Considering Coollights CDM's, feedback would be great.

H

hotchkiss

Well-known member
I'm in the process of potentially reconfiguring my lighting resources, I'm considering adding a Coollights CDM or two. I'd appreciate any feedback from those who own them or have used them extensively.

In particular:

1. Are there any durability issues, all things considered (price point and technology utilized) ?
2. How practical or impractical is the 5 minute re-strike factor for corporate type shooting?
3. What niche do they play in your light package? ie, how are they most useful? When do you shy away from them? why?
4. Would you buy them again?

FWIW, I already have several Coollights units, (2) portable fluorescents, and 4 LED units (600's and 250's). They have been in use for the past several years. I've been by and large, very pleased with the fluro units, and the LED's to a lesser degree. I'm liking the flexibility of shooting with cooler lights, but I've been missing the control of fresnel units. I still have Altmans and LTM's that I break out from time to time, it would be nice to have a "cool" equivalent.

If you feel more comfortable responding via PM, I welcome that as well.

Thanks!
 
I have 2 150w CDMs from coollights. They come with me on almost every shoot I do.

What do I like about them:
- good light output (roughly equivalent to a 650w tungsten fresnel, but daylight balanced)
- good colour rendition (they seem to do quite well with skin tones)
- controllable (the fresnel lens and flood/spot functionality is really useful)
- 150w power draw means they don't heat up too much, which means interview talent stay cooler for longer. And you get a lot of light output for the wattage.

What I don't like about them:
- although build quality on the fixture itself is robust enough, the barndoors and yokes are lacking (mine have already given up the ghost after about 12 months), on the plus side, the fixtures can take Arri barndoors, so you can replace the standard ones with much more robust Arri units that should hold up much longer. I've had to repair both of my yokes with new washers and bit of bending things with some pliers.
- Cold restrike can be frustrating when you're moving quickly through different setups. For corporate gigs though, I've never found it to be a big issue though - that said, always make sure you lay out your cables completely before switching them on - if you find you need to put in a power adapter or more extension cord after the lights have been switched on, it gets really frustrating waiting for them to cool down.
- I (and every other crew member I've ever set to the task) have been completely unable to setup the coollights softboxes. I don't know if I'm missing a part or something, but no one can figure it out. I'd avoid them and go for an industry standard unit like a chimera.
 
Cool Lights fresnels are good bang for the buck; and the 5200k bulb for the 150 watt CDM is a nice bulb. (I use it in a fresnel conversion).

I have 3 of those Alzo 150's and two more bulb & ballast sets - the cold strike is just not much of an issue. They (and the cool lights) get up to temp in more like 2 minutes.

I had one shoot where we stuck a fixture in the fridge or blew air on it to speed things up - the cool-down is 5 minutes or so.

In my experience, a 150 CDM usually isn't worth sticking in a soft box - just eats up too much light.

By the way, the Alzo bulb & ballst - at like $140 - REALLY killer for daylight rigs, china's, clip lights, etc. Their HID lights are kinda rickety and overpriced - but that bulb/ballast is just the bomb. Really nice & clean daylight, no spike until the bulbs get old. it's soft though, not a true projector bulb like the cool lights, not the greatest for a fresnel conversion but killer for green screen or soft lighting. Alzo makes a cheap ceiling pancake that's a great pair with the B&B.
 
Grug said:
- I (and every other crew member I've ever set to the task) have been completely unable to setup the coollights softboxes. I don't know if I'm missing a part or something, but no one can figure it out. I'd avoid them and go for an industry standard unit like a chimera.
Click to expand...
I'm with you, Chimeras are the only softbox for me. :-) . How have the ballasts held up? One of my chief gripes with the Coolights LED's has been the power supply's, I keep spares... :-0

Thanks for your response to my post.
 
I've just been playing with a couple. The light quality is amazing. Very smooth, very controllable. Like most all discharge lamps (including fluorescents), they take a while to warm up and stabilize, less than five minutes probably. You'd use that time to fine tune positioning and controls like the barn doors anyway. So the only interesting thing is the time to cool off before you can restart -- something over five minutes. All that means to me is that when in doubt, leave the light on. The big one is using 150w, it's not a big deal to just let it run while talent takes a break or whatever. Turn it off when the crew breaks for lunch maybe.

