DIY Ringlights

[thompson]

http://www.shutterasia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=461

I made this ring light, the results were pretty good, except I had to come pretty close to the light to obtain the desired effect...

Also, as I was using a 1000W Halogen bulb (instead of the flash light used in the tutorial), the cardboard caught fire...It was scary, but hey experimentation must occur sometimes

Anyway, I was wondering what wattage a ring light should normally be, and also distances to keep from it when filming

 

[fixitinpost]

The tungsten ring light that I have worked with was also a DIY job, build by a DP friend of mine. I'm not sure of exact wattage, but I think it pulled somewhere in between 250 and 500 watts. You might also want to revisit your choice of materials. Cardboard around hot lights is just straight up dangerous.

How did you attach this one to your camera? The one I've used was a large ring of plywood which attached to the 15mm rails. instead of reflecting one source, it had a bunch of small (somewhere around 25 watt) frosted, tungsten balanced bulbs in it. Definitely got hot, but not hot enough to put the wood in danger of catching. It was also really bright. Had to have it on a variac most of the time. At full power, it could provide a good fill from 20ft away (granted, we were working with pretty low light levels).

Here's a frame grab from the one we used (I was 1st AC on this shoot):

Could you post some frame grabs from yours? I'd be interested to see how it looked.