Question about cheap 1000W lights for small projects

Again, it depends on how much light you need. I need to light 5 x 5 meter glamour sets. This is something completely different than lighting a 2 x 2 meter set for an interview. I think for what you need, you ordered the right stuff. Don't you just love e-bay? :-)
 
No, I don't plan to light glamour sets. :-)
In worst case I'll need to add some light to sunlight already present in large room (again not to all room, of course, only to part I am interested in).
I think that 1200-1500w of fluos will be enought for my small task.
 
you'll get green tinted skin from cheap LED's. Once again ... with lighting you get what you pay for.
Get good lights, the best you can afford, don't go cheap
 
Vitaliy Kiselev said:
I found only few actual cheap light on ebay.

So, I choose this
http://cgi.ebay.com/1-x-4-SOCKET-W-...278?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cf050b7d6
Click to expand...
That looks like a useful four-socket fixture and lightbox.

Here's a link to a site selling Eiko Colormaster SP50/955K bulbs, the highest quality florescent light I've found. They're rated at 50 watts, have a color temp of 5500K, and a CRI of 93. They are quite large, however, and project 8 inches out from the socket.

http://www.dvcreators.net/eiko-color-master-full-spectrum-bulb/
 
J Davis said:
you'll get green tinted skin from cheap LED's. Once again ... with lighting you get what you pay for.
Get good lights, the best you can afford, don't go cheap
Click to expand...

I know this. So, I got the best that I could now :-)
Later I'll replace builbs for ones with better CRI.
And I do not use cheap LEDs.
Instead I only plan to use good quality flashlights to experiment.
 
lpowell said:
That looks like a useful four-socket fixture and lightbox.
Here's a link to a site selling Eiko Colormaster SP50/955K bulbs, the highest quality florescent light I've found. They're rated at 50 watts, have a color temp of 5500K, and a CRI of 93. They are quite large, however, and project 8 inches out from the socket.
http://www.dvcreators.net/eiko-color-master-full-spectrum-bulb/
Click to expand...

This seems like overkill.
I suggest to use many bulbs with good CRI from different manufacturers. CRI will be better than lamps from same manufacturer (as fluos spectrum is similar to 8bit JPEG histogram after adjustment, peaks and peaks).
 
I'll add my final calculation here:
3x 3m stands,

bulb-softbox-4-2.jpg

bulb-softbox-4-4.jpg

3x 4x sockets softboxes,

4x 115w bulbs, 4x 45w bulbs,
43" 5 in 1 reflector, reflector arm,
two small dish heads on their own stands (use spigot),
softbox tent for items photograthy
on camera 16w LED light (1400lm) - see other thread.
few other small things
Total : about $600. Not bad.
 
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You did some clever shopping Vitaliy, I see this guy asks $55 for two 4 socket softboxes, I paid $175 per 7 socket softbox!!! And I also bought some bulbs from the guy in Korea but they were actually shipped from China, probably the same dude that you are buying from now. Everything is cheapest in China.
 
As I remember Korean guy is Konova. They seems sell chinese stuff with slightly inflated price. :-)

As for softboxes.
5x seems as best compromise. Not very large. With individual switches for each bulb. Cost is about $90-120.
But in kits they are cheap.

SFL-01_back.jpg


My main problem had been stands.
Being in the US I could have saved about $70 :-)
Same sum could be saved going to cheap 1.9m stands.
But problem here is not only height (and I need higher stands), but tubes diameter and many other small things.
Anyway, locally I could buy only 1.9 cheap stuff for price of 3x3m stands :-)


As for lamps - best prices are in dzone2 store. He also have good lamps selection.
Unfortunately, he do not show lamps boxes (with CRI rating on them).
I used lamps manufactured by same company and found boxes in other place citing CRI as 80 Plus.
 
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Hey the best thing is not to use any stands at all but fix your lights to the ceiling somehow, then you don't have to worry about getting stands in your recordings :-)

Could you give a direct link to those 5 bulb softboxes? And what does CRI stand for exactly, you and some others keep going on about that but I have no clue what it means?

Also to be sure, so you claim that LEDs don't give more light than fluorescents? So basically there are no advantages for LEDs over fluorescents?
 
I ended up buying this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160482392461&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

I haven't received it yet but I'm fairly certain the bulb choices will matter more than the softbox.

Also, you could buy a standard 2 or 4 bulb electronic ballast fluorescent shop light fixture and just lamp it with GE bulbs(which seem to be really good for the money from most accounts) or using Kino-Flo lamps. you could easily attach it to some kind of C stand.
 
Here is link to list of all 5 lamp softboxes:
http://photography.shop.ebay.com/i....box&_osacat=30078&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313

Links about CRI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index
http://www.fullspectrumsolutions.com/cri_explained.htm

Led have many advantages - they are more focused, hard to destroy, etc. Fluos generally loss some light as they emit it in all directions. Silver softbox helps here a bit.
But directional LED with same wattage will be better.


