Lighting Filter Question!

RebelD

RebelD

Well-known member
Hello,

I was trying to make a cool effect my lights so I was told to buy the Lee Color Filters for my lights. My question is How to I attach them without burning the filter. I just tried to attach them with tape, but it the filter started to melt with a burning smell! So I tried to call the technical advice line on the back of the package just to ask what to do and he said he wasn't sure. Can anyone help me out!

Heres a pic of my light and the melted filter!

DSC04911.jpg


DSC04909.jpg
 
Usually you would attach filters to the barn door. The barn door on the light helps dissipate some of the heat from the light. It doesn't look like you have a barn door so you could get a filter holder like THIS or get a normal filter holder and use a C-Stand (or similar). Put the filter a 6-12 inches in front of the light and that should prevent melting.

And setting your light to flood and not spot (assuming you can) will help melting.
 
Some lighting fixtures are designed to have color filters put in front of them. These fixtures will have a "gel frame holder", into which you put a "gel frame", which holds the gel (i.e., color filter). Gel frame holders can also hold barn doors and top hats.

In your case, obviously there is no gel frame holder. Taping it to the fixture is getting it too close to the bulb. While a barn door would help hold it further from the bulb, I don't know whether you can attach a barn door to that fixture. You might be able to fashion some kind of cylinder out of tin foil. Tape the cylinder to the fixture, and tape the gel to the cylinder.

If you want to get more ambitious, you might be able to fashion a gel frame holder out of aluminum, and rivet it to the fixture. (Get a gel frame first, though, to make sure you make it the right size.)
 
You probably can use c-47s to attach the gels to that light, just make sure you allow enough room to vent the heat by leaving the top and bottom open. Looking at the picture of the gel I don't see any melting (if it is a picture of the one that started to melt) I do see a lot of dirt and finger oils on the gel though. It is normal for dust and oils to burn off of gels and put off a smell which usually causes people to freak out that the light is on fire. Unless a hole actually starts to develop in the gel it is not melting.
 
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