Question About Mixing Tungsten and Fluorescent Bulbs

garydriftwood

garydriftwood

New member
I setup a studio in our spare office with a chroma key backdrop using halogen worker lights to evenly illuminate it.

We have three 500 watt lights for three point lighting, which really heat up the office, along with the worker lights.

Can I replace my regular tungsten bulbs for fluorescent bulbs in the three point lighting?

I can't see why not as the worker lights only light the chroma key background that will be digitally replaced.

If I am correct, what bulbs should I be looking at to produce about the same light output in fluorescent that the tungsten bulbs produced?
 
Flourescent wouldn't work very well at all for three-point lighting because it's not a hard light with limited throw. You're gonna find it hard to get it to show up as a key or a back light unless it's right next to the subject. For fill it's great but you're still gonna want some form of fresnel for the 3 point setup. I would say if you're gonna replace anything take out the work lights and replace those with flourescent fixtures since flourescent will very evenly illuminate the screen. Of course I don't know what kind of flourescent you want to use since they can vary greatly in term of color temperature and CRI.
 
Gary, I presume your green screen isn't a huge studio deal with cyc walls.
I am also making an assumption that you're not shooting full body head to toe against green screen, judging by what info you've already given.
So most likely, you're shooting talking head /shoulders against green screen. My advice is to perhaps let go of your 3 point lighting concept and think about what look you're trying to achieve.

The 500 watter can serve as a back light and the Kino-Flo (?) can be your frontal fill with perhaps some 3/4 wrap around. You can choose to balance that out with another Kino on half bulb on the darker side. For interviews / talking head kind of stuff I wouldn't get too fancy. Most of the work in lighitng interviews goes into the background - if even that. But your background is a green screen so that just requires even lighting as you already have done I think.

In terms of coloration, if you are using Kino Flo's just put 1/4 CTO or 1/8 CTO on the tungsten balance (gold rim) bulbs and you should get something close to a color match as Kino tungsten is usually "white" compared to the warmer tungsten. They also have red rim bulbs which are 2800K I believe - a closer match to tungsten units.

If you're using other types of flo's - it may require experimentation with gels, but it can be done.

BTW Image 80's make great flo lighting for limited size and small space green screens. but they are expensive units to buy, and you must have bought those hard as nails halogen bulbs cuz of your budget.
 
Yeah, after plugging in a 23w fluorescent bulb it had no where close to the illumination for anything purposeful.

The room is big enough to do head to toe, but we most likely won't be doing too much of that type of shot. We have a lot of light in the room all ready, so the three point setup will do the job.

I guess we'll just need to vent the room better from heating up to 100 degrees. It reminds me of the light bulb ovens you played with back in the day growing up and I'm the cupcake.:Drogar-Love(DBG): Rawrrrr...
 
You can get 300 watt equivalent CFLs at Home Depot, if that is enough light. Or you can use the larger 4-foot tube fluoro fixtures...which I use a lot and especially for lighting the green screen.

I use fluoros for 3-point lighting as well; but my Arri incandescents provide more control because they can be directed using the barn doors.
 
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