Here's a little background detail: My mom was a hobbyist photographer who has started taking portaits for friends and their friends. I make short films. We are looking to buy a (continous) light kit that we can both use. I've used a few lowel light kits before but they've always seemed cheap to me and I've had flags break and paint peel off, etc. Can anyone recommend a decent 2 or even 3 piece tungsten light kit we can both use?
Light kit for begginers?
- Thread starter mikecost
- Start date
Price range?
emotepix
Well-known member
Ya know, for the price, you really can't beat Lowel. In europe a company called Ianero (I guess it may be Bogen over here in the US) made a series of 1k and 2k lights called blondes (the 2k lights were yellow) and redheads (the 1ks were red), open face TH lamps, pretty much everybody used them for everything back in the day.
I have a set of Omnis, Pros, a 2k soft and a bunch of LTM fresnels from 100w to 1k I use all the time. Looking to get a pair of specials (follow-spot-like projector lamps) but that's about it, for use without a generator.
I figured if I were on a job big enough for a genny, then I'd rent the bigger lamps.
Arri and the rest make very decent instruments, but they're expensive.
The other direction you could explore is the cooler flouro tube. Also fairly expensive and, for the buck,not as precise as the old fashioned tungsten instruments, but they're okay.
Lowel Pros, Omnis, or the older Quartz D instruments. The other Lowels (totas, rifas and the like) are a little too small and flimsy for my taste. My faves are the Pros for mixed (stills and video) use. Or the LTMs, if I'm shooting something small and persnickety to light.
Build your kit a lamp at a time, spend good money on a steady and tall lamp stand, barn doors, snoot, matte and shiny internal reflectors, scrims, and filters, especially blues, oranges, soft spun (don't forget clips or clothespegs), and maybe a dichroic. Also on good electrical lines and connectors (not the cheap stuff), spare and alternate wattage bulbs, and a decent case with places for all of that stuff so that it's all accessible and doesn't rattle around and eventually get broken.
Then a C stand with an arm and a knuckle. Then reflectors and flags, a basic set. A sandbag or two. Then another open face lamp. Then probably an LTM fresnel, then add an open face or maybe a soft lamp. That would leave you with two or three open face instruments that can be between 100 and 1kW, depending on the bulbs, at least one fresnel unit, and the gaffing equipment to go with them.
Last weekend I shot a candle-lit dinner party for seven in an exterior front yard, night, with three 100W LTMs, and two 600W Pros, one heavily scrimmed and the other with an umbrella (Pros have the umbrella fitting built in). HDV and stills. Worked like a charm.
Oh -- (big trade secret) -- I had three or four strings of those tiny white LED Christmas tree lights draped over the background trees. Lifted them right out of murky obscurity into glistening moviedom.
Buy them at my local 99 cents store, now that they're well out of season, must have a dozen strings or more, mainly white, but also colors...
I guess I've used those Christmas LEDs on just about every other shoot that I've formally lit, in one way or another. A favorite of mine is to use a C stand with knuckle and photographer's silver umbrella and kind of drape the LEDs where the lamp goes. Or hang it from the C Stand in a kind of boom arm configuration with the LEDs inside one of those 60's globe shaped white paper lamp shades. Or...
HTH
Cheers
Chris
I have a set of Omnis, Pros, a 2k soft and a bunch of LTM fresnels from 100w to 1k I use all the time. Looking to get a pair of specials (follow-spot-like projector lamps) but that's about it, for use without a generator.
I figured if I were on a job big enough for a genny, then I'd rent the bigger lamps.
Arri and the rest make very decent instruments, but they're expensive.
The other direction you could explore is the cooler flouro tube. Also fairly expensive and, for the buck,not as precise as the old fashioned tungsten instruments, but they're okay.
Lowel Pros, Omnis, or the older Quartz D instruments. The other Lowels (totas, rifas and the like) are a little too small and flimsy for my taste. My faves are the Pros for mixed (stills and video) use. Or the LTMs, if I'm shooting something small and persnickety to light.
Build your kit a lamp at a time, spend good money on a steady and tall lamp stand, barn doors, snoot, matte and shiny internal reflectors, scrims, and filters, especially blues, oranges, soft spun (don't forget clips or clothespegs), and maybe a dichroic. Also on good electrical lines and connectors (not the cheap stuff), spare and alternate wattage bulbs, and a decent case with places for all of that stuff so that it's all accessible and doesn't rattle around and eventually get broken.
Then a C stand with an arm and a knuckle. Then reflectors and flags, a basic set. A sandbag or two. Then another open face lamp. Then probably an LTM fresnel, then add an open face or maybe a soft lamp. That would leave you with two or three open face instruments that can be between 100 and 1kW, depending on the bulbs, at least one fresnel unit, and the gaffing equipment to go with them.
Last weekend I shot a candle-lit dinner party for seven in an exterior front yard, night, with three 100W LTMs, and two 600W Pros, one heavily scrimmed and the other with an umbrella (Pros have the umbrella fitting built in). HDV and stills. Worked like a charm.
