China Ball Question

Cool Lights said:
Daylight is supposed to be 5500K and comes in the blue package. Then they have a "daylight plus" I think its called which comes in a green package and is 6500K. I never tried the 6500K ones--that color is just too blue I think.
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I was just at Home Depot about 10 minutes ago. Richard, you are correct, the daylight are in a blue package and they are 5500K. The 'bright white' are in a red package and they are 3500K. And the 'soft white' are in a green package and although I didn't specifically pay attention to their color temp, I'm almost certain they are 2700K.

If they make a 'daylight plus' I've not seen them at the two Home Depots I shop, so I can't comment on the color of the package. But at 6500K, I agree... too blue.
 
On another note, this thread inspired me to try the CFLs inside a china lantern. I'm shooting a feature beginning next week so I'll be putting them to the ultimate test. However the weekend before last, the cast and crew got together for a rehearsal weekend. I was able to test out my setup and overall I'm quite pleased. I was getting very anal about having the highest CRI possible, but then I watched After Class and found no problem with what I saw. At that point I decided to save money and time and drove down to Home Depot and picked up the N:Vision Daylight 5500K lamps.

Eric
 
I've jumped on the bandwagon. I just got a 20" and 30" nylon china lantern in the mail today and went to home depot and put together the same n:vision set up as After Class. Now I just need to get some stands for them.

I also had a question for those with this set up: How do you go about keeping the light bulbs from touching the metal frame inside the china lantern? The bulbs don't give off much heat, but they are hot themselves and I can see them touching metal being a problem.
 
I haven't worried about it. I've got the same setup and haven't noticed any issues. Longest I've had the light on continuously was probably a couple of hours, but the metal frame either didn't heat up much or cooled off quickly. Either way, good times.
 
IBEJohnson said:
On another note, this thread inspired me to try the CFLs inside a china lantern. I'm shooting a feature beginning next week so I'll be putting them to the ultimate test. However the weekend before last, the cast and crew got together for a rehearsal weekend. I was able to test out my setup and overall I'm quite pleased. I was getting very anal about having the highest CRI possible, but then I watched After Class and found no problem with what I saw. At that point I decided to save money and time and drove down to Home Depot and picked up the N:Vision Daylight 5500K lamps.

Eric
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Good, that's the important thing. If they changed some things at least they didn't make them unusable for our purposes. So, as I've stated before, why send away and pay double or triple for something maybe 10 points higher in CRI when these work so well and you can just drive down to your local home depot to get them too, avoiding shipping and waiting for them.

Did you see any 40 watt models? I've seen some 40 watt ones around in 5500K but I'm not sure whether it was at Lowes or Home Depot.
 
chris f said:
I've jumped on the bandwagon. I just got a 20" and 30" nylon china lantern in the mail today and went to home depot and put together the same n:vision set up as After Class. Now I just need to get some stands for them.

I also had a question for those with this set up: How do you go about keeping the light bulbs from touching the metal frame inside the china lantern? The bulbs don't give off much heat, but they are hot themselves and I can see them touching metal being a problem.
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That's where something like that adjustable frame (like lanternlock) I spoke about would come in handy. Until then, what about some way to just secure it to the inner rectangular skeleton?
 
Cool Lights said:
Did you see any 40 watt models? I've seen some 40 watt ones around in 5500K but I'm not sure whether it was at Lowes or Home Depot.
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Are 40W CFLs the 150W equivalent lamps? If so, I believe they only had them in the green package (maybe it was red). Either way, it wasn't the 5500K lamps because I specifically remember thinking that I wish they had them in a higher wattage than the 100W equivalent.
 
Well they definitely aren't consistent in what they carry from one home depot to another. But I'll bet you though 40w will be available before you know it more consistently and yes that is about the equivalent of a 160w light. Put 4 or 5 of those in a chinese lantern and you have a very powerful light.
 
So I get the feeling that one doesnt need to get blue max CFL's to get good lighting. N:VISIONS are good enough. I didnt see a CRI rating for them, but if people are using them it must be pretty good.......but are they just good for chinese lanterns or can you use them as key, fill, etc, in place of hot lights?
 
fenigirl said:
So I get the feeling that one doesnt need to get blue max CFL's to get good lighting. N:VISIONS are good enough. I didnt see a CRI rating for them, but if people are using them it must be pretty good.......but are they just good for chinese lanterns or can you use them as key, fill, etc, in place of hot lights?
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See above in this thread for other opinions. IBEJohnson bought some and is also having good luck with them and I believe Jason is using them as well. Of course, I've been using them for quite a while myself. So that's 3 votes.

