Halogen or Fluorescent Lights with HMC150

A

abeas

Well-known member
I posted this in the lighting forum and got no replies so I figured I'd try here since I use the HMC150 and 40.

I'm looking to purchase some lights and came across tubetape and some of their Youtube videos. They seem decent for the price. Anyone have any experience with them?

I am trying to decide between two models.

This one
http://www.tubetape.net/servlet/the-...ek-4000/Detail

Or the halogens
http://www.tubetape.net/servlet/the-...TT-TWIN/Detail

I realize the halogens are less bright and got very very hot. I also know fluorescence lights can mess with the video if using a shutter speed different than 60.

I am very new to lighting and would appreciate any info or advice and suggestions. Thank you!
 
I've never heard of "tube tape," and have grown to despise halogen lights.

You can find "flicker free" daylight balanced fluorescent lights. I spent close to a thousand on them five or so years ago -- and except for the ones that I broke (you know, releasing poison gases) -- they all work well in every setting and with every camera I've used over the past five years.

I think, think, the company I bought everything from was bought out and is now something else -- and what I did at the time was convert conventional photography lights into what was new and shocking five years ago.

But -- I think Alzo Digital has a great reputation, has similar quality daylight balanced, flicker free lights, and offers affordable light kits for video production. So, before you pull the trigger on "tube tape," definitely give Alzo Digital a very close look.

http://www.alzodigital.com/

Look carefully at their bulbs, (the 5500k ones) I've heard great things about them.

There are also cheap light kits at B&H in which you can stick those Alzo bulbs.
 
Y'know, if you're shooting a bunch of moody noire stuff or your style really relies on hard light, tungsten's pretty awesome, since fresnels and hard open face stuff is common and very affordable.

The cons are the heat, the amount of amps you'll pull, and the difficulty (and wasted power & light) to get daylight.

Flos are pretty awesome - I've crowed for months around here about the 55w biax bulb setups, and every season there's more foreign imports that are really solid (in the last few months I've bough twin tube units for under $200 and quad tube for under $300, all very solid performers. And I've stuck 45 watt spirals and 80 watt spiral-ish tubes - the big ones - in chinas or just at the end of a boom. A LOT of daylight and pulled maybe 10 amps max). There's a nice sort of pre-diffused quality to the biax setups that's "just hard enough" for 90% of my uses, they soften up easily with little loss, etc. You can do a lot of well-controlled lighting with 'em, between barn doors and standard flagging techniques. You can dim them by wrapping with black mesh, diffuse them with white gauze, with no worries about heat.

And I am really, really loving the twin units for backlighting - I've never been happy with a "circle" up there, even in my still days, a small rectangle suits me much better. I have a couple of the plastic-box "flolight" models and they're really lightweight, great for overheads.

EBay has many suppliers selling higher-output spirals and the big-ballast, household-bulb (edison) socket lamps up to 100 watts (that's realistically about 600 watts tungsten, to my eye) that you can use in practicals, chinas, or screw into any old-school video light gear that takes household bulbs. If you need to fill a room or set with soft light, it's a cheap way to go - even a bunch of clip lights will deliver.

For affordable hard lighting in daylight, the only thing I've seen has been the Alzo HID setups, of which I have three, and I also have their ballast & bulb combo. Pretty useful open-faced that seem about 400 - 500 watt tungsten equivalent (un-gelled tungsten - you'd need a 1K gelled full CTB to match their output).

I've also DIY'd an old Altman fresnel with a standard edison bulb socket, and stick the Alzo bulb in there - that's a pretty awesome light. If I need more punch from a fresnel style, I can grab a 1K tungsten and half CTB it for some warmth, etc.

Cons for the Alzo - they take 3-5 minutes to warm up to temp, and 5 minutes or so to cool down before re-striking - realistically adding ten minutes to a setup change. So a fast moving shoot with a lot of setups takes some planning, and means doing things like keeping your HIDs on wheeled stands with long cords, trying to never turn 'em off, or only using them for background/windows/etc where they'll stay put.

I've had zero flicker problems with any modern HID or Flo - I even have a 4-foot home depot shop light in my studio for greenscreen stuff, no problems there - you will see flicker on the HD stuff when you get up to very high shutter speeds - but a 40 watt tube is pretty useless at 1/200th anyway.

So, I'm a freak for the daylight stuff - plus it's always more lightweight than most of my tungsten gear. I've hung twin-biax fixtures from office ceiling grids with a scissor clamp for chrissakes. I still pack some fresnels and open faced stuff when I'm shooting daylight - and a ton of gels.
 
I will mostly be using the lights indoors. I honestly don't ever plan on using them outside. They will be used for interviews, and some live events like dance recitals, beauty pageants. I do not make short films. I'm really looking for something to light up a couple interviewees and a small stage.
 
+1 for Cool Lights. The owner Richard A. participates here, they have great customer service, and for the money, good products. If you paid slightly more for a Cool Lights product over the chinziest eBays stuff, it would be entirely worth it. Send Richard a email and see how fast he responds...

Grant
 
Grant, I'm trying to search here and nothing is coming up. Can you PM me his e-mail address if you have it?
 
Just visit his site for a look-see - solid products & good prices:

http://www.coollights.biz/

Though I'll say I've gotten some really solid imports from eBay; a recent 4-bank biax is particularly nice. Richard's stuff is made in China, designed in the US. If you put stuff in your cart and the shipping is outrageous, give them a call, apparently their ship calculator has turned people off in the past. And Richard has some hot restrike HMI fresnels that look really nice.
 
Once you go to the Cool Lights site, just email to info. Richard personally answers all the emails. Also look around at his lighting information pages. He really works at testing his products and isn't afraid to give you the truth.

Michael, I believe those shipping complaints were about a direct ship from China on out of stock (in the USA) inventory. When they run out of something here, they will ship it from China for a price. Most of their stuff comes from Nevada via FedX.

In any event, I have two of the 4x55 flos and just purchased a LED600 and am very satisfied with both, and my customer support has been excellent.

Don't kid yourself, my Arri lights, and Kinos that I have looked at are better products, but for a price, Cool Lights delivers great value.

Grant
 
Nope, I was ordering in-stock stuff, but it was like $79 to ship a $270-ish fixture, kind of killed the "wow, these prices rock" rush. Richard later confirmed their ship calculator can act up, I'd already bought some different gear by then.

I still want some of his $10 inline switches, but apparently the $20 shipping is set in stone for those!

By the way, lots of talk about the FloLight gear here - I have some of their twin-biax units; they are crazy lightweight, you can use them for all kinds of overhead uses. They have a flex-gooseneck which I don't really trust long-term, but the polycarbonate bodies make them really useful for oddball positioning.
 
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