fluorescent light kits

J

jimstamos

Active member
i do alot of interviews and usually use 2 tota lights with umbrellas. ive found that alot of people are now going with the fluorescents. these use standard 110v and are screw in type bulbs in a coiled shape.
each set has 600 watts on the stand 4 bulbs make this up, so you can turn 1 or more off to get less light.
how well would these work vs. the 500 watt totas which for one get very hot.
any info welcome
jim

btw, has anyone heard of steve kaiser lighting?they sell these kits.
 
Fluorescent / Steve Kaeser

Fluorescent / Steve Kaeser

I have also been eyeing these fluorescent light kits from Kaeser. Seems like a pretty legitimate business. I have also looked at (online) fluorescents at some of the mainstream stores and from the big name vendors but they are still very expensive compared with the Kaiser kits.

I, too, would love to hear from anyone who has experience with these lights - or any fluorescents.

THNX
 
I have some experience with fluorescents (haha) but don't know anything about steve kaiser. It all depends upon what type you want and whether you want self-ballasted spiral type lights or fixture ballasted types and how big of wattages you need. That's a key decision to make once you decide you are going fluorescent. After you make that decision then you can look at the options. If you just want to test out some spirals to see if you like them, Home Depot "N:Vision" bulbs work great and come in 2700, 3500K and 5500--the last two of which close to video standard color temperatures.

There's nothing magic about that guy's fixtures. They are basically a reflector, an edison socket and a plug and barn doors and use basically the same kind of bulbs as the home depot ones i just told you about. You can get a worklight "scoop" from home depot which has all that minus the barn doors, try the idea out, see how you like it and then see what else you may need. So lets see $3.00 for the scoop light and $6.00 for the N:Vision 30w bulb. Less than $10 and you can start learning about how to light with fluorescent and then decide on a better kit later.
 
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If I'm not mistaken the N:Vision bulbs have a CRI (color rendering index) around 80... that is pretty poor. You might want to step up to the CFL bulbs from SunWave (a.k.a. Sunalux) or BlueMax (a.k.a. Full Spectrum Solutions). Unfortunately BlueMax changed suppliers in pursuit of a higher CRI bulb (or more likely a lower wholesale cost from China)... Their CFL, which was previously rated at 91, is now 94... but the newer bulbs appear to be significantly cheaper construction and the color temp went from a near-perfect 5500k up to a gotta' white-balance 5900k.

Previously I preferred BlueMax over Sunalux... but now I'm going back the other way. Why is it when something works great somebody has to change it just to save a dime. Thumbs DOWN BlueMax... damn, I wish you would have warned us.

Still probably a lot better then anything you'll get at HD or Lowe's though.
 
Aram Bauman said:
I have been eyeballin your lights for a little while miracom and that $399 deal is tempting me.
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I've got the 4x55 and really dig it. Got a set of bulbs in both color temps, too.
 
JasonFox said:
I've got the 4x55 and really dig it. Got a set of bulbs in both color temps, too.
Click to expand...

Sally and I really dig our 4x55 too. It's what we use here in China for our little VLOG productions, etc.
 
MattinSTL said:
If I'm not mistaken the N:Vision bulbs have a CRI (color rendering index) around 80... that is pretty poor. You might want to step up to the CFL bulbs from SunWave (a.k.a. Sunalux) or BlueMax (a.k.a. Full Spectrum Solutions). Unfortunately BlueMax changed suppliers in pursuit of a higher CRI bulb (or more likely a lower wholesale cost from China)... Their CFL, which was previously rated at 91, is now 94... but the newer bulbs appear to be significantly cheaper construction and the color temp went from a near-perfect 5500k up to a gotta' white-balance 5900k.

Previously I preferred BlueMax over Sunalux... but now I'm going back the other way. Why is it when something works great somebody has to change it just to save a dime. Thumbs DOWN BlueMax... damn, I wish you would have warned us.

Still probably a lot better then anything you'll get at HD or Lowe's though.
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Well Matt, don't take what I said out of context. I said if you just want to test it out to see if you like fluorescent then N:Vision is a good way to go. Besides I use those bulbs quite a bit and I don't see the problems or why CRI 80 is so evil. Its only 20% off of perfect 100 and nothing is really all that perfect anyway. Bluemax and all that is fine but its more money. 90 or 94 is how far from 80?

