FYI: Sears Worklights and Cords on sale

Larry Rutledge

Larry Rutledge

Fest Master
Just an FYI

I was in Sears today and noticed they had the 1000W Worklight on sale for $19.95 again. They also had 50' extension cords on reels (so you can roll it up for easy storage) also for $19.95.

Larry
 
good post nice deal off topic Q

good post nice deal off topic Q

Nice post, be carefull though ccd's are very sensitive to light, (you can literally burn out ccd's) over time they become less sharp & less sensitive.

You into this a lot?

any tips on lighting, and tips with filters to use.

I liked the post because I also use a low budget setup(not everyone can afford a $3500 DVX $500 Senn. G2 and a Lowel Pro light kit.

I got a Halogen light that I took off from those 3 light Homedepot shop lights, I wired a grounded wire to a switch and the switch to a grounded electrical plug, bought a value pack of bulbs and get great bright light any time. Still havnt mastered using light filters(there should be classes) I know people will say read a book, but the truth is light and vision are different for everyone and my vision is screwy(much worse than most) so it would be nice to have a class straight up just to learn lighting.

Anyone in here a pro at lighting?
 
lebroz, there are some pro's here, lilke walter graff and others, ask and ye shall know... you just have to ask specific questions.
 
The nice thing about these lights is that it is two 500W lights side-by-side on a stand. Also, the lights are switchable between 250W and 500W so you have 4 levels of light output (250W/500W/750W/1000W). Also, the stand is a telescoping stand so you can raise and lower as needed. Also, there is a mini stand so you can set the lights on a table or on the floor. Here is what the light looks like: http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&vertical=TOOL&pid=03473925000&subcat=Work+Lights
 
For $20 you just can't beat that deal, but I guess once I got a hold of my first lowel light, and I found that I can use the barn doors to flag light off the corner of a room in less than a second, increase intensity and narrow the beam by spotting, and telescope up to 10 feet on a standard lightstand, i kinda got spoiled. i must admit though, when I started it was worklights or nothing at all (Except the Kmart floor lamp:grin: )
 
I would agree Rush...the flexibility and quality of professional lights is superior to worklights. However, for those of us just starting out, sometimes money is an issue.

Right now, $20 is not always available :cry: let alone hundreds of dollars.

I'll just get my punk cousins and make them hold their hands over the worklights like barndoors :grin:
 
Be careful about those wattage ratings. I have these lights. I use them a lot, but when you change one of the lights between 250 and 500 you SIGNIFICANTLY change the color temp. Just an FYI

BTW, these are much better built than the ones I got at the auto store.
 
i would spend the money on one good lowel light and then add a second later on.

there are some great deals on ebay.

some of the best of the best only use 2 lights for a fairly tricky lighting scene where one of us would use 5 lights if that is how many we had.

get some foam core from staples, you know the white foam boards for projects.

use those and then when you havce a little bit of money get one of the photoflex disks, they come in 30" and larger sizes and the default is a diffusion layer but if you use the covers that come with it you can get a white reflextion or a gold or silver gold reflection.

but i would avoid the generic ones, i got an adorama clone and it wasn't anywhere near as nice, it wasn't a flat round disk, it was a LOT more like a pringles chip.

matthew
 
I don't know if I agree with that. It sounds good in theory, but then you're sitting there trying to light a scene with one light. That would drive me nuts after a while (good to practice that way though).

If I were starting out and couldn't afford a Lowell Kit (on another more expensive one) I'd first build a DIY kit. First I'd rig up one or two chinese lanterns, hell you'll use them even after you get a kit. Then I'd get a couple of photoflood bulbs with those clamp on reflectors (only a couple of buck) and maybe one or two cheap worklights. Oh, and I'd make a florescent fixture. You could probably do all of that for under a $100. Then I'd invest in a bunch of foam core, blackwrap, clothespins, maybe use some foamcoare and some tinfoil to make an shiny reflector - that sort of thing. At least this way you can practice shaping light in a variety of ways, without much investment.

Then, while your reading and practicing, save up for a good light, even if you buy it used. Then save up and get your next one. By the time you're buying lights, you should have a pretty good idea of what you want/need and your not wasting time waiting for funds to accumulate.

Matt
 
definitely go with a lowel

I started out apprenticing in a commercial studio where there were around 50 lamps on stands of all types - and my boss would contually use only 3 or 4 lamps per scene, maximum 6 if there were many people, but mostly 2 or 3. (Some of those were 12 ft northllights, though)

The more lamps you use, he'd say, the more shadows to hide.

The trick was to know which three out of the 50 he'd use for what type of setup. And then eventually to be so good at it that you could anticipate him and get the right lights down and set up before he even thought of asking for them.

Too true.

I got to where I could do a headshot with a single hard light source with barndoors, set up high on a boom and over the shoulder as a separation light, then use a mirrors or alu foil on boards for a hard reflections, and foamcore board and strips for fill. The shot would look as if it had 10 light sources on it.

And only one prime shadow to worry about.

My boss is now with that great arc in the sky, but his lessons remain to this day - and beyond.

I can also remember assisting a world famous fashion photographer who used bare 100w bulbs to supplement existing light. He could put those shadows exactly where he wanted them. Never seen anything like it, before or since.