Hot restrike capability costs you another $2000 or so. For that amount of money, I can wait five minutes. :laugh:

I judge the build quality to be on the level of their fluorescent units. If the fresnels have a weakness, it's probably the yokes. But the cans seem to be "industry standard size" so you can probably replace the yokes with parts for Mole or Arri 650 / 300 tunsten fresnels if you have to (I read somewhere that they fit, but I've never done it myself). The one I've been playing with today seems perfectly adequate though.

I think these things are a great deal. If you need the control of a fresnel, you want 5600K, and you want low output on the level of 650 or 300 watt tungsen lights, these things are "the bees' knees". I don't know of any competition -- the lowest level I can recall is the Joker-Bug 200, which way more expensive and almost 3x more light than the CL-MF0070.

The other thing is, I've been looking all over for used instruments. They seldom come on the market and they have excellent resale value when they do. Which tells me that the owners like them and aren't parting with them.

I was going to go the used tungsten route, but these things have changed my mind.
 
Grug said:
I (and every other crew member I've ever set to the task) have been completely unable to setup the coollights softboxes. I don't know if I'm missing a part or something, but no one can figure it out. I'd avoid them and go for an industry standard unit like a chimera.
Click to expand...

Which Chimera are you using?
 
I have had no trouble with the soft boxes. It took me a few minutes the first time but once I figured it out they go together quick. if you have the 4 rods and the ring you should be good. I get two of the rods in to the outside of the ring and than I squeeze the whole soft box together on the ground between my feet so I can get the others in place. that probably doesn't make much sense in text but...
 
Hectorxd said:
I have had no trouble with the soft boxes. It took me a few minutes the first time but once I figured it out they go together quick. if you have the 4 rods and the ring you should be good. I get two of the rods in to the outside of the ring and than I squeeze the whole soft box together on the ground between my feet so I can get the others in place. that probably doesn't make much sense in text but...
Click to expand...

Turns out, you don't even need to use your feet.

The four corners of the softbox have velcro tabs. Pull the velcro loose and let the rod end stick through while you put the other end of the rod into the edge of the speed ring. It's then quite easy to push the end of the rod with your thumb and pull the softbox up the rod. Pop the end of the rod into its pocket and resecure the velcro. Quick and easy. IF... you know the trick.

To be fair, Mr. Andrewski taught me that trick over the phone. It wasn't obvious to me either. He's thinking of making a short video tutorial on how to put the softbox together because so many people are finding it difficult.

What I found putting it together is that usually the first two rod placements are easy enough you don't even need to do this. The third one you might want to. Forth one is the hard one, and this technique makes it easy.

The Chimeras are easily 3x the price of the Cool Lights softbox, or more. These Cool Lights softboxes are quite an excellent value in comparison.
 
I've used these (a CDM 75 and two 150's) for about 4 years to shoot features. The yokes are an issue but the main problem I've had is simply with the nuts holding the yoke to the light loosening up and falling off. A little Loctite on the threads and problem solved. 5 minute restrike is not a big deal, by the time you setup to do a scene in the next room they are ready to be turned back on. Otherwise you can just leave them on, talent won't complain because they are much cooler.

i've had one ballast fail and due to the high cost of an original, searched out a suitable cheaper replacement (sbout $20 on Ebay). It does not have the automatic 5 minute shutoff, but that's OK, I just remember to wait 5 to turn it back on (not doing so can cost you bulb life).

Lighting quality is good, I notice a yellow cast when balanced to daylight and other flo fixtures produce normal skintones. Probably need to look into some 1/8 minus green to offset that. Best feature of these is having the same light output as two 650's and a 300 and being able to easily run them all on one circuit, without frying the talent - and not having to gel them when mixing them with daylight, thus cutting the light output of the fixture.
 
They make great rim/hair lights for any daylight color temp setup,
I'm disappointed with skin tones under this light. Tint varies greatly from the 3 I've used. They are cheap tho
 
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