No one came into flame us either! :violent5:
 
fenigirl said:
So I get the feeling that one doesnt need to get blue max CFL's to get good lighting. N:VISIONS are good enough. I didnt see a CRI rating for them, but if people are using them it must be pretty good.......but are they just good for chinese lanterns or can you use them as key, fill, etc, in place of hot lights?
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The absolute answer to that question, only you can answer. What I mean is that if you think they are good enough, then no, you don't need to get the BlueMax lamps. Personally, I hate when people give ambiguous answers such as the one I just gave, so if you want something that sounds more certain, then I say don't waste your money on those expensive BlueMax's. Take what you save and put it toward that on-board LCD you've been wanting.

Have you seen After Class? If you want proof that these CFLs are good enough, watch it. That was the deal-sealer for me.

Eric
 
Well put. Also, remember that its very possible that different batches of bulbs available at different home depots or lowes will vary--therefore your results may vary. That's why what IBEJohnson said is all the more valid--you have to decide ultimately. If you see something we don't, it either means your eyes are better or you got some different bulbs than the ones we got.
 
I have asked about the daylight 150 CFL's at HD...I know they have the 150 watt soft whites in store....the daylights are a special order....I am curious to hear how much they will be and if they come in a pro pack (multi pack).....might order some.....
 
A daylight 150 would probably be a 40w bulb actual wattage. I can't imagine HD selling an 6U or 8U self-ballasted actual 150w at this time. Perhaps in the future. We'll be interested to hear how you like the 40w ones. I imagine they'll work fine also.
 
I saw one those Chinese Balls being used today for a ceremony inside the building that houses the Liberty Bell. Let me tell you I was impressed with how well it lit up that room! I don't know what size ball they had but it was pretty big and they had it about 9-10 feet in the air on a light stand.
 
china balls tell me about what exsactly to get

china balls tell me about what exsactly to get

hello guys im sure i came to the right place for this. i have been told about this china balls and im super intrested in using this for my coming movie.
now im told to buy[1] the balls.[2] a cable -now what kind im sure i sould get one that will be pawerfull enough for a 3200 w bulb tell me please.[3] a dimmer; any dimmer or is there one in spesific how many watts does a dimmer take. now what kind of bulbs, becasue my bigest concern is that this bulbs are very strong and get extremely hot, don`t they burn the paper ball and start a fire- how can i prevent this from happening what kind of bulbs sould i buy.i live in new york city
please tell me you guys who have and are still using them where to buy them how to use them the precusions to take and so on
thanks a lot
Israel Monrroy Cabrera
 
3200W is way too much for a china ball. China balls are more on the order of a few hundred watts. The ones being discussed most recently use CFLs so actual wattage consumption is very low.
 
He probably meant 3200K bulb not watts. 3200 watts would be like a "spacelight" and that's way overkill.

You can get the N:Vision bulbs from home depot in 3500K and that may be good enough or close enough for your use if its a tungsten type color you're looking for. Most people these days are choosing daylight 5500K bulbs though. You can also use the 200w CFL in them too with a larger socket type:

[FONT=&quot]http://www.servicelighting.com/catalog_product.cfm?prod=MX35871[/FONT]

As for cable, just get an edison socket Y mount type like that posted by several others in this thread from home depot and regular power cord. You won't be using a high enough wattage to really worry about the size of the power cord too much. Start with the smaller bulbs and see how they do for you and then work your way up to bigger ones. Stick with CFL for now though to minimize problems.
 
Israel Monrroy Cabrera said:
hello guys im sure i came to the right place for this. i have been told about this china balls and im super intrested in using this for my coming movie.
now im told to buy[1] the balls.[2] a cable -now what kind im sure i sould get one that will be pawerfull enough for a 3200 w bulb tell me please.[3] a dimmer; any dimmer or is there one in spesific how many watts does a dimmer take. now what kind of bulbs, becasue my bigest concern is that this bulbs are very strong and get extremely hot, don`t they burn the paper ball and start a fire- how can i prevent this from happening what kind of bulbs sould i buy.i live in new york city
please tell me you guys who have and are still using them where to buy them how to use them the precusions to take and so on
thanks a lot
Israel Monrroy Cabrera
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I just got done with a shoot where I used a china ball setup. I used 26" paper china balls from Ikea. I also used the light socket cord thingys from Ikea. They are 15' long, which is nice. As posted previously in this thread, I used the Y adapters in order to maximize my wattage for each china ball. All in all, I think it worked fine. However, I will say this, if you are underprepared with grip equiptment, this setup may be cumbersome. And if you plan on moving them a great deal the paper ones are subject to tearing. After a 6-day shoot, the one lantern that was constantly being moved around had lots of damage. It made me think of two things I remember reading before I left for the shoot; 1) Use nylon lanterns. I have a feeling they would have been more durable. 2) Lantern Locks. Isn't that what they're called? I remember someone posting the link and thinking it seemed cool, but maybe overkill. Definitely not overkill. I could have used the extra durability.
 
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