And he used to say "it's the boys, not the toys, darling..."

Or words to that effect.

Cheers
Chris
 
Wow Chris, that's just pure wisdom, dude. I will always remember that line, dude! Excellent. I worked with a DP who learned everything from Robert Richardson, and he taught me his ecclectic style as well. We lit entire sets together with nothing but bare bulbs and Xmas lights. It was hilarious. We used like 1/100th the output of our Genny. It looked incredible on film though.

I was going to suggest the same thing as MattC, which is to make DIY bulbs. I honestly just never liked worklights, and always preferred desk lamps, clamp-lamps with projector bulbs, and home made panel lights, 9 100W spotlights in a grid screwed into a 1" thick 24" square board. You could turn off each lamp individually, and never needed dimming. I made all my own dimmers from plastic junction boxes, and still have them today. They will dim up to 650W. It was fun stuff. I couldn't take those lights on commercial sets, cuz investors and other crew members would start to sneer, but they were fun for personal projects. Like I said before, though, I got spolied after my first personal omni light. Couldn't go back. I rarely need more than 5 llights to light a set though, and interviews are made simple with a rifa and 2 pro-lites. Someday I will get a couple 400W HMI's and a couple production kino's and that'll be enough for anything.:grin:

I was on a music video set this weekend where the DP used 100 1K lights in a large blanket-lite housing above a car to light the car and the rapper duo inside. I was working for MTV's "Makes the Video". That is the only light they used for that shot. Then they did another shot where they used just one wall-o-lite kino over the camera, and a large set lit by 3 20K HMI's going through a 12'x12' muslin with gridcloth. Every single time, just one source. If the source is large enough you just need reflectors, like you said.
 
I agree with what you are saying Chris, but I was addressing those who said $20 was hard to come by. I saw a French fashion/glamour photographer once who lit his subjects with one bare bulb, that was it.

Myself, I opted for the Lowel 55 kit and am very happy that I went that route. But if you have $60 bucks to spend on lights, I would rather have a couple of DIY bulbs than nothing.
 
Quite right, guys.

If you only have a few bucks then I'd buy tape, not lamps.

Use regular lamps, take the lamp shades off, buy photobulbs, use them instead
Or those $3 home depot shorty fluoro tubes (but you can't control them too well)
I bought my first lowel DP lamp without a bulb off a reycler magazine ad for $25.

XMas lights from the 99c store (actually, they throw them away every January) make incredible lamps, just add those hanging globe shaped paper lampshades (no bulb to come even close to the paper, okay?) and wow,what a light aource!
All these are possible light sources.

However your most controllable lamp would be your fresnel light. This is the one with the most flood-to-spot movement, and barn doors to boot.

And, better for us, not many people know or want to use them, so there's always a few going on ebay. Smaller ones, of course.

The next best would be your lowell omni's or dp's, again with pretty substantial flood-to-spot adjustment. They're good because you can do longer range isolux setups and cover walkthroughs, etc, with fewer lamps.

Then lastly your wide bashers (bulbs, fluoro tubes, and the other low budget lamps we've been mentioning here) come last. Great for raising the light level in a location, but bad pointability/directablity unless you use a lot of flagging/masking of the light to control it.

By the time you have, say, a 100w fresnel, a lowel DP and a couple of bashers, and 1ft fluoros (and knew how to use them properly) I'd say you'd be pretty much in business.

Don't forget reflectors. Old mirrors, metal trays (spray paint one side white, the other side silver), bed sheets (Sven Nyqvist's favorites), muslin (there's some synthetic white muslin I picked up from the garment disctrict here in Los Angeles - 30cents a yard it cost me. I bought a 50 yard roll for $15 and still have around 20 yards left, which, believe me, I will not throw away any time soon!), that kind of thing.

I used white umbrellas from a thrift shop and newspapers on white card until I could afford to replace them - and then I replaced them with pretty much the same things, but "photo" quality... (and sometimes wondered why the heck I'd done that...)

BTW I asked my boss once "why, if you only use three or four lamps, do you have so many of them?"
His answer: "so I can bill higher".

Cheers
Chris
 
Thanks guys for all the thoughts and comments. For a relative newcomer to filmmaking, like myself, it is invaluable information. One of the things I have struggled with in regards to lighting is where to begin. I know I can't buy a whole kit, so what do I buy first, next, next, etc. The suggestions you all have made make sense, and now I can formulate a purchasing plan that fits within what I can do.

Thanks again,
Larry
 
There are lots of good cheap lighting and reflecting tips. I found a cool free standing white cardboard reflector at Michaels. They are really made for kids science fair projects, trifold, so they are free standing. Great for filling in those dark areas on floors. I think they are 2 or 3 dollars. I used to use cheap hardware store C-clamps, with a wooden dowel taped on for connecting lights to. You can clamp them onto tops of doors, onto tripod legs, etc. Saves on using light stands. A-clamps are great tools too of course. I DO agree though, buy decent lights, slowly over time, and they'll last a lifetime. I have several Lowel Omni's and Totas that I've had for over 20 years that still work as good as new. I think theres something more fun about building up your own light kit slowly, than just buying a complete kit. Its kind of like a golf pros bag. Lots of different clubs, making his own complete set.
 
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