Thoughts on flourescents v. tungsten before I pull the trigger?

S

sonofaresiii

Well-known member
I think I've done all my research, but before I pull the trigger on some kino flos, anyone care to weigh in on the pros/cons between tungsten?
Here's what I understand:

Kino flo:
Pros:
-Softer light
-Easier set-up
-Less wattage
-Daylight balanced (and bulbs could be switched for tungsten)
-Doesn't run as hot

Cons:
-Won't hold up as well as quality tungsten (you hear plenty about people using Mole or Arri tungstens from twenty years ago... I can't imagine a kino flo setup lasting quite as long)
-Harder to control
-More expensive

Am I missing anything? Would I need to buy a ballast for a kino flo or not? (I'm not entirely sure what the deal is with the ballast but it's my understanding if I'm plugging it into house/apartment outlets I should be fine, but if using a generator I'd need a ballast)

edit: Realized I probably should've put this in the lighting gear section, still getting used to the new layout of the site... any mods care to move it for me?
 
Definitely need a ballast for the fixture. It won't work otherwise.

The kinos are a bit more of an investment, but absolutely worth the money. Honestly, you can't go wrong either way as long as you're buying Kino or Mole branded gear.
 
Is softer light a pro, though? Depends on the situation, right? And it's easier to make a hard source soft than a soft source hard.
 
Paper_bag said:
Is softer light a pro, though? Depends on the situation, right? And it's easier to make a hard source soft than a soft source hard.
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that's a valid point, but i did want to make mention of it, and since i had to pick pro or con, i figured i'd probably use a softer light more often than a hard light, making it a pro
 
I have Kino-flo divas and fresnels. In the long run, you'll want both. It depends on what you're doing. For lighting people, I love the kinos. Daylight, yep, also with the eggcrate they are fairly directional and if you back them off you can get a pretty hard light.

The thing that makes the kino invaluable to me is that the light falls off quickly. This enables me to create depth. But then I'm lighting the background with fresnels ;)

The smaller fresnels are great for kickers or hairlights as well as lighting the set.

Another thing about soft light. Really great soft light can be acheived by bouncing hard light. It's more difficult to control but if you're punched in, and not worried about spill, that light is beautiful. Also you can make fresnels more specular by adding some diffusion to the barn doors or better using a silk, or diffusion on a frame in front of it.

Overall I think the fresnels are a good place to start and are more versatile. Sounds a bit ambivalent... sorry but if you had an Arri kit with a softbox I think you'd get more bang for the buck. Those kinos are expensive.
 
What others have said. Have both in my kit but on jobs with limited crew and time i bring my tungsten units. Why? Because in one Arri case i fit 6 Lowel lights (2x 1k, 2x 500w, 2x 250w) and that gives me plenty of various units to face pretty much any challenge. Incidentally if i can afford to bring another case it's still not the kino but a small 200w HMI.
 
As stated if you can only afford one, go tungsten. You can always soften tungsten but you will never be able to do the opposite to flos.
 
I'm going to move this to the lighting section, as I think you may find additional answers there. I will leave an expiring redirect for a couple of days, so that you continue to get the feedback from the people who have found your post here.

-ryan
 
For some situations, interviews or places where heat is an issue, flos are simply the best way. If you need throw or anything like a focused beam, a flo can never do that. So if a flo fits your needs, great, but they are limiting.

Grant
 
Thanks for the great info guys, I appreciate it.

I think you guys are right, tungsten probably makes more sense for me at this point.
 
David W. Jones said:
A good starting point would be something like this... 1 4x55w biax, 1 2x55w biax, 1 650w fresnel, 1 300w fresnel.

Good Luck!

Dave
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That is a great start...

I would also suggest taking a couple of hundred bucks and getting a half dozen, or so, standard medium base (E26) clamp on lights, a couple of medium base sockets for China ball set ups, a handful of "Pocket 650" watt and "Pocket 250" watt open faced lights (eBay search, "Movie lights" in "Cameras and Photo"), a bunch of screw in (Medium base) 250 watt halogens bulbs, and a couple of inexpensive 1000 watt Par 64 cans. With that kind of kit you can do a lot of creative lighting, in some pretty big spaces, inexpensively.
 
Another thing to consider is that in a confined space 3K worth of Arri will make it an oven REAL quick. One of the best parts about switching to florescent was not having to towel off the talent every few minutes and having everyone be miserable because it was 90 degrees on set.
 
Despite the heat, if I would be on a budget, I take a tungsten Fresnel and some silk/diffusion/bounce boards over Kinos any day.

I have Kinos, LED andwhatnot - since a while I went back to tungsten as my main lights.
Even wit the high draw, wight, space and heat problem, I prefer the quality of a full spectrum light and the versatility.

Frank
 
a kit with both types of lighting would be optimal of course, but if you have to choose only one right now pick the one that you will be using the most often to start. For example in my case, more than half of the stuff i do involves interviews in small spaces, so Fluorescent was the best choice for me to start with, otherwise i would be cooking every interviewee in their offices.
 
Postmaster said:
Even wit the high draw, wight, space and heat problem, I prefer the quality of a full spectrum light and the versatility.
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Hi Frank, actually this is something I'm interested in and know nothing about -- spectral distribution and how one light compares with the other. Is it necessarily better to have a broader spectral distribution than narrower? What visual difference does this make? Is the light quality more "natural"? Also, is there any issue of matching the spectral distribution sensitivity curve of video or film? For this seems to be one of Kino Flo's selling points at their website? If so, how do Kunos fare vs tungsten in this respect?
 
I'm sure real Kinos (at that price) don't have this issue to the same degree (if at all), but fluoro lights are notorious for spikes and holes in their spectrum.
 
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