Portable battery powered lighting?

withuk

withuk

Active member
Hi Everyone,

I'm shooting a short film and most of the shots will be taken at night on the street and some from inside a car. I only really want to light peoples faces and use available light in the background, although I realize that I may need to place the odd light to paint the sets. I want the picture to have High Contrast with the minimum of lighting.

There will only be a few people on set so we need to be light weight and battery powered. There are links below to the Lowel iLight and ProLight, does anyone have experience with these and how long the batteries last and how expensive the batteries are.

http://www.lowel.com/ilight/

http://www.lowel.com/prolight/

I would greatly appreciate any suggestions as to whether this is the sort of lighting I should get.

Thank you
 
withuk said:
Hi Everyone,

I'm shooting a short film and most of the shots will be taken at night on the street and some from inside a car. I only really want to light peoples faces and use available light in the background, although I realize that I may need to place the odd light to paint the sets. I want the picture to have High Contrast with the minimum of lighting.

There will only be a few people on set so we need to be light weight and battery powered. There are links below to the Lowel iLight and ProLight, does anyone have experience with these and how long the batteries last and how expensive the batteries are.

http://www.lowel.com/ilight/

http://www.lowel.com/prolight/

I would greatly appreciate any suggestions as to whether this is the sort of lighting I should get.

Thank you
Click to expand...



Save your money and just buy some ten dollar clip lamps. Put 200 watt lightbulbs in them and get the 650 watt dimmers for use as needed. You can tape diffusion material to the face of the clip lamp reflector or bounce it off white board as required. Then buy a portable power supply like this (or two) and you'll be fine.

If you'd like some nice spotty sources, use some 100 or 250 watt spot PAR38 lamps in the clip lamp fixtures.

Then get some portable stands and especially some high stands and some weight bags and cheap extension cords.

You should be able to put a complete lighting kit together this way (with power) for less than what 3 or 4 of those Lowel fixtures would cost, BUT, it won't look nearly as cool.

.
 
These are some great ideas to wing it on the cheap. I've actually still got and use clip lamps when I need to. BUT...Sometimes it's cheaper in the long run to drop some coin up front though. Because of versatility or small size of the lite source to aid in hiding it from camera. Or keep small and out of wind for sound and camera concerns.

Mini flos are very versatile, easy to hide and rig, and the standard for interior car jobs...pre Litepanels.

I popped for the Litepanels kit a couple of years ago, and have never looked back. They are great, super output and dimmable. And gellable. Come with nifty precut diffusion and color gels. Battery powered or ac or run it with an inverter off the cigarette lighter.

The kit comes with all the connectors and cables you need. Battery lasts about 2 hrs maybe if run constant, but charges back up in about that time.

They have the one foot square version too which is dimmable as well. And only about 2 inches thick approx.

I haven't sprung for the 1 foot size yet cause the little Litepanels work really well. And they work great as on camera lites or eyelights.

They're like a $ grand or more though I think, but worth it if you can afford the upfront cost.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top