Studio lighting - What to get...

Max R. Wilson

Max R. Wilson

Stream Master
At work i have a Small studio that has a 6 x 6 grid on the ceiling, the room is about 9 x 10 and currently we have 1 250w photo flood and 2 150w photo floods on dimers.

The problem is we cant controll the light how we want so we want to get some real lights, but i am not sure exactly what ones we should get.

We have a budget of about $400 for 2-3 months, so we want to get something that will work for us for a while.

I was looking at maybe 2 arri 150 and then a arri 300.

Here is a video shoot with our current setup. ( i was not the Op on that shoot but you can see the colors are all off and just looks cheap.)
http://www.tomshardware.com/site/flash_videos/video_twitchguru_reviews_grindhouse.html


What would you guys recomend?
 
What are you mostly trying to accomplish? Product shots? I would say your best bet is to look for used molle richardson stuff on Ebay, because the three arri lights that you mentioned will cost well over 400 dollars. The molle richardson stuff is great, built like tanks and if well cared for will last pretty much forever. A lot of animation studios use Molle stuff- it's really easy to find used.
 
well more 2 person shows, kinda like some pod cast stuff eventually, we have a photo studio also but thats setup fine.

We can spend more then $400, just need to get it in stages $400 a month.

I just want to make sure we get the right setup and dont have to go out and buy all diferent lights a few months down the road.
 
You didn't mention how high up your grid is. Fluorescent could be a choice if you want a softer look too. You may only have a small budget right now, but you should look at adding things as you can in the future. A mix of 3200K fluorescents and fresnels would give you a lot of possibilites. The fresnels will make really great background lighting with gels, cookies, etc.; and the fluorescents great softbox substitutes and keep things cooler in the studio too.
 
The grid is about 8-9 ft high.

What we really want is to be able to make the subject lit and have the background lit different eventually.

I think we will probably start with the 300W arri since we really need more control over our fill light.
Then get the two 150W arri and also install some standard low voltage halogen for the walls to spill color.
 
We have been using a 250W for our key and we have dimmed all our lights down a ton, so we will try to 300. if we need more we can always get a 650, but its such a small place and anything is better then what we got.
 
Why? Because they are hot? For lighting cars you need the throw an the punch. But then again it's a big studio.
 
jonnyh1968 said:
Why? Because they are hot? For lighting cars you need the throw an the punch. But then again it's a big studio.
Click to expand...

Yeah sorry man. I guess sometimes I forget that not everyone is working with models all day long. Hot lights and models do not mix.
 
hehe, we got one 300W and i love it! The colors look great and skin tones look like they should now. :)

I think we are gona try to get 2 150W and one more 300W + some practicals mixed in.
 
Here is a before and after just by changing the key.

Camera set to 3200wb
iris open
shutter 1/250

I love how i can stiop the glare in the posters now. :)

Before Arri 300W
6421before-arri.jpg


After
4875after-arri.jpg
 
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