Using Flourescents (non-Kino Flo)

P

Policar

Carbonite Member
I'm shooting a video pretty soon that requires some outdoor lights. I know how wonderful daylight balanced kinoflos are; I've used them. I know how wonderful HMIs are just from hearing people rant about them.

But I can't afford either, and I can't afford the light to fuel an HMI outdoors anyhow.

So, anyway, there are these 6100K (too blue? I don't mind so much, really) flourescent bulbs which are dirt cheap and apparently produce 3000 "lumens" (are those the same as foot candles? If so, that's a lot!)

What should I know when shooting with them? Should I just keep my shutter speed to 1/60th to avoid flicker (I shoot 1/48th normally)?

http://electrical.hardwarestore.com/13-41-fluorescent-bulbs/ge-daylight-bulb-108548.aspx

Thanks.
 
question on question

question on question

hi

unfortunately i can't give you any hints about this fluos as long as i never used them but i'm interested in.
my question is how are you gonna use them. Do you attach them to a DIY bank? or what?

ed
 
I'm planning to use them as normal, attatching normal 6100K bulbs to a normal flourescent fixture. The issue, of course, is flicker. I assume I can get away with using them at 60hz (1/60th of a second shutter) if I don't use a dimmer (and I wouldn't) but I'd prefer to have some flexibility with shutter speed and I'm not even sure they wouldn't flicked at that rate.

The main reason I need them is because you lose so much light output using CTB.
 
You may or may not get that ugly hum or buzz noise often heard with regular flouro set ups. I have never used the Kino's but I would thnk that they are made to be used in various productions so I doubt they produce those sounds...
 
You won't have a problem with the tubes buzzing, but make sure your get a decent fixture to put them in. I actually got a cheap one that doesn't flicker or buzz, so look around and you'll find that they work really well.
 
I made a bank of 40" fluoro's a few months ago. I took a clothes rack (the kind that are on castors and are made out of aluminum) and mounted the ballasts to that. The height is adjustable, so I was able to adjust the vertical height of the light bank... something I still intend to do is create a way to mount it so I can tilt the lights as well.

For suggestions:

My biggest suggestion to you would be to secure the ends where the bulbs lock in. I bought 3 extra bulbs, and by the end of our 4 day shoot, we broke all 3 bulbs, just by moving it around and not making sure the bulbs were put in correctly.

With your concern to flicker, we were shooting between 1/24, and 1/250 shutter speeds, and didn't get any flicker, so I don't think you're going to have that problem.

Fluoro's are really cheap and can look really cool if you know how to set them up.
 
Is this a day exterior? The problem you will have is that flouros are soft light and have no throw (talk to Barry about inverse square rule), so unless you're going to have the fixtures very close to your subject, it will be like spitting in the ocean. Look into reflectors as an alternative (silver Celetex insulation sheets are about ten bucks for a 4x8 sheet at Home depot, cut them in half and you have two, and if you can't find silver a can of chrome aluminum spray paint) You'll need to devise a stand for them (C-stands are pricey, but an excellent investment because you'll use them forever) If you need to use lights, I've found that 1k par cans (which are hard lights with a lot of throw) with blue gel can work nicely as an HMI substitute in daylight.
 
It's a night exterior of a building, and yes--I know how tough it is so I'm going to use a lot of bulbs. I'm familiar with the inverse square rule but I'm always surprised how kinoflos seem to fall off quicker than other bulbs, so I may try to rent a generator and flood the place with 1k halogens+1/2 CTB then just balance to that instead of blue. I'm trying to find a construction company that rents out 1.2k HMIs (or maybe just get my hands on an arrisun for the day) but so far no luck. Thankfully most of it can be handled in close ups, but there are a few wide shots which are going to kill me. I love blue light for night shots and I want any light sources which are motivated by artifical lights to look orange by comparison, so that's why I'm hoping to light the scene blue (also going to haul in a fog machine probably, definitely going to need to rent a generator.)

