Portable Light Tower w/ Generators

I see these all the time at events and job sites. They are pretty inexpensive at just over ~$100/day. But some things to think about: they are generally noisy and the light is intended for industrial utility. It’s just to provide “light” to see and work by. It’s not the same quality that you’ll get from HMI’s designed for TV/Movie production. That said, people use “non-traditional” tools all the time. Just a few things you should consider, though...
 
Yes. I saw shand hurlbut use sports fixture in some of his classes and they look amazing, he just gels them properly. I just cant find metal halide sports fixtures online for reasonable price. I was planning on using these light towers as moonlight outside shooting in. I think im going to pay them a visit
 
theillestmc12 said:
Here is the link to what Shane uses. Can i just plug these in a 15a outlet? Its rated 1500 so i was thinking 110 x 15 would be enough.

https://www.grainger.com/product/LITHONIA-LIGHTING-Floodlight-7G208
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For that kind of money, there are tons of much better big tungsten instruments around, people cannot give them away. I sold my Mighty Mole 2K in almost brand new condition last year for $200.00 and I had a hard time finding a buyer even then.
Scour the used gear sites and Craigslist, so much good tungsten out there for bargain bin prices. I would avoid industrial lights for video personally.
 
Milwaukee makes light towers that are battery 18 volt. Haven’t looked at quality of light. They start at 200$ range plus batteries. I have seen them used in emergency situations on side of road for recovery. FYI various third party vendors make adapters for various battery platforms so one can use makita batteries on Milwaukee or dewalt tools.
 
This is silly! Have you ever driven past a worksite at night lit by this kind of lighting - plenty of examples of railway bridge replacements using them - it's illumination, not lighting for cameras - simply because it's cluster lighting. A mast with up to four light sources. We don't light like this, do we!

The attraction is a generator, wheels and an extending central support. We can hire in proper, quality light sources of the type we need. Discharge HMI's as an example. We can hire in a generator, and the cabling. We can have silent types if we wish.

They're cheap lighting - but not proper, good quality lighting suitable for video or movies. It's a bit like buying a battery operated loudspeaker system that buskers use. Very convenient. Not much use for other music needs. Horses for courses.
 
Pelican has also had a line of emergency self-contained battery powered lights for a while, but I don’t know anything about how the quality of light and you’d have to put them on something to get them up really high. And they’re probably not cheap...

Those Milwaukee job lights look interesting. One of those tower lights would be awesome for striking in dark areas where there are no “house lights”.
 
It’s interesting how many good products are coming out from the major tool manufacturers, a few will have some utility on film sets. One company has a battery operated coffee maker. One has battery “ generator” inverter that you can run a microwave for 45 minutes straight off the batteries.
 
paulears said:
This is silly! Have you ever driven past a worksite at night lit by this kind of lighting - plenty of examples of railway bridge replacements using them - it's illumination, not lighting for cameras - simply because it's cluster lighting. A mast with up to four light sources. We don't light like this, do we!

The attraction is a generator, wheels and an extending central support. We can hire in proper, quality light sources of the type we need. Discharge HMI's as an example. We can hire in a generator, and the cabling. We can have silent types if we wish.

They're cheap lighting - but not proper, good quality lighting suitable for video or movies. It's a bit like buying a battery operated loudspeaker system that buskers use. Very convenient. Not much use for other music needs. Horses for courses.
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Its not silly if you live in a town that has maybe 10k population and no company want to ship out an HMI to you
 
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