Halogen vs Tungsten

rawfa

rawfa

Veteran
First of all, let me just make it very clear that I'm not a DP. I've worked with the music video industry for years and I always had this done by people who actually knew what they were doing. But right now I've been trying to get the ball rolling on some personal narrative projects that will be funded by me, so I'm trying to cut some corners. I've already invested more than I should/could have (A1, letus, monitor, lenses, etc). Now, here comes the hot potato. I just found out some halogen work lights (one 500w, and six 350w on tripods) that I used in a music video a long time ago. General consensus is that these suck. They're hard to control, they spill light, they get hot easily. But the point is that I have them at my disposal. Today I went for a casual walk and "accidentally bumped" into the street where all the video/photo lightning stores are. I found a tungsten kit that includes 2 tripods, two 250w light bulbs, 2 umbrellas for about 220€. I don't wanna have to spend this money unless it is proven to me that the difference between what I have right now and what I could get with the tungsten kit is extreme. Any advice will be welcome.
 
What is/are the make and models of these lights?
Have you also considered fresnels? Going from one type of open face light to another, is not much of a change. If the two light kit offers barndoors, that is a step up, but not a considerable change from what you already have to what you want to purchase.....Let me preface my comments by saying, I/we..need a little more info to give solid suggestions, as we don't know EXACTLY which lights you are considering..I see the lights that you are considering, have the option of using umbrella's.. That's a good start.
Without diffusion, your lights will give a very hard light
There are several ways to make these lights a little more film friendly...
 
rawfa,
Check out some threads in this forum. People have shown how to cheaply add some flags to the work lights. Its no rocket science. One guy drilled some holes on the lights, attached a piano hinge, and screewed some roofing metal to the piano hinge and created the flags. then he painted everything with black heat resistant paint. (oh yeah he also hammered the piano hinge so it would lock. pretty ingineous I thought)
As for the light coming out of the lights. I've also thought about it, but if I'm not mistaken they use the same size halogen bulbs as some of the film lights. so if you really wanted to you could buy these bulbs for $16 in US. and place them in your lights. (this should give you almost if not exactly the same light output as the expensive lights) Also there is a thread going around about using a router speed dial as a dimmer for the lights. I think this would be a great addition to your set and they are pretty cheap. like $12us. I got a few for my kit since every once in a while 350w is too much or you need 400w not 500w.
 
siniarch, that was very insightful info. I'm going to look around and try to find out how to make better creative use of what I have. Thanks, guys.
 
Oh, and about that dimmer thing. Let me know if I got it. Instead o pluging the lights into an outlet I have to plug the dmimer into the outlet and then the lights into the dimmer? And this way I can control all the lights intensity. Is it that simple or am I missing something?
 
its that simple rawfa. just keep in mind that when you lower the lights all the way, the dimmer does humm. but you shouldn't have to keep it that low. and the noise is not super high.
 
I've been looking for these dimmers every where here in Spain and I simply can't find them. I wanted to order the ones on the website but the voltage is different here. It's a pain in the ass because many times I saw some very affordable lightning kits but I simply couldn't order them because of the voltage thing.
 
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