I think now about RGB PARs or panels for DJs:
ala 1265055995.548.jpg
648 leds, individually adjusted channels, dimmer - $250.

or
http://cgi.ebay.com/150W-DMX-512-DJ...843?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f02f6ea03
150W, $199
Also dimmable per individual channel (using menu on hte back).
 
CRI is Color Rendering Index
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index

edit:
ah beaten to the finish line because I forgot to hit the submit button!

If you are shooting on the cheap you are better off shooting with incandescant bulbs/halogens,
adjusting your camera white balance to tungsten and putting CTO gels on windows. Or just avoid windows.

If you get cheap low CRI compact fluro bulbs or cheap LED's your skin tones will look bad no matter how you mess with the in camera white balance and no matter how much post cc you do.

The hidden expense with shooting tungsten light is the heat generated means you need softboxes that can take it without catching fire.
 
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I agree about fluos or leds problem.
But as you said, tugsen lights also impose many problems.
We'll see how it'll look after some practice.
Very good CRI fluos are available now.
Unfortunately ebay sellers have big problems with this.
I'll try to talk to few largest of them to make CRI and boxes visible in listing.
 
Vitaliy Kiselev said:
You can get all this cheap from ebay. All this huge panels seems like overkill. Get two 7 bulb SB and place them together. Plus add 7 x 125W bulbs to each. :-)

I went for 4-sockets SB (pair for $75 shipped only) + various lamps (115w and lower).
Three air cushioned 2.9m stands. Plus, may be, small light stand.
I'll try this 16w LED on camera light to add small direction (removing diffusion in front) plus use it as real on camera light.
We'll see how it works as it arrives.
Click to expand...

Where did you get the high CRI bulpbs from? Found a good deal?
 
Vitaliy Kiselev said:
As I remember Korean guy is Konova. They seems sell chinese stuff with slightly inflated price. :-)

As for softboxes.
5x seems as best compromise. Not very large. With individual switches for each bulb. Cost is about $90-120.
But in kits they are cheap.

View attachment 24044


My main problem had been stands.
Being in the US I could have saved about $70 :-)
Same sum could be saved going to cheap 1.9m stands.
But problem here is not only height (and I need higher stands), but tubes diameter and many other small things.
Anyway, locally I could buy only 1.9 cheap stuff for price of 3x3m stands :-)


As for lamps - best prices are in dzone2 store. He also have good lamps selection.
Unfortunately, he do not show lamps boxes (with CRI rating on them).
I used lamps manufactured by same company and found boxes in other place citing CRI as 80 Plus.
Click to expand...

I've tried that head and it's plastic except the bulb sockets which are ceramic. They take some time to assemble and I question how long they will last when used as a portable kit.
An alternative is to get fluorescent bulbs and bounce of an umbrella. You can choose bulb head, bulb and umbrella from different stores and it is very fast to set up and take apart.

As for stands I have a kit of three Manfrotto 1004BAC and one Manfrotto 420B that can be used as a light stand or a microphone boom stand.
 
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editman said:
I've tried that head and it's plastic except the bulb sockets which are ceramic. They take some time to assemble and I question how long they will last when used as a portable kit.
An alternative is to get fluorescent bulbs and bounce of an umbrella. You can choose bulb head, bulb and umbrella from different stores and it is very fast to set up and take apart.
Click to expand...

Bulb is anyway separate. And going to unbrella route you got losses - less light control, you can only remove bulbs to adjust output.
Plus all chinese 1 or 2 lamp sockets that I know are low quality. Much lower than this 4x and 5x softbox variants.
I really do not know that could break in this softboxes. They have rods and folded softbox. And that is all. Store rods carefully and all will be ok.
Umbrella is also easy to demage.
Btw you can get two umbrellas made like softboxes for about $44 shipped :-)
But we'll see how all this perform in real life.

As for stands I have a kit of three Manfrotto 1004BAC and one Manfrotto 420B that can be used as a light stand or a microphone boom stand.
Click to expand...

Generally, being outside US it'll be a waste of money.
As for mike stand. Cheap adapters are available.
I got few to use my small tripods as light stand if I need light in 30-80cm range. Mike ones are also present.
 
That big RGB box looks nice.
I am definitely worried about the CRI of those things though. I have used them on stage and they never can produce a perfect white colour. I thought that this was maybe just a colour temperature issue (that wouldn't matter for video really) but it might be a very peaky CRI. Also the efficiacy of green LED's is less than half that of blue, so you need twice as many greens in an array to even come close. Wikipedia hints at this where it says high CRI is one of the advantages of phosphor-white LED's over RGB arrays. But I can find no real information anywhere else on this.
My worry is basically that you get peaks of red, blue, and green that are very narrow and nothing filled in between. But who knows. Someone needs to test it I guess!

If nothing else they would always be very useful as coloured specials (they can do some extreme deep, saturated colours that gels just can't match IMHO) in addition to your regular high-CRI keys etc.
 
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