daylight balance par64 cans - is heat an issue?

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nickbeef

Active member
I've been looking around for a 1K light, mostly to be used as for bounce. Obviously, there are a number of options out there, but I happen to come across a table that listed the brightness output and throw distance of various lights, and noticed that 1K par64 performed extremely well, in fact comparable to a 10K fresnel?!!

Basically the two ways I'd generally see using these is either bounced, or perhaps to shoot in through a window as sunlight (or through the woods at night, as moon light). My question is how hot do these get? And how this heat affects gels placed in front of them. I've used a 1K open faced broad light, with tiny barn doors and it melted the gel I placed in font of it with in a minute (I'm guessing a par64 would be brighter, but would it be hotter?). Looking at one of these Molepar's, it doesn't seem like there would be much distance between the light and the gel:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/151439564372?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

If used as a bounce, I don't want to melt the beadboard either. Moving the light further way from the bounce makes it more likely that someone might bump into it when shooting in a tight space on location.

From what I can gather, par64 are cheap and bright. But I just want to make sure they are usable before buying.
 
Pars are indeed cheap and bright, and you can change globes to different spreads for the desired throw and intensity. The traditional theatrical par can housing gives enough heat separation for gels to be useable, so that is generally the housing I use them in vs the single MolePars (but I do like the Mole 9-light, great for filling up a large bounce). As far as being comparable to a 10K fresnel, perhaps a narrow globe may come close but with a far smaller beam pattern. The drawbacks are that they are tough to cut with flags, so you need a good size bounce if leak around the bounce is a concern. They are a good "brute force" kind of light.
 
There's really no comparison between a PAR can and a 10k. A VNS PAR64 might be as bright as a 10k at full flood, but it won't have anywhere near as wide of a beam as a 10k does. A 10k bounced into a large frame will give much more light than a PAR can.

Whether or not they'll melt the gel depends on what color gel you're using. If it's a deep color, and you're using a firestarter in one of the theatrical cans, it will probably melt or at least lose some of it's color. I've put fairly deep colors in front of fire starters on my cine queen PAR's and had no problems though thanks to the better ventilation that the barn doors give you vs an enclosed steel or aluminum can. Medium flood bulbs won't really cause any short term issues with gel regardless of the type of fixtures, unless maybe you have them aimed up vertically with a deep color.

Another thing you have to watch out for is placing scrims in a theatrical can that has a gel. If the scrim comes into contact with the gel it will melt it very quickly and leave the residue of that melted gel all over the scrim. Again - not an issue with molepars or cine queens since they have barn doors.

Beware that they're not all that suitable for aiming through windows. They're great for smaller windows but they'll have a difficult time evenly filling anything over around 5'.
 
For what it's worth, I'm using the table found in the back of the "Set Lighting Technician's Handbook" by Harry C. Box. You can actually download and view this table from the companion website:

http://www.routledge.com/cw/box-9780240810751/p/resources/

Just click Forms and Tables, download, and open appendix A.3 "Brightness in Foot Candles of Fixtures at Various Distances". There it lists a Medium Flood 1K PAR 64 as having the same output in Candellas as that of a 10K Baby Tenner on Flood. Medium Flood sounds like it would cover a bounce, and to even get close at all to the light output of a 10K, is might impressive and worth the >$100 purchase, IMHO. Then again, I'm not 100% sure how to properly read these tables, and I know light output isn't the ONLY consideration...

So, it sorta sounds like it might be worth it to purchase the cheaper DJ style par64 cans, because the housing will allow me to put gels in front with out issue? Then again I'm kinda feeling that the shorter front housing on the Molepar or Cine Queen makes it better for flood lights, perhaps using for bounce...
 
does the larger front "barrel" of the DJ style par cans limit the flood beam? It seems like a build in snoot to me? It would be awesome if I could just take it off if needed.
 
nickbeef said:
For what it's worth, I'm using the table found in the back of the "Set Lighting Technician's Handbook" by Harry C. Box. You can actually download and view this table from the companion website:

http://www.routledge.com/cw/box-9780240810751/p/resources/

Just click Forms and Tables, download, and open appendix A.3 "Brightness in Foot Candles of Fixtures at Various Distances". There it lists a Medium Flood 1K PAR 64 as having the same output in Candellas as that of a 10K Baby Tenner on Flood. Medium Flood sounds like it would cover a bounce, and to even get close at all to the light output of a 10K, is might impressive and worth the >$100 purchase, IMHO. Then again, I'm not 100% sure how to properly read these tables, and I know light output isn't the ONLY consideration...
Click to expand...
10k of light vs 1k of light...
Sure, the PAR can is a more efficient design, but I guarantee you it's output will not approach that of a 10k. A medium flood actually has a much narrower beam than you might think if you've never used them.
http://www.altmanltg.com/altman-lighting-pars/par-56/Altman-PAR-56-64-Data-Sheet.pdf
Look for FFR in the lower table.
nickbeef said:
So, it sorta sounds like it might be worth it to purchase the cheaper DJ style par64 cans, because the housing will allow me to put gels in front with out issue? Then again I'm kinda feeling that the shorter front housing on the Molepar or Cine Queen makes it better for flood lights, perhaps using for bounce...
Click to expand...
Again, the beam coming out of the bulbs is pretty narrow to begin with. The open design of a Molepar or Cine Queen won't allow a wider beam, just more spill around the edge if you don't have the barn doors.
 
The color on the dichroics won't last very long and is warm for daylight. Better to burn through gels as you can replaces them. Be prepared though to change the gels often. Pars are very efficient , though if you want to go another way , just a common old Lowel D is a quite efficient source of light and will give you a lot of bounce.
I'm sure not as powerful as a PAR , but easier and more flexible to deal with. Also you can vary the amount of bounce by flooding or spotting, and your spare is just a little bulb. Then you can also use it direct if you need it to and even use it with a Chimera. I have shot them into rooms from outside but a narrow PAR is probably more juice.
 
If you're thinking of DJ cans, look at the Flexipar (which I think is a knockoff of a similar Altman fixture).

The Flexi takes a 575 globe, comes with 4 lenses, is well under 200 bucks. It's a crazy efficient light for the money - the modern 575 globes are really nicely engineered and are close to the old (FLK?) 1k globes. Just find the $10 lens-changing tool on the web, those lenses just SUCK to swap without one. This is a tungsten fixture though.

I use 'em for hard shafts of light through windows at night. They won't trump a 4k HMI (which I *should* be using in those cases) but buying one flexi is about the same as renting the HMI for a couple nights. And they'll run on house power.
 
I should probably start a new thread for this, and I know the questions is subjective, but...

what do you think is a better investment for a 1K? The PAR64 or the open faced quartz broad lights, something like a mighty mole. Like I said, I'm mostly interested in either shooting into bounce, or raked across trees for nighttime shots.
 
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