Soft continuous light recommendation?

P

Pultzar

Member
Hello,

I am coming from the photography land using E640 strobes in my studio. I would like to add indoor continuous lighting for video work. I already have a bunch of PLM umbrellas that are nice modifiers for strobes and would love to keep using them, but I understand that this may not be possible.

Goals
-High output
-Soft light with modifier
-Good color rendition
-Low/No audible noise

I'm a bit of a noob here. Any suggestions as to where I should start looking? So far I have looked at Impact, Westcott, and Fotodiox who offer CFL solutions.

Thanks!

Pultzar
 
Your $1000 budget would limit your daylight selection to Fluorescent or LED lights, neither of which I would consider high output.
 
I've got several chinese biax flo units. The 4-bank ones are about 1k daylight equivalent (you'd need about 2k of gelled tungsten for that). These days you could get 2 or 3 quads and a couple duals for around $1k. It's a lot of light and soft before you add modifiers. Spiral CFL stuff is generally lower output.

I like daylight - modern sensors are less noisy at 5200k (they gain the blue channel for tungsten), you pull far far less amps and generate less heat. So more lights in a household-circuit situation.

The bigger issue is "what kind" of soft light. I do many setups where I just bast a lot of light through very large silks for a natural/soft look. Some situations require softboxes. Softboxes for tungsten are really pricey, as they need to survive 1k lamps. Multi-spiral CFL softboxes have some power, comes down to the quality of bulbs. But softboxes eat a lot of lumens, and I feel they're highly overrated unless you have a low-key scene that needs precise soft light.

China balls with flo or tungsten can give really nice soft light as well. Those alzo bulb & ballast combos rock in a china ball.

Tungsten light is considered "prettier" by many people. With daylight sources, you need to test every one and make notes about what gel combos to use. Some cheaper flos need minus green, CTO, even violet. Once you dial them in you'll eliminate much of the daylight-beauty issue - you usually need gels in the 1/8 or 1/4 range, so output isn't seriously affected.

I use a lot of tungsten fixtures though, fresnels and open face. Often I'll put 1/2 CTB on a fresnel for a warmer spill light shooting daylight. For night/dark room scenes, tungsten's nice. For shooting bands they're good to augment the stage lights. There's tons of used tungsten fixtures out there, too.
 
Good old 1K fresnels with a couple 4x4 silks or skims in front will give you really nice soft light at the cheapest price. Heck a frost shower curtain even works. A Lowel DP open face are pretty cheap if your going to defuse it. These are hot lights. You didn't tell us what you're shooting so it's hard to narrow it down. Interviews? Commercials? Narrative?
 
Erik Naso said:
Good old 1K fresnels with a couple 4x4 silks or skims in front will give you really nice soft light at the cheapest price. Heck a frost shower curtain even works. A Lowel DP open face are pretty cheap if your going to defuse it. These are hot lights. You didn't tell us what you're shooting so it's hard to narrow it down. Interviews? Commercials? Narrative?
Click to expand...

This will mostly be for shooting video of my newborn baby as it grows and eventually other people's babies as well after I get practiced at it. So I suppose that high output is a relative term. Right now my 250W modelling lamps are not bright enough to shoot at low ISO and a smaller aperture.

I will be using a Blackmagic camera in RAW mode.
 
Laugh now Mr. Pultzar, 3 years from now the OP may have started an entirely new business model for the wealthy - cinematic baby shots. You're aware what people pay for a still portrait?

Blackmagic's native iso is 800. I'd think you could get by just fine with some sort of flo package, even some of that eBay softbox stuff. Going to people's homes and shooting their babies? I wouldn't bring any 1k fresnels...

(Personally, I'd want to shoot stuff like that 60p to have smooth slowmo when I wanted it for an edit. Af100A or maybe the new Nikon) (5300?)
 
Michael Carter said:
Laugh now Mr. Pultzar, 3 years from now the OP may have started an entirely new business model for the wealthy - cinematic baby shots. You're aware what people pay for a still portrait?

Blackmagic's native iso is 800. I'd think you could get by just fine with some sort of flo package, even some of that eBay softbox stuff. Going to people's homes and shooting their babies? I wouldn't bring any 1k fresnels...

(Personally, I'd want to shoot stuff like that 60p to have smooth slowmo when I wanted it for an edit. Af100A or maybe the new Nikon) (5300?)
Click to expand...

I am the OP :)

Yeah 60p would be good. Blackmagic is what I would start with because I'm familiar with it, but who knows what will be available soon enough.
 
I come from stills too.

Initially I bought 3 tungsten redheads then sold them. then played with flouro and LED.. and then sold that lot and bought.. three tungsten redheads (I now have six!)

Yes tungsten is hot, looks horrid non diffused and has many unappealing things but IMO the power you get for the money and the perfect quality of the light make tungsten the king of budget lights even in 2013

Id only use LED if I were away from the mains.

S
 
I'd suggest a couple of redheads, firing them into umbrellas creates a lovely large soft source.
 
I'm not sure if hot lights are suitable for this, especially if he wants to move the modifiers closer to the babies to get a larger source / softer light.
 
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