DIY studio lighting - under $200

A

Alex Brown

Member
OK so I went to a lighting workshop today and thought; I keep a marine fish tank, and for it to survive, I must replicate the strength of the sun in tropical climates, mainly the correct spectrum for living coral to flourish.

I have 5500k white flourecent lamps. Today, the teacher had 5500k flourecents in a lamp holder, with starter ballast and dimmer for flourecent lights. On the side was printed "ARRI."

Forget the electrical physics on this, I would like a second opinion on the colour tempreature not rigging flourescent lights with dimmers - thats another discussion.

Providing I buy the correct aquarium light (or similar light product for arguments sake), at the correct colour temp, this is effectively exactly the same as the studio light?

The aquatic lamps DO NOT FLICKER on video. They are low watt (39w), low heat, cheap, and instead of "ARRI" they have "marine-glo" printed onto the side. An aquatic lamp unit comes with starter ballast all assembled and safety checked. They also come in banks of 4 of more.

Could we have a indie budget light solution here?

Alex Brown.

Wave%20T5.jpg


flulight.jpg
 
Color Rendering (or Rendition) Index:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index

A bad CRI of under 80 or even lower is the reason why cheap fluorescent lights look greenish on video and even to the naked eye - but at the same time white balance to a color temp of 3200K (for example). They are indeed 3200K, but the bad CRI means the light is "white" but consists of such a poor spectrum that it won't reproduce colors correctly - especially not on film or video.
 
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You're on the right track, but also traveling down a well-worn road.

1. CRI (Color Rendering Index). You can get by with slightly lower than 87 CRI, depending on how demanding your needs are. The key is to white balance. Also, some bulb designs with very high CRI sacrifice overall output level.

2. Light output. Modern movie fluos (like Kino Flo Divas, or Cool Lights or the Flolight that you've pictured) use 55w biax tubes and highly mirrored parabolic reflectors to maximize output. They are quite bright, even compared to original KinoFlos. The acquatic fixtures you're referencing use smaller wattage bulbs and may not have the best type of reflector.

3. Light control. Pro lights have barn doors, and eggcrates to help aim and control spill.

4. Mounting issues. Pro lights have sophisticated and versatile mounting hardware to affix them to light stands. There are lots of DIY solutions for mounting, but all involve work, compromises in useability, and sometimes considerable expense.

5. Professional appearance. If you are working for yourself, no problem. But if you are working for a production company or direct client, you don't want to appear unprofessional. You don't need an Arri logo on your lights, but you should at least paint the fixtures flat black.

6. Cost-effectiveness. Coollights, Flolight and some of the ebay clone fixtures (Amvona, etc). are surprisingly inexpensive and generally have professional quality features and reasonable build quality (I can vouch for my Coollights, they are excellent.) By the time you factor in the value of your time to modify the aquarium fixtures, you may not save much, if any, money on a DIY project.


Not to try to dissuade you....you are definitely on the right track, and a high CRI full-spectrum 5500 bulb of good CRI will likely be every bit as good a quality of light as "professional" bulbs. DIY fluos have been discussed at length in the DIY forum, and Richard of Coollights.biz (site sponsor) has an extensive DIY section on his website that addresses many of these questions. If you just enjoy DIY projects, and/or already own the fixtures, then it could definitelyu be worthwhile on that basis.

Even without modification, I can see uses for these aquarium fixtures. Hard-mounted in a grid for lighting a cyc or greenscreen, for instance. Or to provide overall fill light in a scene, or footlights for a music performance, or....
 
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