lighting set, any suggestions?

anatusa

anatusa

Veteran
Hello

I have an AF101 with 14-140 HD lens, I need a portable lighting set so i could use my not so light sensitive lens. i always film indoors so i don't need any battery just 220v will be fine. something not very expansive. but what is important is - easy and fast to installation, and by portable i mean 1 max 2 bags. (not talking about on camera light)

any suggestions? also would be great to hear what kind of light you guys using ?

looking forward for your replays!
 
If you want something basic, i would go with a kit that covers your bases
1000 watt tungsten
650 watt tungsten
300 watt tungsten
150 watt tungsten.

that is a decent starting kit to have, and then you build from there.

What kind of shoots do you see yourself doing?
 
I use a Kino Flo Diva 4-Bank kit (2 lights). I also have two Lowel Rifa lights (750 watt) with egg crates and a LowelPro (250 watt) as my basic kit. I also have for bigger shoots an Arri 1000w kit and one Arri 2K. It all depends on what you are shooting. You can get by with a couple lights and a reflector for a good interview set-up. But you'll need more to light a larger scene.
 
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Hi, I would suggest it is good to buy good quality lights that will last your career, and if you do decide you want to sell them they will hold their value.
If I could only have one light my favourite is Arri 200 watt Par HMI.
Advantages
Its small and light
Daylight balanced, so you can shoot with window light or outdoors easily.
Can change lenses to change light quality and use barn doors
Can reflect onto foam core or white wall for a soft light
Can punch through diffusion frame
Can produce hard directional light when wanted
Can burn all day with less heat produced than a tungsten lamp
Can gel easily ie make it tungsten colour temp if needed
Can vary output by dim-able ballast
Is powerful enough to provide some fill outdoors, but not so strong as to be unusable in a low light setting.
Can be used in 60Hz and 50Hz power, so good to travel with.

Disadvantages
Relatively expensive new, I brought mine second hand for around $2000

Light Panels LED with v lock batteries
Great lights, use so little power and no heat at all. I have used mine in the rain with no problems.
Advantages
Small and lightweight
Use virtually no power
Daylight balanced (but you can get tungsten if you prefer)
Come with a good set of Gels (If not they are worth buying)
Really good for low light, low fuss situations, has excellent dim able range
Have a medium hard output that is easily softened with opaque gels supplied.

Disadvantages
Relatively expensive when I brought them

Kino flo 4 bank, 4 tube
Advantages
Good large lightweight soft light
Can use daylight or tungsten tubes
Uses relatively little power
Reasonably priced
Be wary of cheap competitors to Kino Flo as their tubes often do not give a clean white or tungsten colour. Often on cheap tubes, even though they will claim to be daylight you will notice an ugly green spike.

Dedo 150 watt tungsten
Advantages
Very small and light weight
Has unique lens design that allows much brighter throw than conventional fresnel
Great spot light, hair light, effect light.
Has barn doors and ability to take gels
Very flexible dimmer range
Very flexible focus range
Very cheap bulbs
 
I use a small LED kit with three LED600 panels and a smaller LED126. It's mainly for setting up interviews and it's easy to dial in the LEDs to just the right amount of light. They are not as soft as fluorescent like Kinos or not as focused as a fresnel or Dedo, far from, but works to set up a key, fill and back light.
 
editman said:
I use a small LED kit with three LED600 panels and a smaller LED126. It's mainly for setting up interviews and it's easy to dial in the LEDs to just the right amount of light. They are not as soft as fluorescent like Kinos or not as focused as a fresnel or Dedo, far from, but works to set up a key, fill and back light.
Click to expand...

When you mention dialing in the right amount of light, do you have the newer LED600s where the dimmer shouldn't affect the color temp? Or, if not, how much have you found that the dimmer changes the color temp?

Also, do you have the LED600 spot or flood version? Have you tried their soft boxes? Thanks!
 
tflak said:
When you mention dialing in the right amount of light, do you have the newer LED600s where the dimmer shouldn't affect the color temp? Or, if not, how much have you found that the dimmer changes the color temp?

