Question about cheap 1000W lights for small projects

Vitaliy Kiselev

Vitaliy Kiselev

Carbonite Member
Anyone used this?
250099426_o.jpg



http://cgi.ebay.com/1000W-Pro-Studi...970?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43a05780b2


As I understand it is made like strobe lights.
With fan inside and no barn doors. Has Bowens mount.

But I really need something simple and reliable enought to shoot inside.
Interviews mostly. But sometimes I'll need to light larger rooms for other
shots. Will be used with soft boxes and direct, so dimmer is seems handy.

I am not sure about Fluos option today (mostly because I need to dismount every bulb and carefull pack it, plus I am not sure about CRI on cheap HK bulbs). But later plan to buy something like 4 125W bulbs inside softbox thing.


Sorry for offtopic, but lighting section seems to be quite unpopulated lately.
 
Wait! You Vitaliy has a question? WOW! everyones asks you questions. lol
Im just kidding. I guess lighting isn't your thing....just like many of us.
Someone answer the mans question please
 
I have read some reviews of similar lights on Amazon - these seem like they're very capable lights especially with the dimmer, the main problem is probably going to be the fan. For still photography work it's probably OK, but for interviews the fan will probably be pretty loud.

Perhaps if you keep it far enough away and use a LAV, but not very versatile in my opinion for video.

For cheap versatility you might consider Lowel Tota-lights with a reflective umbrella. I have 750w bulbs in mine and they don't have fan. They are tiny and very portable, but they do the trick.
 
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This will give very hard light, and not a lot of light at the same time and absolutely not suitable for lighting larger rooms, this light gives a hard spot light and a soft box won't change much.
Fluorescent based lights are relatively more powerful and give nicer softer light. You mention the transport problem for that, in that case a LED light would be perfect for you, but those are still expensive.
I bought some fluorescent heads from e-bay some months ago, the last time I was shooting with my GH1 and 7D I used 6 "1250W equivalent" fluorescent heads in a large room and with that I had a DOF of about 2 meters. With the 1000W tungsten in your link you may achieve a DOF of about 50cm unless you want to put it 1 meter away from the subject or shoot with ISO3200.
What kind of light do you want exactly? Hard spot or soft?
 
tired said:
I picked up a couple of 2k lights off ebay - unomat - German brand. compact,solid and bright! I can switch 500w,1k & 2k but I wouldn't use them for interviews - the fan is noisy and they'd burn the eyebrows off the guest!
www.unomat.de
Click to expand...

I understand.


I use a lowel kit and they are fantastic lights for interviews.
you should be able to find something like this:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Photo-Studio...ccessories&hash=item3cb15f2775#ht_5267wt_1137
already has a soft box, stand & bag
Click to expand...

About 90% kits are not available for me due to shipping restrictions.
Anyway, as I said, I plan to buy soft box with four bulbs.
They are quite cheap.
 
e-steve said:
I have read some reviews of similar lights on Amazon - these seem like they're very capable lights especially with the dimmer, the main problem is probably going to be the fan. For still photography work it's probably OK, but for interviews the fan will probably be pretty loud.

Perhaps if you keep it far enough away and use a LAV, but not very versatile in my opinion for video.
Click to expand...

I think about making small modifications allowing to adjust fan speed.
Or turn it off temporary.

For cheap versatility you might consider Lowel Tota-lights with a reflective umbrella. I have 750w bulbs in mine and they don't have fan. They are tiny and very portable, but they do the trick.
Click to expand...

It seems I can't get Tota lights.
They seems like construction lights :-).
But components are probably better made.
 
RieniO said:
This will give very hard light, and not a lot of light at the same time and absolutely not suitable for lighting larger rooms, this light gives a hard spot light and a soft box won't change much.
Click to expand...

In softbox dish is removed (you can remove it any time). So it is not spot anymore.

Fluorescent based lights are relatively more powerful and give nicer softer light. You mention the transport problem for that, in that case a LED light would be perfect for you, but those are still expensive.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I looked at few LED panels.
Like
http://cgi.ebay.com/POWERFUL-56-x-3...765?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item4cf1e0b05d

Problem with them are:
Very low CRI.
False power statements.
False effectiveness statements (x10 is bullshit).
And in this case, very questionable seller :-)

I bought some fluorescent heads from e-bay some months ago, the last time I was shooting with my GH1 and 7D I used 6 "1250W equivalent" fluorescent heads in a large room and with that I had a DOF of about 2 meters. With the 1000W tungsten in your link you may achieve a DOF of about 50cm unless you want to put it 1 meter away from the subject or shoot with ISO3200.
What kind of light do you want exactly? Hard spot or soft?
Click to expand...

I won't be shooting interviews in large rooms (at least this is the plan for now).
I plan to add lights to normal sun light available for some shots.
HMI do not seem to be good match for daylights :-(.
So, most probably with case will be handled by softbox with 4x115w or 4x150w fluos.

As for light kind. I planned to have one or two soft lights (with ability to transform one to hard) and one hard.
 
e-steve said:
I have read some reviews of similar lights on Amazon - these seem like they're very capable lights especially with the dimmer, the main problem is probably going to be the fan. For still photography work it's probably OK, but for interviews the fan will probably be pretty loud.

Perhaps if you keep it far enough away and use a LAV, but not very versatile in my opinion for video.

For cheap versatility you might consider Lowel Tota-lights with a reflective umbrella. I have 750w bulbs in mine and they don't have fan. They are tiny and very portable, but they do the trick.
Click to expand...

With the reflective umbrellas is the light pointed reverse to the subject with the umbrella doing the lighting? Or is the light pointed at subject with the light going through the umbrella?

