Home Depot to the Rescue

egproductions

egproductions

Veteran
Was flown to Florida the other day to film an interview. I thought I packed everything needed but of course forgot to pack an extra lamp for my pro light (background light). Of course the bulb blew minutes before hte interview. Considering my options and looking around for practicals, I decided to floor it to the nearest home depot, bought a 250w work light and voila:

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ros1.jpg


Key light was th Westcott Skylux with an 80" umbrella. Sony FS7, Sigma 50mm 1.4, metabones speedbooster Ultra, shot in 4K. Image has a custom LUT applied, no real color correction.
 
David W. Jones said:
Maybe it's just my eyes getting old, but her face looks out of focus.
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A few factors here:

-I probably could have picked a better frame grab...I think this one has some motion blur, in general it's tack sharp (doesn't really get sharper than the sigma 50 1.4 art with the speedbooster). You can see her dress is very sharp which is on the same focal plane as her face.
-Something I've notices is that the huge 80" umbrella causes large and soft catch lights in the eyes that kind of feather out...almost making the eyes not look sharp.
-The footage was shot log without any in camera sharpening, so a little sharpening in post will go a long way.
-Lastly, her face needs a little contrast, crushing of the blacks/shadows which will increase the percieved sharpness.
 
NEVER underestimate those halogen work lights.

I have a pair from the old days that I still use regularly.

They are two heads on a great stand and each head has two 300w bulbs - so each light stand has 4 degrees of brightness from 300w to 1200w. (I did put higher grade bulbs in them to ensure the light quality.)
I rigged them up to hold a 62" umbrella for diffusion and BANG - the light they put out is full spectrum and just as nice as any other tungsten shot through a 62" diffusor.
COST = about $50 for each of the lights, and about $50 for each umbrella.

They WILL create either super soft or hard as nails light up to 1,200w each.
The only drag is the heat of course - and that heat don't play. It's fookin' HOT.
But for the price and availability they deliver a pretty great look.
 
Motion blur will do that.

Good thing a Home Depot was near by. I flew to a location years back and every tube and all the spares for my Diva lights were broken with no 55w biax tubes available in that city. Sometimes travel sucks.
 
I have several of these open-faced theatrical fixtures, which are dynamite lights for bounce or diffusion and very controllable.

Look closely and you'll see they take the standard work-light globe. Which are 3200k, dirt cheap, fast to swap, and can be had in 100w, 250, 300, 500, 650, 750 and 1k.

I do really prefer having legit yokes, spuds, and barndoors though...

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Michael Carter said:
I have several of these open-faced theatrical fixtures, which are dynamite lights for bounce or diffusion and very controllable.
Look closely and you'll see they take the standard work-light globe. Which are 3200k, dirt cheap, fast to swap, and can be had in 100w, 250, 300, 500, 650, 750 and 1k...
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Not the case. The theatrical ones are 3200°k (FCM, FHM, FDF, EJG, EMD, basically all the typical ANSI coded ones). Not the ones you'll find at the despot though. They would burn out far too quickly normal work lighting if they ran that hot. The color temperature isn't really a big difference but it has an effect on the output. A 500w lamp that runs at 2900° won't be as bright as an FDF.
 
Moseph said:
Not the case. The theatrical ones are 3200°k (FCM, FHM, FDF, EJG, EMD, basically all the typical ANSI coded ones). Not the ones you'll find at the despot though. They would burn out far too quickly normal work lighting if they ran that hot. The color temperature isn't really a big difference but it has an effect on the output. A 500w lamp that runs at 2900° won't be as bright as an FDF.
Click to expand...

Well, you can only find 100s and occasionally 200's at hardware stores. But the form factor is the same (those 100's are really pretty with the lower temp sometimes). Higher wattage, you have to go to a light bulb site. But I've gotten 750's at 3200k for $7 or so, they're often higher. What I really like is that I can bring a ton of different globes in a very small case - in fact i have an old power drill blowmold case with the dividers cut out and foam glued in, and the globes just fit in slits in the foam… along with my fresnel globes, etc, it's nice to have all your tungsten that accessible. I even keep alcohol wipes and white cotton gloves in there...
 
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