Oh -- (big trade secret) -- I had three or four strings of those tiny white LED Christmas tree lights draped over the background trees. Lifted them right out of murky obscurity into glistening moviedom.
Buy them at my local 99 cents store, now that they're well out of season, must have a dozen strings or more, mainly white, but also colors...
I guess I've used those Christmas LEDs on just about every other shoot that I've formally lit, in one way or another. A favorite of mine is to use a C stand with knuckle and photographer's silver umbrella and kind of drape the LEDs where the lamp goes. Or hang it from the C Stand in a kind of boom arm configuration with the LEDs inside one of those 60's globe shaped white paper lamp shades. Or...
HTH
Cheers
Chris
Last edited:
thanks for the quick responses guys. Price range? Maybe $500 plus or minus $100 or so. Emotepix, I'm 18 and I'll be in college in 2 months. I would love to have a setup like the one you described. I can tell you right now, it would be too complex for my mom and her photoshoots and too much for what i'd be using them for. To be honest, neither of us are going to build and expand on a light kit over the years, as nice as that would be. I need a kit that can be out of the box and set up easily and quickly.
Jeff Anderson
Custom Title!
Photography lighting and video lighting are two different beasts. For 500 you could get some cheap novatron two light setup for photography but they wouldnt be strong enough or appropriate for video. Do a search for budget light kits. that might get you some answers.
Chenopup
Well-known member
In all honesty, you probably won't find many kits that are less expensive than the lowel kits that are any better built. Lowels sure aren't high end by any means but they do get the job done. The Lowel Pro light is one of my favorite lights. I also have an Arri Kit and an LTM kit and a Britek kit. The Britek is cheap - $350 for 3 650watt lights. It's not the best built but for the cost, could be your best solution. Don't underestimate DIY kits as well. You could do rather well for $500 but if it were up to me and that's all I had to spend, I'd either look at used stuff on ebay or mix my own built stuff with a couple of Lowel Pros. There are some great, and I mean GREAT homebuilt solutions that could prove very useful under your budget. Look at some of the LED and fluro solutions on the forum. I'm sure you'll find what you need.
mike
mike
Last edited:
Cool Lights
DVXuser Sponsor
Exactly. This sounds to be a hobby type thing and not for heavy duty use. DIY is great for hobbyists that don't want to spend too much money.
Why not just go to Home Depot and get a halogen worklight solution or even better, some 30w or 40w spiral CFLs in 3500K and/or 5500K (N:Vision is a great brand) and also get some of the round aluminum reflector "scoop" clamp lights with edison sockets for the CFLs. This is about as inexpensive as it gets and a great solution too. Plenty of people around the net have been posting on using this brand of CFLs since I started recommending it last year and the N:Vision brand has won benchmark tests among CFLs for household use too so the quality is a bit higher than some of the other brands.
It's a good way to get started and maybe later you'll want to move up to other more professional options but why spend even $500 now when it just won't be used so often.
Why not just go to Home Depot and get a halogen worklight solution or even better, some 30w or 40w spiral CFLs in 3500K and/or 5500K (N:Vision is a great brand) and also get some of the round aluminum reflector "scoop" clamp lights with edison sockets for the CFLs. This is about as inexpensive as it gets and a great solution too. Plenty of people around the net have been posting on using this brand of CFLs since I started recommending it last year and the N:Vision brand has won benchmark tests among CFLs for household use too so the quality is a bit higher than some of the other brands.
It's a good way to get started and maybe later you'll want to move up to other more professional options but why spend even $500 now when it just won't be used so often.
Motherboard
Well-known member
I was just gona recommend cool lights, which is probably what im gonna get when I get the money.
BTW, Richcard I checked your site, pretty amazing stuff, I might go for the CL-455.
BTW, Richcard I checked your site, pretty amazing stuff, I might go for the CL-455.
Cool Lights
DVXuser Sponsor
Thanks for the kind words!
I'm all for recommending Cool Lights too when I can ;-) but I also recommend DIY still for those that it makes sense for--mostly restricted by budget concerns.
Has anyone ever seen these lights before? The kits look like pretty good deals.. http://www.skaeser.com/servlet/Categories?category=DIGITAL/VIDEO+CONTINUOUS+LIGHTING+KITS
Chenopup
Well-known member
stay away from the lights with fans if possible - the majority of those softbox kits are Britek - they're not high end, but for hobbyist photography / video, they would probably be a decent choice. The kit I have has 3, 600 watt lights, and two softboxes with one set of barn doors - was around $350 I think. Came with stands and soft carrying case. They're not heavy duty and won't take a beating in a grip / electric truck but they do work well.
mike
mike
Cool Lights
DVXuser Sponsor
Just remember. Britek, Fotodiox, skaeser, etc. They are all open face floodlight solutions. There is not so much difference between those solutions and what I mentioned your getting from Home Depot.
If you really like the softbox idea, you can get those separately on Ebay for quite a bit less and either put the CFLs in them without the silk on the front or many other, less expensive incandescent solutions too.
If you really like the softbox idea, you can get those separately on Ebay for quite a bit less and either put the CFLs in them without the silk on the front or many other, less expensive incandescent solutions too.