Also, do you have the LED600 spot or flood version? Have you tried their soft boxes? Thanks!
Click to expand...

They are spot LEDs and despite their green spike (which is reduced with a magenta filter) there is little change in colour when dimming. They are 600HS version so not from coollight.
 
Personally I really like fresnels. They are the most versatile lights. They are focusable and can easily be diffused, bounced etc.

For tungsten I like the Arries. I personally have the 650's.

For daylight I use the new LitPanels Solas. A more affordable solution is CoolLights HID's they are not as nice as the Arries but work very well. I also have some Alzo HIDs that are very affordable and work very well.

LED arrays are great as well, LitePanels as well as others make these. I run them with IDX V-mounts for quick setups w/o having to bother with AC.
 
My personal kit includes:

1) Arri 650 Fresnel with Chimera Soft Box / doors / scrims
2) Arri 300 / doors / scrims
1) Arri 150 / doors / scrims
1) LitePanels 1x1 5600 Flood

When needed:

LitePanels Bi-Color Flood
K5600 200 / 400
KinoFlo Diva 200 / 400
KinoFlo Barfly
Rosco LitePad HO+ or Axiom 3" Dot / 3 x 6" / 3 x 12" / 12 x 12"
 
editman said:
They are spot LEDs and despite their green spike (which is reduced with a magenta filter) there is little change in colour when dimming. They are 600HS version so not from coollight.
Click to expand...

Ahh...thanks - thought you were talking about Cool Lights.
 
My Kit:

K5600 Joker Bug 400
Dedo 650-watt
Dedo 150-watt
Lite Pannels 1x1 Daylight (gels, battery)
2@ Kino Flo Diva-Lite 400
Kino Flo Diva-Lite 200
2@ Kino Flo Vista Beam Single
Kino Flo Mini-Flo 9” (Car Kit)
Kino Flo BarFly 200 Kit (two units)

I am a bit heavy on the kino flo but love the look. I will pick up some Arri open face and Fresnel soon. My favor it lights are the Joker bug, Litepanels 1x1 and Vista single.
 
editman said:
and it's easy to dial in the LEDs to just the right amount of light.
Click to expand...
This is potentially dangerous to your footage though. You have to be very careful with dimming LED's when used with a CMOS camcorder. At full strength they're fine, but when you dim some LED lights you have to start doing a bit of a tricky dance with the shutter speed to avoid rolling bands in your footage.

This doesn't affect every dimmable LED light made, but it does affect several, so my warning is that you'd better be careful and be very sure before dimming an LED when used with ANY rolling-shutter CMOS camera, whether it's a GH2 or a Red or an EX1 or an AF100 or an F3 or what have you.

Simple example: this video shows what happens when dimming an LED light. This particular example was shot on the GH2, at 1/50th exposure, using a YongNuo YN-160 LED light.
The YongNuo dims by means of a pair of "+/-" buttons, in discrete steps, and it looks like every step other than 100% causes banding.

I subsequently tested a CN-126 LED light, which dims via an analog wheel, and found that it exhibited *zero* rolling bands at any dim setting.

I also tested the YongNuo with a CCD camera (the HMC150) and found that on a CCD camera it performs great at any dim level, but on a CMOS camera the bands were prevalent and objectionable at anything other than 100% full strength.
 
Directed at Barry, but yes, you will absolutely see the banding in the camera and external monitors when recording. It manifests as CRT monitors did when shooting at the wrong clearscan settings.
 
I generally run all my lights at 100%. I have a number of fluorescents as well and they are all non dimmable, to control the intensity I diffuse, move them further away or use barn doors and scrims/spun silk. Fresnels are great because you can focus them as well on a diffuser and use barn doors at the same time. I also use black foil to control the lights and make snoots the shape I need them sometimes hitting a reflector or diffuser. This is why I love fresnels.

I have not noticed a problem with the Sola fresnels when dimming on the AF100, but I will check, and report back if they have a problem with cmos chips.
 
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