RieniO said:
These are the ones I bought: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120610645634
I bought them with 115W bulbs, which makes 805W (3000W eq.) per head. He has a lot of other interesting items, including LED lights.
7Dlogo_98260677_thumb.jpg
Click to expand...

These look great. Looks like they have some very cheap Kino Flo's as well -- http://cgi.ebay.com/Daylight-Fluore...uipment_RL&hash=item1c1251e190#ht_4694wt_1139

I wonder how they perform.... how do you like the light you got? Any footage you've shot with it would be great.

Vitaliy Kiselev said:
HMI do not seem to be good match for daylights :-(.
Click to expand...

Curious why you say this?
 
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About LED, check out this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/1152-LED-Dimmer...509?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19bf5da415

There are two different claims for power equivalent. The specs in the graphic claim 5520W, I was like... wow I am going to order this, then the specs elsewhere on the page claim 1200W, which makes this light too expensive for me. As soon as LED lights drops to $200 per 1000W I will start buying them.

_80650047_thumb.jpg


Vitaliy Kiselev said:
Yeah, I looked at few LED panels.
Like
http://cgi.ebay.com/POWERFUL-56-x-3...765?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item4cf1e0b05d

Problem with them are:
Very low CRI.
False power statements.
False effectiveness statements (x10 is bullshi*).
Click to expand...
 
I use lights like this all the time; I mix them with my Lowell and Arri lights (Thank God for Ebay). The fans are alittle noisy but no more than any room on location. With my GH13 (thanks again), they are perfect for a myriad of projects both interview and narrative. We've been able to move them about 6' to 10' away from our subjects and shoot great stuff from the GH13, and T2i, and the 7d. Using the dimmer does change the quality of the light, but that can be fixed. For me, and I know there will be detractors, it was a great purchase. They came with umbrellas and softboxes, as well as barndoors and filters.

Again, we use these all the time. We have shot 4 shorts in 3 weekends shooting 12 hour days and have never had a problem out of them. Also, our audio was never compromised.

But that's us.
 
In fact, I am looking on something like this -
http://cgi.ebay.com/Continuous-Ligh...916?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c07e16f64
As stands here are better than cheap 1.70m.
And they are the problem as shipping of them separate makes unnecessary price increases.

I want to look how it'll go and add fluos box and fresnel later (as I am not sure if I want to transport big 6.5kg fresnel and all fluo bulbs). But I am pretty open and not fixed here.
 
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RieniO said:
About LED, check out this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/1152-LED-Dimmer...509?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19bf5da415

There are two different claims for power equivalent. The specs in the graphic claim 5520W, I was like... wow I am going to order this, then the specs elsewhere on the page claim 1200W, which makes this light too expensive for me. As soon as LED lights drops to $200 per 1000W I will start buying them.
Click to expand...

I suggest you to read this (very scientific test)
http://www.fclab.ru/2010/09/18/1891/#more-1891

It is in Russian, but you can look at graphics and use google translate.

Overall conclusion is that effectiveness is about 4x-5x (4x in most cases) of halogen bulbs. And CFL and LEDS are almost the same, but leds have big problems with heat (large heat dissipation required on very small contact area).

Breaks many myths about LEDs :-)
 
Air cushened stand is very nice. But the advantage of your first linked light is that it has the Bowens mount but this second linked light looks like it has a Bowens mount as well. This is important because most light shaping accessoires on the market have a Bowens mount. The price is very good, I bought these kinds of lights when I started doing video 18 years ago and I think I paid more than $500 per light/stand combo.
 
RieniO said:
Air cushened stand is very nice. But the advantage of your first linked light is that it has the Bowens mount but this second linked light looks like it has a Bowens mount as well. This is important because most light shaping accessoires on the market have a Bowens mount.
Click to expand...

Lights are exactly the same with same mount.
In fact you can get pair of this lights for about $170 shipped (without stands or something like it).
But for me problem arises with stands (in USA, best cheap ones are Weifeng).
Other problem here is softbox, or to be more precise, ability to work with high temperatures. As HK sellers do not always think here making kits .
 
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I would go for a pair of lights for $170 and buy the stands elsewhere. I think I buy air cushened stands from Photo Walser in Germany for like 25 euro and they're good. And when listing the advantages of fluorescent lights I forgot the heat issue... but never had a temperature problem with fluorescent lights, they are much cooler than tungstens.

And thanks for breaking the myths about LEDs :-)
 
RieniO said:
I would go for a pair of lights for $170 and buy the stands elsewhere. I think I buy air cushened stands from Photo Walser in Germany for like 25 euro and they're good. And when listing the advantages of fluorescent lights I forgot the heat issue... but never had a temperature problem with fluorescent lights, they are much cooler than tungstens.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know.
I am calculating options.
For example, it is possible to get softbox with 4 sockets and 500W bulbs (2000W equ) for about $120 shipped :-)


And thanks for breaking the myths about LEDs :-)
Click to expand...

Yeah. This myths are especially important for small on camera lights.
As many guys still thing that their 7-9W light (and this is marketing wattage most of the time, including bad driver or even resistor) is better than 100W halogen.
 
Vitaliy Kiselev said:
Anyone used this?
250099426_o.jpg



http://cgi.ebay.com/1000W-Pro-Studi...970?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43a05780b2


As I understand it is made like strobe lights.
With fan inside and no barn doors. Has Bowens mount.
Click to expand...

I'm also looking for 'cheap' high wattage lights. When I saw this image, I though 'strobe'...

But if the 'fan' is anything like my still photo Norman Strobes, it is pretty 'noisy'. If this light is for 'still' photographers who want a continuous light, rather than a strobe, not much care may have been given to the fan noise.

But if it is quiet, it appears to be a good option.
 
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