Looking for a Versatile and Inexpensive lighting setup for a begginer.

Daryl Auguste

Daryl Auguste

Well-known member
I have previous shot alot of nauture/outdoors film, and relayed mostly on natural light. However, as I progressed I grew steadily more interested in producing a short film with a storyline, and finally rounded up some money so I could buy lights to fit the mood.

The question being. I have about 4-5 hundred I can spend on a basic lighting kit (not alot, I know). I will be shooting in tight and wide spaces, mostly indoors, and a little bit of nighttime ourdoors. I want to buy lights that are very versatile in terms of creating different moods, as I will be working on later films, and am buying these lights for the long run.

As you can tell, I know very little about lightning. But I want lights with alot of control in intensity. I need lights that work very well for giving a moody, Mulholland Drive like feel, and lights that help create a more chipper and quirky, while not corny mood.

This may be hard to understand, and obviously isn't very technical. The short being, I need multiple lights with controlled intensity, that can be used for different moods, different spaces, different angles, etc.

All help is greatly appreciated. Try to bear with my inexperience.
 
Don't buy new lighting gear if that's what you have to spend and you are a noob.

Look for some used "fresnel" fixtures on eBay and learn how to bounce light. You can also build your own softbox easily.

Arri, Mole Richardson, Desisti, B&M are all good.

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I realized a long time ago that you're almost always better off buying something that's going to have resale value. Sometimes, buying a cheapo piece of gear for a particular job that you might just jettison afterwards is a good option.

As tempting as it is to buy a kit like that, I can pretty much guarantee that it will have parts that will break and you will not be able to sell it for much if/when you decide to.

You'd be better off with something like this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...4611&_trksid=p3907.m32&_trkparms=tab=Watching

Or this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/LOWEL-DP-Lighti...hash=item200234504898&_trksid=p3286.m14.l1318

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Chris gave you good advice, follow it. I wish I had advice like that when I started out.
 
I'm still on a budget and just got some britek's from Rostronics which I am very happy with.

What Chris says is true, but if you are going to buy "more now for less" Rostronics is the way to do it. Britek is the brand, Rostronics.com is a reseller.

Britek are lights that get the job done but will not last as long as arri's.
About 50% of the reviews you hear will say steer clear and 50% will say never had a problem.

This is why you buy from Rostronics, because you are taking a risk on your initial purchase that the unit you get may be odd in some way or have some random bulb in it or something. So you deal with Tom at Rostronics because if that's the case, he understands customer service and will work with you.

I however had no problem with mine, perfect out of the box and I put them to work right away.

I got a
1000 W focusable with a soft box and barn doors
a 300 W focusable with barn doors
and a twin 600/1200 with soft box and barn doors,
all for $500 with the DVXuser discount and I am really happy with them

The extra quirk with these lights is that they have fuses, no other continuous lights I know of have fuses. So an eight dollar trip to the hardware store later and I have 5 back up fuses for all 3 lights. Never had a fuse blow in the couple of weeks I've had em and been using them, but it's a cheap easy issue to deal with.

The twin 600/1200 is cool because it's two 600w tungsten bulbs in one fixture that you can run one or both together so it's like two lights basically.

I happend on a cook configuration for the bulbs though that makes it a 500/1k/1.5K ... basically instead of running two 600w bulbs, run a 500w in one socket and the bulb you get for the lowell tota that's a 650w but puts out 1K (a $30 bulb), but then you can run the 500, the 650 (1K), or the 500 and the 650 (1.5K)

don't get these from one of the california shops, they are actually the manufacturers, but don't get american customer service. IMHO, the pricepoint and Tom's customer service make what you get more than worth it.

http://rostronics.com/
 
yea, you should def buy the best you can offord. If its just a matter of saving for a few weeks to step it up, then you should. We've got mostly arris at the studio and some cheapos for extra support. If you play nice (like we have) the cheap ones will hold up. So i guess its a two fold question: Do you have uncoordinated gorillas workin ur lights?; Are you actually looking for resale in ur setup?
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
I got a
1000 W focusable with a soft box and barn doors
a 300 W focusable with barn doors
and a twin 600/1200 with soft box and barn doors,
all for $500 with the DVXuser discount and I am really happy with them
Click to expand...

This DVXuser discount applies to all members?

Keep the advice coming guys, its all valuable and greatly appreciated.
 
Evaluate what your needs will be before you spend any money. I have found myself going through different phases of lighting gear depending on my needs for any given period. There are many options but if you are shooting talking heads and docs your needs will be much different than Mr. Stanley and his Briteks. I shoot mostly docs and have found that my 1k fresnels (as much as I love them) spend more time in my office staring at me than working. Irecently bought a cool=lux kit from someone on here and I love it and have added several more heads and umbrellas to the kit and it is still tiny. I have to agree that the Cool Lights option is another good way to go, with low energy use and great long term value with both 3200 and 5600 tubes.
But it still comes down to what do you need to do the job well ...and that is dictated by the content you are making and the look you are after.
May I suggest you check out this page:
http://www.bluesky-web.com/new-page6.html
Walter Graff has several pieces on his particular needs and styles that might help you.
Best of luck!
 
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