Debating on expanding my lighting kit. Need advice...

Jon Furtado

Jon Furtado

Well-known member
I own a Mole Richardson fresnel kit that consists of the following:

2 1K Fresnels
2 650w fresnels
1 650w open faced
3 300w fresnels
1 Chimera for 1K bank

While I enjoy the quality of the light these give off, I have a lot of problems with them on the small shoots I do:

1. Heat. Too hot for my tallent! I'm constantly shooting talking head interviews in small or moderately small rooms. I also live in the desert of Southern California. The head bakes my tallent too often and the end up sweating bullets before the end of the interview.

2. Weight and bulk. I'm usually in a lot of one man band situations where I have to cart EVERYTHING by myself. While I've seen the wisdom of hiring a PA, my budgets just don't allow me to afford a 2nd skilled person on set yet. I'd like to slim down my package and get it to where I can cart it around with ease. My current fresnel kit kills my back even when I leave my 1K's at home.

3. Versatility. I sometimes shoot against green screen backgrounds and have found my kit to be pretty much lacking. I also can't seem to get decent daylight fill from these fixtures when needed because they're tungsten and once I put CTB on them, I end up cutting down too much of my light to use it.

4. Wattage. I shoot in completely unpredictable locations all the time. I just don't always have enough wattage to shoot with such high wattage.


Now I know ideally I should mix and match fixtures, but I'd like to find a solution where I can get more bang for my buck. I'm not rich, so I'd like to keep it affordable, so name brand Kino's and Dedolights are pretty much off the table due to their expense. But in my experience, I have found some pretty decent off brand manufacturers that create decent lights like Coollights or Flolights. Plus their light builds are pretty good.

Any suggestions? I'd like to get a dialog going and hopefully this might help others.
 
I have a similar mountain of Tungsten, fresnels, open, etc. But slowly have been going over to daylight.

The biax flo units from china are amazing for nice soft light. Search "Cowboy Studio" on Amazon for duals, quads & 6's. SUPER cheap and really great bang for the buck. Soft light: pretty well covered. I've used them on all kinds of TV spots. They have big, butch steel yokes and look very professional. They turn up new on eBay under various brand names.

Avoid the "flo light" models with goosenecks - if you can find one really cheap though, grab it - they're plastic and weigh nothing and can be hung from a ceiling clamp, jammed into tight spaces, etc. The goosenecks are what suck on those.

I really, really dig the Alzo HID bulb & ballast combo - you can do all kinds of stuff with that. Close to a 650 or so, but daylight - no gels needed. Pulls 150 watts. About $140. Use it for a practical (the bulb's a standard edison base). Stick it in their (really groovy and cheap) pancake fixture.

The Alzo HID lights (with ballast built in) - really kinda useful - the frosted bulb keeps them kind of soft though. They're a little odd, rickety barndoors, no gel frame - I got some used and they do kick out a lot of 5200k or so daylight. End up getting used on every shoot.

And - cool as freaking hell - the alzo ballast will drive the daylight HID bulb that Cool Lights sells - and seems about a half stop brighter. Get a bunch of G12 bulb bases and convert some old fresnels. Really easy and really kickass, 650 fresnel, daylight, pulls 150. I'm gonna make an HID leko one of these days. The Cool Lights bulb isn't frosted, it's a bipin projecter-style bulb - line it up properly with a reflector and you have a kickass budget "hmi" fresnel light.

I am about to mod one into a 575 par - not a par can, a real par with lens set, etc. Fingers crossed.

Cool Lights HID 70's and 150's are very popular lights as well. His 575 HMI Fresnel looks great - but it's over $2k. Still, that's like a third the price of an Altman or similar unit.

Those big huge flo bulbs are really handy for china balls - the big 85 - 100 watt ones. TEST them though, many require some gelling, and not always just minus green. Mark the gel combo on the box. They seem equivalent to a 2-tube biax.

Keep in mind that DIY flo's aren't overdriving the ballast, so you don't get near the lumens of a Kino/etc.

That stuff will add a lot of daylight to your kit. The next step up is really a 575 or 1.2k HMI, which is a big price leap.
 
Look for low cost Chinese made Biax fluorescent in a 4x55w, something like the ePhoto or Fancier. Add 1/4 minus green gel and a homemade grid and you have a good low cost talking head light.
 
I briefly tried out a Alzo 800, but by the time I burnt-in the 1st bulb the unit stopped working, & I returned it. Alzo was great about the return, & all equipment can fail early in it's life.

The build quality of the head wasn't great, & I hated the reflector connector, but I planned on using these as bounces, & in china lanterns, during an extended job where the client was going to sell them off after, so didn't care so much.

The bulbs have a long burn in time, & if I remember correctly it was something like 20 hours. I pointed my test unit at a 10' white ceiling, & just left it burning. But I also noticed my eyes seemed to be effected, & think it might have been from the UV. I've never seen an open face HMI, & know the dangers, so am skeptical about any similar light that lacks a glass safety lens.

Alzo even has a warning on their User Guides that reads, "YOU MUST WARE ULTRAVIOLET PROTECTIVE GLASES IF YOU USE THESE LIGHTS REPEATEDLY OR FOR EXTENDED PERIODS OF TIME".

http://www.alzovideo.com/customer_support/pdfs/1354 IS - ALZO Ballast and Bulb user guide.pdf

 
That's odd, I emailed them and they said their current bulbs have a UV protection envelope and nothing else is needed.

I've got three and use them a lot. Haven't had burn-in issues, but bulb life isn't all they suggest. They'll go green & dim as they age. And the threads for tightening the t-handle popped out of one, I just drilled & tapped it to 3/8.

I've got one taken apart right now, trying to talk myself into changing it to a G12 base for the cool lights bulb. Those most certainly do need UV shielding though.

The ballast thing's pretty handy, I'll hang on to mine until i can get something like a 575 HMI.
 
I travel a lot with my lights and i would find it hard to work without tungsten units as they let me go hard or soft. However bringing the best lights on the market (Moles) as your travel companion might not be the best idea as being built like a Russian tank they also weight a lot. Personally i fill my traveling case with 7 Lowel lights: 2x 1k, 2x 500, 2x 250, 1x 44 Rifa.
 
We find ourself using and renting far less tungsten than we did 5 or 6 years ago. Probably 70% to 30% in favor of Kino Flo's and various HMI's...Oh and LED's
 
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