Light kit

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David Evans

Well-known member
Hi guys,

I posted this in the wrong forum, so I'm reposting it here. I was looking into buying a decent lighting kit, around 700 eur that I could use for softlight but also as hardlight (so softboxes that are actually easy to apply would be nice). I don’t value built quality much, especially at this price point, but I do want to get the best quality light I could have. Not sure if I should go for tungsten or LED. I love how tungsten gets the best color out of skintones, but I was wondering if LED could also be as good, as they have other advantages (never get hot and are less power consuming). And there is also HMI but those are usually much more expensive...

I must say I love the idea of having one of those light kits that allow you to set the color temperature, but not sure if I can find any good quality at that price.

Thanks!
 
I'd wait and see what this aputure 300d is like. It won't be the absolute best quality hard light but will be "good enough" for many situations. You're limited to daylight but it's probably more handy than having tungsten only. If I was just starting to collect lights all over again I'd tell people to buy a used 1.2k hmi PAR and focus on making one large soft source, which will look leagues better than any cheap 3 point LED set ups people seem to love.
 
Thanks rob, but the price I wrote above was for a kit that would allow me to light an indoor scene (at least three lights, the softboxes, etc). Perhaps it is a challenging price point for what I want, but I wanted to know if it’s possible to get a decent lighting kit for that price. Do you think HMI is the way to go? HMI is usually a lot more expensive than everything else, though it’s also supposed to be more powerful, watt per watt. And CTOs also don’t cut light as much as CTBs, so that’s a plus. But the aputure 300D is just one light for 1000usd, right? So that’s definitely too much… :(
 
Guys, any suggestions? If I go with HMI, instead of tungsten, any particular light that might cost around 300-400 a piece, so that I buy two or three? And then some modifiers which are as important as having lights. If HMI prices are out of my budget, maybe I'll have to go with the chinese ones or maybe shifting to tungsten... or LED...

Thanks!
 
David Evans said:
Guys, any suggestions? If I go with HMI, instead of tungsten, any particular light that might cost around 300-400 a piece, so that I buy two or three? And then some modifiers which are as important as having lights. If HMI prices are out of my budget, maybe I'll have to go with the chinese ones or maybe shifting to tungsten... or LED...

Thanks!
Click to expand...

For HMIs, add another zero to your budget, most cost $3,000.00 to $4,000.00 for each instrument for smaller, lower end HMIs. Tungsten reproduces better skin tones than any LED but are heat generators, get really hot (at the end of your shoot, you have to wait 15 minutes for them to cool enough to put in a case) and are a PITA or impossible to work with in daylight and that includes ambient daylight on interiors. Daylight LEDs are easier to use but generally have flawed skin tones compared to tungsten. Bi-color LEDs are more flexible than daylight LEDs but generally have compromised output levels to be bi-color although a few don't. All lights are a compromise of sorts, it's just which compromises can you live with?
 
puredrifting said:
For HMIs, add another zero to your budget, most cost $3,000.00 to $4,000.00 for each instrument for smaller, lower end HMIs. Tungsten reproduces better skin tones than any LED but are heat generators, get really hot (at the end of your shoot, you have to wait 15 minutes for them to cool enough to put in a case) and are a PITA or impossible to work with in daylight and that includes ambient daylight on interiors. Daylight LEDs are easier to use but generally have flawed skin tones compared to tungsten. Bi-color LEDs are more flexible than daylight LEDs but generally have compromised output levels to be bi-color although a few don't. All lights are a compromise of sorts, it's just which compromises can you live with?
Click to expand...

Hi, thanks for your help! Two questions:

1 – Why do you say tungsten are a pain to balance with daylight interiors? Even with CTBs?

2 – I’ve read that LEDs are not that good at color rendering but I’ve never used them in a shoot myself. What about those LEDs with 90+ CRI?

Thanks!
 
