Dichroic help, cant afford HMI

M

MagicCat

Well-known member
Im wondering if someone can help me here. I have a rather large project we are about to embark on. Much of it will be shot in full sunlight. I cannot afford to purchase HMI's right now, and rentals will not be an option due to location and logistics.

I have plenty of 32k lighting and several DIY Kino Diva-lights with Kino Daylight lamps.

I'm wondering how well Dichroic Glass Filters work on Studio Lighting as a quick Substitute?.

I have available in my truck:

500 through 1k watt Lowel DP's
300 watt 3 inch Lowel Pros (AC converted Lowel IP lights)
750 watt 8 inch fresnels
600 watt 6 inch Fresnels
300 watt 4 inch Fresnels
200 watt 3 inch Fresnels
Various Broads and Tota's
Several 1k strand Scoops
A few lowel Softlight 2's
Various Softbox's with speed rings
Lots of 2-600 watt 3200k beaters.

I have no problems spending 2 to 400 in glass filters if it will work as a quick HMI substitute. I assume like gels, anything in front of a fixture will drop my lumens (substantially). So I may have to just push them closer to the talent??.

I have some older 8 inch dichroic glass filters from Mole, but I think they are faded???. When the camera is balanced to noon light, I get a red 3200k-ish rim around the center hot spot when I put them on the lowel DP's. I hope that is not typical. Maybe Im doing something wrong?

Help?!

Thank you
 
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Very cool stuff, looks like a very viable option.

When they say Expendable, Do I interperate that as Flimsy or will this stuff disintegrate over time? Grip Tape, Black Foil and Gells are somewhat expendable to me. I don't have a Hollywood budget that will allow me to throw 180 dollar panels away, or make shipping boxes out iof at the end of a shoot.

Actually, Im probably one of those scavengers that hunt down the locations after a crew leaves to pick up the scrap diffusion paper and C47's.... :-)

he he, just kidding,,,,, kinda
 
It's expendable to Michael Bay.

To me, it's not. They are fairly solid. Not solid wood like their big brothers, but if you reuse CTB and diffusion like I do, they will last years.

-J
 
Really you need to get some sort of silk setup as well. It could be anything from an actual overhead kit, to some shower curtains strung up on PVC pipe. Because the main reason you want lights outdoors is because the sunlight is just too harsh and usually too contrasty for digital cameras. So you silk the sunlight and try and use it either as a backlight or a fill, then you can use your shiney boards and soften them up a bit to get a much prettier softer light on your actors face. Things end up looking much much nicer that way...
 
For butterflies (overhead silk frames) you can try some of the following DIY classics:

Electrical conduit & connectors to make (say) a 12' x 12' frame;

or something along these lines with pipe...

You'll need a couple high overhead stands; check pyramid films site, you may get lucky - C-stands are usually to short and too wimpy. Often you can rig frames up in trees and against walls, too. Wind is really the enemy though. I once watched a 6x6 scrimjim just sail up onto a roof as we were breaking down.

For fabric, rip-stop white nylon is sort of the studio classic; kills a stop or so, but softens the crap out of everything.

Me, I think it's often too soft; a white mesh or gauze-like material still looks like direct sun... it softens things up but still gives a hard-ish edge, and it opens shadows up a juts-right. Really pretty, and you can double it up to get closer to the rip-stop look.
 
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