studio lighting help

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Daniel Alexander

Active member
has anybody used lights such as these (see link below) for video work and what implements/shortcomings do you think it would have technically? I have heard rumors of humming on the audio track and flickering with some cameras.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=260366520589&Category=3860

To give an idea of the work i am doing, it will be mainly for use on short films and music promos with an indoor setting where i usualy have a lot of control. The camera i will be using is the sony ex1 which uses CMOS chips so I'm not sure how this will affect the situation.

The reason I am curious about these lights is because they are dirt cheap and i've been looking for a cheap soft light source for a while but i'm trying to see if the shortcomings are things i can get away with for my type of work.

Hope someone has the info, thanks :)
 
I can't speak for these lights in particular, but I've bought and returned a set of fluoro softboxes off of ebay before. They hummed pretty loud and were a weird 6500k color temperature. These look like they might be fine for sound since they just use one light bulb and most compact fluoros have the ballast built into their base.

A couple things to think about when buying there are how you are going to gel the light to make it 3200k if you need to. You can put a 1 1/2 cto on the bulb probably but then you are losing quite a bit of light. Also, the light bulb in general is pretty low wattage. Even though they say the equivalent tungsten is 4-500watts that is probably the naked bulb and not with the softbox on which will cut a lot of light too. To get more wattage, you probably could use them without the front cover on the softbox since the fluoro bulb is naturally very soft lighting. Also, you can get a socket splitter and put two fluoro bulbs in.

I was set on going the fluoro softbox way but then eventually paid more and got some tungsten softboxes. They've been excellent so far.

Hope this helps,
Andy
 
Thanks Andy, a great help indeed. I've heard problems with 6500k problems myself but I have been assured from the seller that these are 5400k bulbs and yeild a much nicer result (i hope). I would definetley be looking at a splitter if i can find one here local in the UK as i know the light will get eaten up pretty quickly.

Good point you make about gelling them down to 3200k, i was thinking about maybe removing the face of the softbox (i hope its removable) and use a large cto to take its place for such times, not sure if thats the best idea, what do you think?
 
Brightness equivalent to 450W – 500W tungsten light 8000 Lumens
Click to expand...

That really depends on how and where you measure the flo lamp and the "equivalent" tungsten. I surely do not believe that one spiral fluorescent lamp is anywhere near as bright as a 450-500W tungsten light. Maybe near as bright as a 200-250W. And by the way 500W in a big soft box isn't really that much either.

I imagine these lights will give off a nice glow that might serve as a little fill at most - if the color rendition and temperature are ok...
 
Soft boxes are great. 125w bulbs will hardly give you any light for main lighting. I have 2 Photoflex Silverdome sets with 1000w bulbs. I love them. I suggest you get a set of bigger bulbs.
 
Yeh i was looking for some bigger bulbs but i havent had any luck locating them here in the UK. If anyone knows of a good supplier in the UK or US (but the bulb needs to be 50 hertz/UK compliant) please do let me know.

UPDATE: I went ahead and purchased the lights and in conjunction with my EX1 they seem to be doing a nice job at the mo but would really benefit from having a stronger bulb.
 
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