Hi David:

1. Tungsten are a PITA to work with daylight because full CTB or dichroic filters remove half of your output. Meaning that tungsten intruments that are "just right" like the Arri 300 and 650 Fresnels for interiors become too wimpy to do what you need them to do and instruments that remain with enough usable output like a 1k open face or fresnel, are pumping out enough heat to make you, your crew and most importantly, your talent, sweat like they are running a marathon. Think about it, most wall outlets are 16-18 amps, you begin plugging in a few 1ks and it becomes you must isolate each instrument on it's own circuit breaker because if you stack two on one circuit, you'll pop the breaker. How do you or the owner of the building know which outlets are grouped on which circuits? What if the building or facilities person doesn't have access to the breaker? See where the PITA factor comes into play? We all did it for years. If you have a full crew and big tungsten, running off of your own blimped genny and a crew to rig and run cabling, tungsten is good, but you are still heating the place up and most of the time, we cannot leave air conditioning running while we shoot dialogue. Tungsten mixed with daylight just brings a whole bunch of hassle into the mix.

2. Almost all modern LEDs have a +90 or even +95 CRI. CRI doesn't tell the whole story. Read Matthew Allard's LED reviews on Newshooter. He uses the Sekonic 700 light meter's spectrograph function to measure color wave distribution. By viewing these spectrographs, you can easily see that even $5k plus LED instruments are missing large portions of the reproducible color spectrum when compared to tungsten, which is the most accurate light source short of the sun. Most DPs are in agreement that LEDs do not make people look their best. Skin tones range from barely acceptable to hideous and the missing spectrum is not replaceable in post through CC or grading. Whenever I shoot beauty or fashion content, where I am going to be shooting CUs of faces, I break out the tungsten lights, they do look noticeably better. But the heat, power hassles of using them means that for the majority of my work, the sub par skin tones of my LEDs are somewhat acceptable. You are trading not great skin for convenience and comfort. Just depends on what is most important to you. I still use both but I only shoot beauty and or fashion once in a while so my tungsten lights sit around mostly although I am starting to break them out more and more again when I get a fully dark interior with no windows or skylights. I am shooting an interview in a dark bar in Hollywood tonight and am bringing my Arri 650 and 300 fresnels to light it, why not?
 
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puredrifting said:
Hi David:

1. Tungsten are a PITA to work with daylight because full CTB or dichroic filters remove half of your output. Meaning that tungsten intruments that are "just right" like the Arri 300 and 650 Fresnels for interiors become too wimpy to do what you need them to do and instruments that remain with enough usable output like a 1k open face or fresnel, are pumping out enough heat to make you, your crew and most importantly, your talent, sweat like they are running a marathon. Think about it, most wall outlets are 16-18 amps, you begin pluggin in a few 1ks and it becomes you must isolate each instrument on it's own circuit breaker because if you stack two on one circuit, you'll pop the breaker. How do you or the owner of the building know which outlets are grouped on which circuits? What if the building or facilities person doesn't have access to the breaker? See where the PITA factor comes into play. We all did it for years. If you have a full crew and big tungsten, running off of your own blimped genny and a crew to rig and run cabling, tungsten is good, but you are still heating the place up and most of the time, we cannot leave air conditioning running while we shoot dialogue. Tungsten mixed with daylight just brings a whole bunch of hassle into the mix.

