Lighting and accessory kit for under $900

C

christopherbdnk

Active member
Hey everyone

I've been reading through the forum quite a bit and haven't really seen this exact question asked, so I'm hoping it doesn't clog things up too much.

We're looking for a starting lighting kit that's under $900, and we need everything, including gels, diffuses, bounces, balance sheets, the whole works. We're in NYC, so it's possible for us to just hop down to B&H and purchase what we need, but we're also okay with going with a smaller local business, an online shop, or assembling some of this ourselves. I imagine things like gel packs we'll be able to just order online.

Are there other stands that are useful for holding scrims/flags other than c-stands? A few of those could easily eat up $300 or more of our budget. Does it make sense to buy the stands on craiglist and just wait for something to come up?

We briefly tried work lights from home depot, but they just aren't cutting it, so we're ready to upgrade. We're going to be mostly lighting indoors, and for .narrative films that will be shot with an HMC150


points:

- Under $900
- A whole bunch of stuff, scrims, gels, lights, kickers, clamps, flags, diffusers, bounces, stands, cookies
- Indoors mostly, narrative work
- Willing to buy from a variety of places, but a kit would be nice. (imagewest.tv?)
- Fluoro, tungsten, LED?
 
To be really honest your not going to find exactly what you want in one kit. You can find some pretty amazing deals if you watch ebay closely and wait patiently for some used gear. I've picked up some great stuff in great condition for a LOT less than I would have paid new. Continue to search around in the lighting section and get some opinions on types of lights etc. but I honestly wouldn't have been able to afford a 3rd of the stuff in my light kit without the used buys I got on ebay.
 
Thanks HCPROD. I just found a 1k fresnel without stand for $225, so I'm going to pick up one of those (there are a few available), and try to find a 650 and a 150 or a 300 and call that the beginning of the kit. I feel like if I buy fresnels and quality lights, they'll probably last me a while, so I'll take as much time with it as I can while I look for used deals.

Do you have any advice on finding cheap stands? The nice thing about that imagewest.tv package is that for $800 you get three 650 fresnels and stands, the stands that I'm finding are at least $80 each, which kills a lot of the savings I'm finding for the lights, because for now I need a stand per light until I have more lights than stands.
 
I would get chinese lanterns with black water based spray paint to paint the backs, some MR16 spot lamps with cheap clamp lights sans the reflector and a little black wrap to control spill, some cheap ellipsoid fixtures because they can do almost everything a fresnel can do, but better and for cheap (i honestly dont know why these arent more popular with the indie filmmaker crowd), maybe get a 300 and 650w fresnel. For grip i would get a few c-stands, a couple cheap light stands off ebay, grip heads to convert the light stands into flag holders, mafer/cardinelli clamps, furnature clamps, spring clips, baby plates, a few apple boxes, a correction/diffusion gel pack, a 2' flag kit and sand bags.

That will probably be around $900

I hear the light stands offered by 2dreammaker on ebay are pretty good and very cheap.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top