Types of lights
- Thread starter thome
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Arri is a maker of lights. They make Fresnels, HMIs, Fluorescents (I think) and Open faced lights. The deal thing you need to know is the difference between open face and fresnel lights.
Open faced lights are lights such which do not have a lens and won't focus as easily. Because of this you don't get as crisp shadows with open faced lights. They are better meant for ambient light or for softboxes.
Fresnels are more versatile. They can focus and you can get crisper shadows out of them. The draw back is that they tend to be bigger, heavier and more expensive over all.
HMIs are like fluorescents in the sense that they have a great wattage to lumen ratio. They emit 5600k light, which is accepted as daylight. They are hard light sources and come in PARS (which is similar to open an open face light) and fresnels.
A fluorescent will always be a soft light source. You will never get hard shadows with a fluorescent.
Arri, Lowel, LTM, Coollights, Blueline, Mole-Richardson, Desisti and Kino Flo are all makers of lights.
Open faced lights are lights such which do not have a lens and won't focus as easily. Because of this you don't get as crisp shadows with open faced lights. They are better meant for ambient light or for softboxes.
Fresnels are more versatile. They can focus and you can get crisper shadows out of them. The draw back is that they tend to be bigger, heavier and more expensive over all.
HMIs are like fluorescents in the sense that they have a great wattage to lumen ratio. They emit 5600k light, which is accepted as daylight. They are hard light sources and come in PARS (which is similar to open an open face light) and fresnels.
A fluorescent will always be a soft light source. You will never get hard shadows with a fluorescent.
Arri, Lowel, LTM, Coollights, Blueline, Mole-Richardson, Desisti and Kino Flo are all makers of lights.
Jackson Miller
Well-known member
I still don't really get all this. A sticky would be so helpful.
1) Does fresnel just refer to the lens over the light?
2) What about Tungsten lights? You never mentioned them.
3) Are they (tungstens) the typical 3 point lighting sets?
4) Are they the same type of light as the cheap construction lights some of us try to get by with?
5) What about LED lighting?
Sorry for all of the questions and thanks in advance to anyone who can answer.
1) Does fresnel just refer to the lens over the light?
2) What about Tungsten lights? You never mentioned them.
3) Are they (tungstens) the typical 3 point lighting sets?
4) Are they the same type of light as the cheap construction lights some of us try to get by with?
5) What about LED lighting?
Sorry for all of the questions and thanks in advance to anyone who can answer.
1: Yes, fresnel refers to the lens but a main advantage of a fresnel vs. open face is that a fresnel focuses. Examples:
Fresnel:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/shop/4965/Spot_Fresnel_Lights.html
Open Face:
http://www.lowel.com/omni/
2: A tungsten light generally refers to light in the 3200k range or indoors. They are usually fresnels or open faced lights. It usually refers to the lamp in the fixture. Bear in mind though that you can get fluorescent lights in tungsten color (3200k) but they are not tungsten fixture. Here are some examples of tungsten fixtures:
http://www.adorama.com/catalog.tpl?...ontinuous output lighting&cat3=tungsten units
3: Yes, simple but yes.
4: Yes, those would count as open faced lights.
5: I'm not familiar with LED lighting. Some will else will have to answer that. I'm sorry.
Fresnel:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/shop/4965/Spot_Fresnel_Lights.html
Open Face:
http://www.lowel.com/omni/
2: A tungsten light generally refers to light in the 3200k range or indoors. They are usually fresnels or open faced lights. It usually refers to the lamp in the fixture. Bear in mind though that you can get fluorescent lights in tungsten color (3200k) but they are not tungsten fixture. Here are some examples of tungsten fixtures:
http://www.adorama.com/catalog.tpl?...ontinuous output lighting&cat3=tungsten units
3: Yes, simple but yes.
4: Yes, those would count as open faced lights.
5: I'm not familiar with LED lighting. Some will else will have to answer that. I'm sorry.
1. Fresnel is a style of lens, the term refers to lights with a fresnel lens in front of it.
2. Tungsten emit light about about 3200K, give or take a few 100 degrees (depending on the individual fixture). They tend to be cheaper than daylight balanced lights. I personally prefer to use tungsten over daylight balanced lighting.
3. 3 point lighting can be done with any temperture lighting. In studios it is common to use tungsten.
4. Construction lights are close to the same color light as tungsten balanced film lighting except they have a large spike in the green range.
5. LED lights are, as the name suggests, LEDs. They are very expensive for some unknown reason and are usually daylight balanced but they can be found in any temperature.
Other fun information on lighting:
Fresnels emit more parallel light waves than openface lights because of the lens. This in turn makes the light very direct which, as a previous commenter mentioned, causes harder shadows and a more confined beam.
Color emitted from lights is measured in degrees Kelvin. The reason behind this, in a short and simple explanation, is there are materials called "black bodies" that emit no light of their own. When they are burned they begin to emit energy in the form of light. The color of the fire at a given temperature is designated by that temperature.
Just because a light is designated as tungsten or daylight does not mean it only emits orange or blue light. Most film lights are full spectrum, which means they emit some light at all colors of the visible spectrum (also in the non-visible in the case of IR and UV). Being full spectrum allows lights to be gelled.
Gels like all other filters only allow the color of the filter light to pass through it. For example, a daylight balanced (blue) light fixture with a green filter will emit green light. This of course severely cuts down on the amount of lumen output of the fixture as you are only utilizing the green wavelengths of the color spectrum.
You can also achieve a specific color by mixing light. This does not work like mixing pigments, such as paint. The 3 primary colors of light are Red, Green, and Blue.
R+G=Yellow
G+B=Cyan
R+B=Magenta
Spend a few hours browsing wikipedia for more in depth information on lighting, light fixtures and the science behind it all.
Openface lights can focus as well, the focusing ability of a light comes from changing the placement of the lamp between the reflector and face.
Hmmm. I think you will find that open faced and fresnel are both focusable. The fresnel lens does work by concentrating the beam at the centre of the light - but the real benefit of a fresnel is the soft falloff of the beam.