Rostronics: For Real?

C

clarkkent14

Member
Hello my fellow DVX peeples!

I am just wanting to know a few things about Rostronics kits and a few lighting tips. First of all is the Rostronics stuff really worth it? It seems as though it is according to the posts that I've read. What are their warranty's? How focusable are they? Do they have place for scrims etc... Do they come with scrims? What about the stands... It seems the 8' heavy duty ones are the best. What about their cases? Do they have any good cases? Do you have others to recommend. How have they held up? anyway that's a few off of the top of my head.

Lighting:
I'm planning on doing mainly interview stuff for documentaries and other random stuff. I would like to be able to pull off a couple of looks.
1. soft box 1000 or 650 key, bounce fill, 300 back light, and maybe a 650 or 300 for the background. 2:1 ratio from key to fill basically.
2. I want a harder edge look as well: 650 key (with scrim perhaps), bounce fill, 300 backlight, I want to try to get 4:1 or 5:1 ratio key to fill with something like this if the DVX can expose that kind of latitude. (I havent tried it yet)

Anyway I was hoping for some recommends, oh and what about the 2K, 2000w has anyone used it? I would love to have one for some of the short films that we work on. What other things would you recommend from Rostronics?

Thank you - Chad
 
I'm doing mostly interview work too and I picked up the 1400 Watt Dual Power 3 light Kit with an extra softbox, extra barndoor, and the heavy duty stands. I’m very happy with it. The lights in that kit have dual 300w lamps so you can go from 600w to 300w just by switching one off. They are not focusable like the GY-600 so you might want those instead. I find that 600w with a softbox and a bounce card for fill is quite sufficient for close interview work. That leaves me the 200w for a hair light and the other 600/300 to light the background. It’s a versitale little kit. I did pick up a Bogen / Manfrotto 3398 - Convertible Boom Stand 420 at B&H to hold the 200w hair light. Rostronics has a boom too for $120 but the web site doesn’t say what make it is. I figured you can’t go wrong with Bogen and it was also cheaper by a few bucks.

The cases for the lights are fine and come with compartments and wheels and a handle. They’re not pelican cases or anything but they’re fine for what they are carrying. The kit doesn’t come with scrims or anything but the barndoors have built in gell holders (which is why I added the 3rd barndoor to the kit)

If you don’t see what you want, call Tom at Rostronics and he’ll work with you to put a kit together. He is a great guy and provides excellent customer service. They had sent me the wrong size extra lamp and Tom FedEx’ed one to me. I told him it was just an extra and I didn’t need it right away so send it regular mail but he insisted on correcting the problem overnight. You can’t argue with service like that.

Make sure you use the coupon code "DVXUser" to get your 5% discount!

~jr
 
I bought the 1500W kit and upgraded to the focusable GY650's. The focus is not all that great, however the light unit is round, rather than square so it will accommodate scrims more easily. I would also upgrade the stands. I found the 4.5 foot stand for spot lights is useless considering you want to backlight your talent from above and behind. The GY-650 conversion also replaces the 1500W light's umbrella (really best for still photography) with a second softbox. The GY-650's also accept a variety of bulbs and are not "bar" type elements found in the lower wattage kits...these seem to resemble worklights too much, anyways. All in all, it is a nice compromise compared to the more expensive Arri's or Lowells.
 
The lights are not very focusable but most open face lights are no better. I think the lights are as good as the stuff that lowell and arri (the arri open face not the fresnels) have out there for a fraction of the price. Since they are not metal they cool down faster than most other lights and are nice and small which is good too.

I didn't get any of there stands, I got some nice bogan stackers from http://www.bhphotovideo.com
 
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