Cool-Light's Blue Line body with "HMI" guts

Well, boiling it down you could put it this way: If you want hot restrike, your life will be between 500 and 1000 hours depending upon the bulb you get with Osram's and Phillips being about the best in lifetime. There is just too much wear and tear on those bulbs so they can't prolong the life.

The non-HR can go up pretty high to as much as 3000 hours again with Osram HSD 575 the best. So the next natural thing would be to go back and look at the prices and see whether the extra time buys you anything for whatever extra money they're charging for it.

For the 575, a Cool Lights HR would be $110 and last 750 hours. The Osram would be $149 and last 1000 hours. The question you would have to answer is the extra $39 worth it for 250 hours? You're the best one to answer that.

However, if you decide to go non-HR and look at the Osram HSR 575 it's not so much cheaper than the HR version at $120 and life is 1000. Ours is $80 and life 1000 hours. A clear winner there wouldn't you say? The Osram HSD model NHR 575 was $180 for 3000 hour life. Again, ours is 1000 for $80. The Osram is a clear winner there as long as you don't mind the extra money.

HSR 1200 Osram is $185 with life 3000 and the Cool Lights 1200 is $90 with life 1000, so a little over double gets you 2/3 more hours. That's another clear winner. Some of the lifetimes of the other bulbs seem even shorter like the Phillips is about 750 hours.

Yes, I know it's confusing. Lots of things to think about.
 
well it seems you picked your bulbs wisely... as I have learned to expect from you...
A small thing to add to the hs/$ ratios is that in the event of breakage you have a lower $ risk with Cool Light bulbs...

Trusting that your bulbs are as high of quality as I would expect, if not most likely a bit higher than what my comparatively under-trained eyes would be ok with:

Now the question is HR or NHR cool lights bulbs... humm... gotta look at the HR va NHR light costs too... hummm...

Ok, that does it for me Richard... further questions will have to come from the wiser guys here... I am topped up to my ears with info for now... how much do I owe you?
 
No charge yet! But we'll be taking all your money very soon though. Our bulbs are made in Taiwan and the quality seems very good. I expect it will only get better as they seem to be constantly trying new things out and sending us a sample to check. They seem very eager to make something at the level of an Osram bulb.
 
......However, if you decide to go non-HR and look at the Osram HSR 575 it's not so much cheaper than the HR version at $120 and life is 1000. Ours is $80 and life 1000 hours. A clear winner there wouldn't you say? The Osram HSD model NHR 575 was $180 for 3000 hour life. Again, ours is 1000 for $80. The Osram is a clear winner there as long as you don't mind the extra money....


I think an important factor is not just bulb life, but useable bulb life. One of the problems with HMI lights is the color shift over time, enhanced green spikes and such. Bulb life dosen't address that per se, but it is a concern.

-j
 
If the cheaper bulbs have a color shift similar to the more expensive bulbs, then I'd be willing to go cheaper just to be able to afford an entry level HMI.
 
Well sir, time will tell on that one. I have yet to wear out one of my test bulbs and I run them all day sometimes just for the sake of really pushing this stuff to its limits. I have yet to see one shut down on me and I'm really interested as to what happens actually at the end of life too!
 
Hi Richard:

I went through all of the posts and perhaps overlooked the answer, but any idea when we can actually buy and take delivery of your new HMIs?

Dan
 
Hi Dan,

Manufacturers always intentionally duck that question whenever they're in development or manufacturing mode ;-). Anyway, currently we are planning on September but our pre-order sale should be starting soon though where we'll have a chance to pre-reserve at a lower price.
 
Cool. Have you posted a price list anywhere yet? I am definitely interested. I just did a bunch of mixed light interviews using my Kinos with 5,500k tubes. Worked fine but there were two instances where I needed more oomph to compete with ambient sunlight, your 575 HMI would have been perfect.

Good luck!