2. Almost all modern LEDs have a +90 or even +95 CRI. CRI doesn't tell the whole story. Read Matthew Allard's LED reviews on Newshooter. He uses the Sekonic 700 light meter's spectrograph function to measure color wave distribution. By viewing these spectrographs, you can easily see that even $5k plus LED instruments are missing large portions of the reproducible color spectrum when compared to tungsten, which is the most accurate light source short of the sun. Most DPs are in agreement that LEDs do not make people look their best. Skin tones range from barely acceptable to hideous and the missing spectrum is not replaceable in post through CC or grading. Whenever I shoot beauty or fashion content, where I am going to be shooting CUs of faces, I break out the tungsten lights, they do look noticeably better. But the heat, power hassles of using them means that for the majority of my work, the sub par skin tones of my LEDs are somewhat acceptable. You are trading not great skin for convenience and comfort. Just depends on what is most important to you. I still use both but I only shoot beauty and or fashion once in a while so my tungsten lights sit around mostly although I am starting to break them out more and more again when I get a fully dark interior with no windows or skylights. I am shooting an interview in a dark bar in Hollywood tonight and am bringing my Arri 650 and 300 fresnels to light it, why not?
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Yes, definitely agree with you on the tungsten issues. Its greatest inconvenients (and thus, why I didn’t want to go with tungsten) are the unbearable heat and the power drain. I really wanted to get some LED lights, but, for me, having good skin tones is a must. I do a lot of filmmaking narrative work, where skin tones should never be hideous. Isn’t there a way to gel a LED and get it color accurate? Also, I’ve read somewhere that it’s harder to get a modifier on a LED, is this correct? Modifying a light, for me, is vital! I use diffusion and gels all the time. I also wanted a light with a dimmer.

So, anyway, for filmmaking stuff, given that I always want to get good skin tones (and will likely have to balance it with daylight ambience), what kind of light would you advise? What about mixing it? Getting a tungsten for key and LEDs for kickers, background, etc? Or even an HMI for key, instead of tungsten…

Thanks!!
 
High quality LED is used regularly for narrative, & has better color accuracy then HMI.

What's been missing is high power focusable LEDs, but that should eventually change.
 
Bern Caughey said:
High quality LED is used regularly for narrative, & has better color accuracy then HMI.

What's been missing is high power focusable LEDs, but that should eventually change.
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Thanks Bern. Any high quality LED that you'd recommend and that wouldn't break the bank? I've read good things about CAME-TV LED lights but never really tried them and can't seem to find any of their stuff in Europe...
 
At 700eu for a three light kit, i would go for 2 bi-color aputure Amaran's(the latest version) with those d-fuse softboxes. Assuming you don't have stands you will need to buy 2 cheapo lightstands for them and add a c-stand in there for diffusion/flagging.

It might come slightly above 700eu, but will last you a very long time and will be less of a pain in the ass then tungsten. You will get more wattage with tungsten, but in the long run you will be much happier that you got the LED.

My only use for tungsten is scenes where you explicitly want an orange glow on skin (i.e bars, table dinner). Except for that i always use the LED panels. With modern color correction tools and 2017-LED quality, skin tones is not something you gotta worry about too much.

I have a 1k triolet quartz + chimera video softbox and 2 lightstorm 1s panels and i can assure you, the lightstorms are used on 90% of my jobs while the triolet hardly ever goes out anymore.
 
FrancisT said:
At 700eu for a three light kit, i would go for 2 bi-color aputure Amaran's(the latest version) with those d-fuse softboxes. Assuming you don't have stands you will need to buy 2 cheapo lightstands for them and add a c-stand in there for diffusion/flagging.

It might come slightly above 700eu, but will last you a very long time and will be less of a pain in the ass then tungsten. You will get more wattage with tungsten, but in the long run you will be much happier that you got the LED.

My only use for tungsten is scenes where you explicitly want an orange glow on skin (i.e bars, table dinner). Except for that i always use the LED panels. With modern color correction tools and 2017-LED quality, skin tones is not something you gotta worry about too much.

I have a 1k triolet quartz + chimera video softbox and 2 lightstorm 1s panels and i can assure you, the lightstorms are used on 90% of my jobs while the triolet hardly ever goes out anymore.
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Thanks, do you mean this model?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Photo-St...823758&sr=8-1&keywords=aputure+Amaran+bicolor

That's quite cheap, actually. If it's really good, I'll take it :)
 
Flourescent lights are another option and ebay. Kino flo, arri, and mole richardson are the current standards on pro sets. Im not saying get them but i'd study up on their light catalogue and especially the photometrics of the lights. A lot of leds compare themselves to 1k softlight so knowing the output can help understand what usage they can do.
 
