea.
 
Hey Richard,
when I go to your site, I get some strange auto translation which makes the site illegible - is this part of CMS?
I use Firefox on MacOS...
Wanted to check if the pre-sale site is up yet...
Thanks!
 
Spartacus said:
Hey Richard,
when I go to your site, I get some strange auto translation which makes the site illegible - is this part of CMS?
I use Firefox on MacOS...
Wanted to check if the pre-sale site is up yet...
Thanks!
Click to expand...

I sent you a PM, would love to see a screen capture of that because I don't see the problem under Firefox or IE on Windows (and haven't had any other reports) so not sure what's going on there.
 
taubkin said:
let me rephrase: you ARE my personal hero!

Yes, I was talking about 6-lamp portable fixtures, like a 6-lamp diva. Or maybe an 8-lamp too? (like two rows of four lamps)
Click to expand...

Woh! 8 lamp portable? ;-) Not too portable is it? Even the 6 lamp is pushing it for portability's sake. Wouldn't two 4 lamp units be just as good or better than the 8 lamp?
 
Cool Lights said:
Woh! 8 lamp portable? ;-) Not too portable is it? Even the 6 lamp is pushing it for portability's sake. Wouldn't two 4 lamp units be just as good or better than the 8 lamp?
Click to expand...

Or just make the fixtures easyly atachable to each other - then we could have even 12 or 16 lamp flos (and I can even think of scenarios where I would need them hehehe...)
 
Spartacus said:
Or just make the fixtures easyly atachable to each other - then we could have even 12 or 16 lamp flos (and I can even think of scenarios where I would need them hehehe...)
Click to expand...

Actually, I did find a fixture like this in China but rejected it as it was horribly expensive. Works like this: Has modules of 2 55w bulbs which each come with their own barndoors and yoke. You can take off top and bottom barndoors and yoke when needed and there are some special fastening hardware that attaches to the sides and allows you to attach the units together--as many as you like. You could have 16 if you wanted but it would be a really long fixture as you can't bolt them side by side--only vertically.

Also not totally sure about their yoke arrangement for larger fixtures--doesn't seem too well thought out. The "Lolipop" would be better for something like that. My price on it was around $350 and that's for a non-dimming fixture. Just too expensive.

We can eventually consider our own lower cost solution to that idea which I've wondered about myself too.
 
Cool Lights said:
Woh! 8 lamp portable? ;-) Not too portable is it? Even the 6 lamp is pushing it for portability's sake. Wouldn't two 4 lamp units be just as good or better than the 8 lamp?
Click to expand...

When I mean portable I only mean lighweight... hehehe Different than standard, all metal fixtures...
 
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