Chimera Pancake Lantern/China Ball - An Alternative

Update - I finally used this light for a show. We did a few live-to-tape 3-camera segments for national broadcast. They were studio interviews; host with three guests seated and a couple of songs with a group of three standing.

What I liked is that I was I was able to place the light on a boom and have it just out of frame, centered in front of the panel of people. This provided the same soft-shadow results you see in the screenshots of the first post. This was a nice alternative the the lights up on a grid that give hard shadows.

When it was time to reset for the songs it was simply a matter of raising the boom just above their heads and we got the same nice soft effect for this segment.
 
The safest way to use a chimera pointed downwards is to use a triolet with a 1k bulb.

The main difference between chimera and the other softbox's is resistance to heat and long term toughness. You see Chimera a lot on set because rental houses buy Chimera. They needs to be sure their equipment works under all circumstances and can take a beating. Not saying every grip/gaffer doesn't care about rental gear(in fact most guys i worked with were very careful), but once in a while you get one who... cares less.
 
My medium Chimera had a nice grapefruit sized hole burned in it by a careless gaffer years ago back in the days when it had a Mighty Mole through it (2K tungsten open face). I still have the light but rarely use it, it gets ridiculously hot and definitely needs a strong and steady 20 amps to turn it on. Not 18 or 16 amps. I sent it back to the burn ward at Chimera in Colorado and they made a nice patch for the hole for about $100.00, it was lot cheaper than buying a new Medium Quartz Pro Chimera. Still use the Chimera a lot with my Aputure LS 1S punched through it.
 
puredrifting said:
My medium Chimera had a nice grapefruit sized hole burned in it by a careless gaffer years ago back in the days when it had a Mighty Mole through it (2K tungsten open face). I still have the light but rarely use it, it gets ridiculously hot and definitely needs a strong and steady 20 amps to turn it on. Not 18 or 16 amps. I sent it back to the burn ward at Chimera in Colorado and they made a nice patch for the hole for about $100.00, it was lot cheaper than buying a new Medium Quartz Pro Chimera. Still use the Chimera a lot with my Aputure LS 1S punched through it.
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I believe you need a special kind of softboxes once you get past 1k tungsten? Nonetheless, cool that they repaired it with a patch instead of buying a new one.
 
The Chimera pancake is rated for 2k face down. As you said, the important thing is to use the proper light fixture such as the triolet (which oddly enough is rated 1k) that have thermal isolation built into the fixture. The Starlite I used also has this feature. Even with a 1k bulb in it, the outer metal of the fixture never goes beyond warm. Using the proper light fixture, it's nearly impossible to get the fabric of the pancake or a softbox hot enough to be dangerous, unless you have a faulty grip as Drift experienced.
 
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The images dont work for me. Could you reupload them? Seems like your filehoster disabled them. Have already bought the brolly btw :)
 
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