LEDs don't have barn doors, right? At least these that've been discussed here. How do you guys focus those LED heads? Just flags? I'm not really experienced with LEDs, most of my light work has been done with tungstens and I've had my share of that...
 
Most LED Panels cannot be used bare because they throw hundreds of microshadows, so you may or may not need barndoors. It also depends on your style and setups. Most people either diffuse them or bounce them with a white card or Flexfill. I try to buy LEDs with barndoors like my Aputure LS 1S. I have two Kamerar Brightcast LED panels that don't have barndoors and I am not crazy about that but I usually punch one through a diffusion disc and the other is serving time as a rim light where all of the microshadows don't matter as much. The Brightcasts have SMDs rather than bulbs and to me, they have far less shadow effect than the 5mm LED bulbs do.
 
puredrifting said:
Most LED Panels cannot be used bare because they throw hundreds of microshadows, so you may or may not need barndoors. It also depends on your style and setups. Most people either diffuse them or bounce them with a white card or Flexfill. I try to buy LEDs with barndoors like my Aputure LS 1S. I have two Kamerar Brightcast LED panels that don't have barndoors and I am not crazy about that but I usually punch one through a diffusion disc and the other is serving time as a rim light where all of the microshadows don't matter as much. The Brightcasts have SMDs rather than bulbs and to me, they have far less shadow effect than the 5mm LED bulbs do.
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Second that - i actually have to use a diffusion sheet AND a d-fuse softbox when im using my lightstorm 1s if im pointing at the subject.
 
At 700 Eur, you could buy a couple of tungsten fresnels off ebay (NOT "AS ARRI", but used arri, desisti or strand fixtures) and have a ball with them. If you want good quality LEDs, the most you can get for this money is the smallish aputure amaran panels, those have quite low output compared to something like a 1kw tungsten.

It depends on how you want to use the lights. If you are shooting interviews and stuff that requires mobility and transportability then the LED panels are the way to go, but you can do a lot more creatively with a kit of tungsten fresnels.
 
I've worked with tungsten for about 10 years and I really like how they render skin tones but their unbearable heat and power drain is something I was trying to get away from. Leds sound great but they will be used mainly for narrative work so I have to be able to flag them, diffuse them, etc. It seems that LEDs are very expensive compared to tungstens. Would a lightstorm get me great skin tones and flexibility?
 
David Evans said:
Hi guys,

I posted this in the wrong forum, so I'm reposting it here. I was looking into buying a decent lighting kit, around 700 eur that I could use for softlight but also as hardlight (so softboxes that are actually easy to apply would be nice). I don’t value built quality much, especially at this price point, but I do want to get the best quality light I could have. Not sure if I should go for tungsten or LED. I love how tungsten gets the best color out of skintones, but I was wondering if LED could also be as good, as they have other advantages (never get hot and are less power consuming). And there is also HMI but those are usually much more expensive...

I must say I love the idea of having one of those light kits that allow you to set the color temperature, but not sure if I can find any good quality at that price.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Buy a chinese 575w HMI or 1200w HMI off seller photolight on eBay. I have the 575w version and after only replacing the bulb with a proper one, it's been working really fine. They are dimmable, less heat, give you hard light when you need it, and soft light by attaching soft box or shooting through diffusion fabric or shower curtain.

Someone did a review on the 1200w version here on DVX http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?343447-CAME-TV-Chinese-1200-Watt-HMI-Video-Review

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSnW0LKlzu4

[EDIT]If you are worried about setting your property on fire, or other people's property on fire due to the quality or build of these units consider having a licensed electrician look over all the connectors, internal wiring and cabling for anything loose, etc.. and depending on the costs in Europe you can actually go through the process of having it EN approved if you want.
 
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