Flo pancake - lantern light, 200 bucks? Interesting...

Michael Carter

Michael Carter

Veteran
Alzo can be a little hit & miss - I do love their HID bulb & ballast setup, and their HIDs - though a little rattly - kick out some great daylight for the money.

But take a look at this pancake - err, "ceiling drum" setup. Under $200. Seems a tad rickety, but simple and cool; it could solve some problems. Looks like you could monkey with it to make it shallower with a little veclro - 14" deep as is. Sort of like a midget space light. It's on my "maybe" list, since I've been sketching out DIY versions for some time.
 
The way he says "COMponent" distracts me. But how interesting. Like a flourescent space light. For $200 I just might try it.
 
Michael Carter said:
Alzo can be a little hit & miss - I do love their HID bulb & ballast setup, and their HIDs - though a little rattly - kick out some great daylight for the money.

But take a look at this pancake - err, "ceiling drum" setup. Under $200. Seems a tad rickety, but simple and cool; it could solve some problems. Looks like you could monkey with it to make it shallower with a little veclro - 14" deep as is. Sort of like a midget space light. It's on my "maybe" list, since I've been sketching out DIY versions for some time.
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The 'guts' remind me of fixtures that use to be in many houses for dining/living room areas. The only one I could find, with a quick look, that looked vaguely familiar was something like this:
Just put a skirt and cover on it...


Housecalls-Photo-0169.jpg
 
Looks interesting but too specific for my needs. It might be good in a permanent studio setup but seems like too much of a hassle to me if you need to move it around.
 
You know, I've done some experimenting with fixtures like this

adapter.jpg

You can get them at Home Depot for about a dollar a piece. I call it a "reverse pig-nose". But they work great with a little surge protector. Take the case of a surge protector off and what you have is a circuit already built that you can shape as you like with individual sockets. Put the adapters on the bulbs and voila!

f1e3a237-7723-4646-97d7-a3506ceef313_400.jpg

Of course, you still need to make the hoops, the skirt and the velcro panels. By the time you're done, you'd save about $100 over this setup, I imagine. For my time, I'd have to be pretty bored to do that - or want to improve upon the design. Hmmm...
 
To me the appeal is putting it on a boom or autopole or spreader; looks very lightweight. I'd been sketching stuff and talking to sewing-ladies but I getting where I don't DIY stuff unless it's fantastically expensive or unavailable - too much time. $200 seems great; you could compare this to a china but I like the form, the skirts, etc.
 
robmneilson said:
For $200 this looks pretty great, I wish they just sold the skirting so I could just use it on my own fixture.
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Go to your local fabric store - they usually have a binder full of "sewing ladies" business cards (if not, chances are there are plenty of retired ladies in your city that make curtains and do alterations, look around). Get some duvatyne and velcro. I've had ladies make me scrim jim fabrics, backdrops, blackout curtains, etc. They're usually cheap as hell, because most of the stuff we need is really very simple. It's often far better than buying photo-industry made stuff.
 
Does anybody know another lantern product like this but smaller? This is great for low ceilings but it is huge for my needs.
thanks
 
Michael Carter said:
Go to your local fabric store - they usually have a binder full of "sewing ladies" business cards (if not, chances are there are plenty of retired ladies in your city that make curtains and do alterations, look around). Get some duvatyne and velcro. I've had ladies make me scrim jim fabrics, backdrops, blackout curtains, etc. They're usually cheap as hell, because most of the stuff we need is really very simple. It's often far better than buying photo-industry made stuff.
Click to expand...

In my city a lot of the drycleaning services also have someone who can do alterations. We also have alteration shops which cater to military personel who need to have patches and the like sewn on their uniforms. In any case, we've had 'extra big' backdrops sown by such people for material ranging form 'bedsheet' to 'drop cloth canvas'. The latter does require an industrial strength machine...

We've also gotten material from upholstery stores, but that has been mainly for 'props' and 'costumes', especially for costumes that have heavy brocade like work.
 
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