Coollights CDM 150 and 70 for feature

mainstreetprod

mainstreetprod

Veteran
I'm shooting my first feature and need more lights. Many of my scenes will take place in a 10 x 20 room with some daylight coming in. I have 3 softboxes with daylight balanced mogul base flo bulbs. I will need hard lights also and would like to know what you guys think of Cool Lights "Mini HMI" fixtures (CDM150 and 70). They have low current draw, are focusable, put out the equivilant of a 650 and a 300, and can take a 3200K bulb as an alternative. I am aware of the 5 minute restrike limitation. Is this a good plan? Anyone own these?

http://www.coollights.biz/clmf0150-cool-lights-fresnel-p-63.html
 
Completely independent of the quality of the light, I think 150w HMI is way too small to be 'sunlight coming in'. How big of a window? I think you probably need *at least* a 1200w HMI, preferably a 2.5kw or even higher
 
I own the 150 and it's certainly very good, but it really depends on what you need. 10' x 20' rooms are large and those lights will be completely useless in wide shots. Close up will probably be fine.
 
While the room is 10' x 20, the actual part of the room in the shot will be more like 10 x 12. There are two average sized residential windows. I was planning on using the CDM's to light the scene and just have the sunlight coming in to augment them.
 
I own two CDM150's and one of the CDM70's. Other than the restrike issue, I find them to be great lights and treat them as I would any other arri 650/300's. I can't quite say how durable they are compared to arris, but they seem very well built. I love that I don't have to CTB and my actors always appreciate how cool the lights are.

I know you're aware of it, but the restrike can be an issue depending on how fast you need your setups to be. There have been times when we were forced to strike the light while moving it and the entire set had to wait for it to strike again. For reference, on an eight hour shoot, we probably lost about 10-15 minutes of downtime due to restrike.
 
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Thanks for the info. The restrike issue should not be a problem on my set. Keeping the actors comfortable could be a real asset.
 
Thanks Richard, as you know I ordered them, should get them in next two days or so. Looking forward to giving them a try. One reason I got these is I do not want to have probems when a bit of daylight is coming in the windows. I think the days of 3200K interior lighting are rapidly coming to an end, and there will no longer be a need to match them.
 
Cool Lights said:
Thanks to all for their comments and of course to Fred too for his interest!
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Richard,

If one uses a tungsten lamp in these units is there still a five minute "warm up" time, or does it then perform like a traditional tungsten unit- flip the switch and it's on ?

I'm intrigued.
 
Unfortunately there are enough differences between the socket and bulb position that we have two models--tungsten and CDM. So if you buy a CDM you can't put a tungsten bulb in it and vice verse. We have a "tungsten" colored bulb for the CDM 150, so perhaps that was confusing you. Its still a CDM bulb with a correlated color temperature of 3000K.

There is no warm up or cool down period on the tungsten fresnels. Just on the CDM versions of them. Hope that makes it clearer.
 
Cool Lights said:
Unfortunately there are enough differences between the socket and bulb position that we have two models--tungsten and CDM. So if you buy a CDM you can't put a tungsten bulb in it and vice verse. We have a "tungsten" colored bulb for the CDM 150, so perhaps that was confusing you. Its still a CDM bulb with a correlated color temperature of 3000K.

There is no warm up or cool down period on the tungsten fresnels. Just on the CDM versions of them. Hope that makes it clearer.
Click to expand...

Yes, the tungsten colored lamp was the confuser. Does that lamp hold it's color balance over time, or will it lose kelvin accuracy? thanks
 
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