Lights 4 DV

M

mdcox

Member
Hey every body, How are ya? Good! I think.
My question is this...
1. For video what is a good light kit out there for indoor and outdoor use?
2. If there is no such kit could you please list the lights I'll need?

Thank you in advance for your help.
Michael

P.S. For those of you that are going to ask, I'd like to stay in the $1200 range if possible if not then I guess I'll have to spend more. Or would it be better just to rent? I plan on doing about 3-4 shorts a year. :happy:
 
A kit of three redheads and stands is pretty good. If you can try and get something smaller too, maybe a 300W fresnel. I am biased towards Arri kit because that is what I have. Arri stuff is a bit dearer than some rivals but IMO better quality.

Dedo kits, Kinoflows, HMI etc are all great tools, but out of your price bracket. The last redheads I bought were £100 each - 2nd hand but as new. Aim for that kind of price for Arris. £100 = about $190 but pricing may be different over there.

BTW, a redhead is a term for an open-face (no lens) typically 800W like the Arrilite 800.

Avoid using them outdoors. I have, in heavy rain, and it was a pain to keep them fully covered. There are weather proof laterns, but I know of nothing cheap. Many large HMI laterns get so hot that rain just boils straight off them but again, they are very expensive.

If it has to be weather proof, 500W aluminium floodlights from a hardware store would do.

Don't forget to get CTB gels and diffusion. Other gels are handy too if you mix light sources. CTB is blue correction gel to match tungsten (like redheads) to daylight colour. Do a google search on it for more details.

If you need complex lighting, you will have to rent. Personally, I like to own my kit.
 
Using lights outdoors in full daylight (sunny or cloudy) is often a challenge. Most household plug tungsten lights, even 1K's are not strong enough to combat the ambience of outdoors. There's also the issue of finding power - genny, etc. For outside, using what's already there by the sun or removing/filtering the light works well. Get some bounce material or foamcore/beadboard. A 6x6 Silk can save you also on a really sunny day at midday to filter out that harsh light that causes what I like to call "squinty mcgee" syndrome with your actors.

I'd have to second mmm's opinion about the Arri's. 300watt fresnel is a good choice - very versatile.
 
lowel dv kits are amazingly diverse, incredibly durable, and come in a good case, i wouldn't use anything else... imho.
 
Using lights outdoors is a big challenge -- tungsten lights draw a lot of power (meaning you need to have access to AC or a big generator), and they put out a decidedly orange light. And if you put CTB gel on your tungsten light to get it to color-match daylight, you effectively cut the output of your light to 1/4 of what it was.

HMI's are the right lights to use for outdoors. They're the proper color temperature, and they're very power-efficient -- they put out 3x as many lumens, per watt of electricity used, as tungsten lights do. And when you factor in the color difference, HMI's become even more appropriate: to match the color and lumen output of one 575-watt HMI would require about 7,000 watts of tungsten light with CTB gel on it!

However, HMI's are bulky and quite expensive -- a new 1200w par system costs around $8,000. A used 575w fresnel system costs about $500-$600 on ebay. And you'll still need some way to power it.

The cheapest way to light outdoors is to use reflectors. A proper reflector on a proper stand, aimed properly, will give you a tremendous amount of light, and require no electricity at all. However, they do require access to direct sunlight -- a cloudy day will render your reflectors useless.

Also, wind can play total havoc with reflectors, especially the flex-fill type. Collapsible reflectors like the Westcott and the Photoflex become problematic, if not downright useless, in the wind -- the light they reflect will wobble and bounce on your subject, making for a very unnatural-looking lighting effect. You'll want a solid reflector for those cases. You'll need a sturdy way to mount it and plenty of sandbags (and hopefully an assistant guiding it).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top