The context was getting them to think about the fixtures they were looking at as a bit pricey for what they are--basically an aluminum reflector and a self-ballasted bulb (come on--how is this different than a home depot scoop?).

I'm sorry but I've got lots of pictures taken at 80 and I think the color looks great without correction.
 
The sickly looking flo lighting that everyone's been moving away from in offices is typically 72 cri and how far is that from 80?

To go from a $7 bulb at 80 cri to a $12 bulb at 94 cri seems like a no-brainer to me. If you want to test CFL's to see if you like them then I'd make sure it's a fair test... even the cheap biax flos have cri performance that's close to 90.

Yes it's true that you can get good pictures and video with low CRI light... but there's a reason why professional location fixtures use the highest CRI available... and when it's only $5 more per bulb I think it's worth mentioning.
 
MattinSTL said:
...Unfortunately BlueMax changed suppliers in pursuit of a higher CRI bulb (or more likely a lower wholesale cost from China)... Their CFL, which was previously rated at 91, is now 94... but the newer bulbs appear to be significantly cheaper construction and the color temp went from a near-perfect 5500k up to a gotta' white-balance 5900k.

Why is it when something works great somebody has to change it just to save a dime. Thumbs DOWN BlueMax... damn, I wish you would have warned us...
Click to expand...

I was looking for these for a while when Matt turned me on to them and when I went to order a bunch I saw the change in Kelvin.

I sent two e-mails to Bluemax about the mistake they made in changing color temp and told them that they had a great market potential with the 5500K bulbs if they did just a little advertising in the film and video world.

Plus, going up to 5900K and white balancing on those you are then not easily matching lights that one may already have for use as a back light or whatever.

SunaLux does sell basically the same in 5500K but they cost more than the Bluemax did.

Maybe if others tell Bluemax to bring back the 5500K OR add 3200K in a CFL they will reconsider it. E-mail is:

Sales@bluemaxlighting.com
 
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Hi I've bought from Steve Kaiser before and he's great to work with. Timely and responds quick to questions. I have had good luck with him and saved a few bucks on different products.

Good luck.
 
Michael T said:
Hi I've bought from Steve Kaiser before and he's great to work with. Timely and responds quick to questions. I have had good luck with him and saved a few bucks on different products.
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What kinds of stuff did you use the Steve Kaiser products for? Do you have any screen grabs of them? Did you have any flicker, sound or color temp issues?


thanks
matt
 
Kelly Olsen said:
I was looking for these for a while when Matt turned me on to them and when I went to order a bunch I saw the change in Kelvin.

I sent two e-mails to Bluemax about the mistake they made in changing color temp and told them that they had a great market potential with the 5500K bulbs if they did just a little advertising in the film and video world.

Plus, going up to 5900K and white balancing on those you are then not easily matching lights that one may already have for use as a back light or whatever.

SunaLux does sell basically the same in 5500K but they cost more than the Bluemax did.

Maybe if others tell Bluemax to bring back the 5500K OR add 3200K in a CFL they will reconsider it. E-mail is:

Sales@bluemaxlighting.com
Click to expand...

What really sucks is that another lighting enthusiast on this board came to the same conclusion that I did... that BlueMax HAD the superior product. I was ready to write-off Sunalux... both the other member and I drew the same conclusions... that the Sunalux had a SLIGHT favor towards yellow... and that the BlueMax was either neutrally daylight or it could be argued that they had a slight favor towards pink... which seemed to match the Kino biax tubes that I've been using for years. So even after buying a couple cases of the Sunalux bulbs... I concluded that I'd be buying only BlueMax after that test.

At the time the Sunalux was rated at 93CRI and the BlueMax was 91CRI... but the Sunalux was about $3/bulb higher. One other thing that I didn't like about Sunalux is the packaging of the bulbs... but none were broke... so whatever... it's good enough I suppose.

I'm going to email or call BlueMax about this also... see, it's not only the color temp issue... but the new bulbs are also constructed cheaply... the part where the glass tubes go into the plastic ballast base is a major stress point if you intend to use these in location flos... previously this was a really well addressed "beefy" construction... now it's flimsy and easily broken. :(
 
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