Dan
 
Thanks Dan,

I'm finalizing prices now. We pretty much know the 575w choices at this point though. There's 3 fixtures with 4 choices:

575w Fresnel - Hot restrike $899
575w Fresnel - non-HR $699
575w Par - non-HR $699
575w Sportlight Par - HR - $1699

Those will be the pre-offer prices. The sportlight is so far from the others in price for reasons of "commodity" fixtures on the lower cost and the rare availability of something like the sportlight. Even the lower cost ones are attractive though and use fixture bodies that are well-known, recognizable and appreciated. Each unit comes with barndoors, bulb (either HR or non-HR depending upon which unit you get), electronic ballast (I gave up on magnetic ballasts as they're too heavy and flicker at higher shutter speeds--not what the market would find attractive) and lamp cable. No surprises--you'll have what you need to operate out of the box unlike existing companies offerings where everything is priced separately for the most part. I'm hoping to have a carrying case option for the sportlight too but that might be $150 extra.

The prices for stock models (once we have them in stock will be a bit higher because of our higher costs of maintaining stock. The pre-offers also help us understand what are the most popular choices too and allow us to offer more flexibility in ordering than we have from stock items.

Actually the main thing holding us up now is our new portable fluorescent models which are taking a bit longer to design and implement the housing than I had hoped. We were trying for a lolipop mounting too and that has its own set of dramas involved.

So, what do you think would have helped you best in those situations? A par or fresnel? Hot restrike or non-HR? Keep in mind that the lens size on the least expensive par is 7", the fresnels are 5" and the sportlight is 9". Of course you have focusing mechanisms and fixed lens on the fresnels and the sportlight has a focusing mechanism but it has more of a dimming function than anything else--dimming without color temp change which is the one of the coolest features of that unit. The fresnel has the one lens like all fresnels but the pars can both change out lenses--each with 3 choices. The sportlight has an easier lens change system than the other fixture which requires a bit more work.

I know that the par has not been a very popular fixture for many and is not very well known either but then again, the price of pars (other than tungsten par cans) has been pretty high too. Many indies and videographers use fresnels out of habit and for budget considerations. I wonder if more people will discover pars now as an excellent fixture for the use you described.
 
>Many indies and videographers use fresnels out of
>habit and for budget considerations.

Yes, exactly. Fresnells are familiar and slightly cheaper in the rental world, although more pros use pars as you get more light. I love the option to take all the lenses out and have an almost xenon like beam of light.

It's nice to have all those options though and the prices are very interesting!
 
Well, I hope we can use this as an opportunity to get more acquainted with the par as it definitely has it's own pluses. The removable lenses being probably the best feature for sure.
 
3 questions for you sir! (I'm a little late to this thread, though I followed it ages ago when it started)...

1) Could you describe the Par lenses (7", right?)... I'm assuming they'll affect beam spread? And is this a "choose one" or "all three" situation? (Mew to pars myself but heck, I can do a lot with just an open face, lenses are icing on the cake...)

2) Are you going to set up a pre-order mailing list/ something along those lines?

and 3) What's your current comparison in wattage for the 575 vs. tungsten output (IE, are we talking 750, 1000, etc... or is the 575 watts the 'comparable" output?)

Thanks -- and count me in!
 
Hi Richard:

In my cases, I would have used the PAR. I used to own a Joker HMI 1200 watt PAR, it was a great light. I think I paid $2,800.00 used for it, used it for three years and sold it for $3,200.00. HMIs really hold their value.

If you can bring a reliable, good looking HMI to market for the prices you are listing above, you will be a very rich man at some point. HMIs are awesome lights but have been so massively overpriced that very few shooters have used them these days. I sold the Joker because it was large and I rarely used it. I decided that two or three of the smaller fixtures like 800s or 575s would be more practical but I never bought them, they were too expensive.

What is a sportlight? I have never heard that term. It's dimmable? Anything else unique about it?

Will the PAR come with, what, three lenses? A hard case for the head and ballast? If so, where can I sign up, thats a killer deal.

Best,

Dan
 
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