I'm also using them for some day interiors where I'll be mixing them with 500w+CTB1/2 halogens as though they were kinoflos. Perhaps I'll cover them with a CTO1/4 in that case (I like to keep sources motivated by indoor lights slightly orange and sources motivated by outdoor lights slightly blue.
 
Policar said:
So, anyway, there are these 6100K (too blue? I don't mind so much, really) flourescent bulbs which are dirt cheap and apparently produce 3000 "lumens" (are those the same as foot candles? If so, that's a lot!)
Click to expand...

No. A lumen is not a foot candle. The conversion is

Lumen to Footcandles: Multiply by 0.0929

so, your 3000 lumens flos would be about 279 foot candles.
 
Policar said:
but I'm always surprised how kinoflos seem to fall off quicker than other bulbs,
Click to expand...
The softer a light source is, the less reach it'll have. Soft light=inherently diffused light, so the more diffused it is, the more random directions the photons are headed in, and accordingly they don't carry very far. A PAR can light up a building from across the street because it's intensely focused. But it won't light up a very large portion of that building, again because it's intensely focused.

Hard lights have punch and reach. Soft lights don't.
 
Makes perfect sense. Does that mean I can use PAR lights as a poor man's inky or mini-mole? (Swapping between flood and spot bulbs as opposed to being able to focus the beam.)

If so, then awesome.

I know all this "home depot" light stuff seems ridiculous, but I can't afford to buy a kit or rent one for the duration of the shoot I'll be working on. This is low budget as in "out of my own pocket and most of my jobs I've had have paid a dollar or two above minimum wage at best and I'm a college student" low budget.
 
PAR bulbs (par64?) are usually 1k globes. One strategy you could use is to get 2-3 pars and hit selected sources from the side. Lighting by patches. a patch of grass here, the side of a tree there, just enough to give hints of shape and dimension in the background. Worked for me on a night time western scene. Actors lit by campfire ( and 650 ), background lit by 2-3 pars.

since you are lighting a building, why not add some arcitectual lighing, 300s or 650s at the base of a wall shooting up, or perhaps creating some practical porch lights.

-j
 
i decided

i decided

well..following this discussion i'm going to build my own fluos bank..
so i have some questions..

dj200423 which clothes rack did you use for that? well what is a clothes rack in other words..unless i'm not english i can't understand what you mean, can you show me a pic or something?

then what will i need more? fluos fixture parts, fluo starters and ballasts?
if anyone has a fluos bank DIY project would be helpful..
thanks

ed
 
Just my two cents here...
if you are lighting a night exterior, then why not try to get a bigger light, and set it back further and you'll get a more-even illumination. The benefit of using Fluorescent lights is to be able to place them close to a subject- no heat. Sounds like you'd want to use the fluorescents as a practical in a shot/interiors.

I've been shopping at the local Lowes and Home Depot for fluorescent fixtures. Seems the rule is to not scrimp when it comes to buying a fixture and ballast. More $=better.
Also what I've read on the internet suggests that you want to buy two-bulb fixtures, because the 4-bulb fixtures still produce hum and flicker.

Let us know what you find out, I'll do the same.

Jeff Patnaude :beer:
 
The conclusion I ultimate came to was this:

Instead of lighting diffused blue (I wanted to rent an HMI, but will be unable to), I'm going to rent a generator, hook up 2 1ks and 2 500s to it (ungelled), then spread them pretty far apart and use some fog instead of diffusion.

Then, I'm just going to put CTOs over the practicals and shoot tungsten balanced with a cool tint. That way, the practicals will blow out less, and they'll look orange to the blue/white of the "moon." So no flourescents at all and ultimately even less money spent.
 
Just to tack on a note about fluo. set ups -> One of the key reasons that people have problems with 4 bank fluo. set ups humming and getting screwed up, is that the ballasts attempt to feed each bulb in sequence. If one bulb goes dead, you need to remove all four bulbs at the same time, otherwise they are not each being fed the correct amount of power, thusly, color temperature will start to stray between bulbs, bulbs will begin to flicker, hum loudly, and eventually, if they are underpowered enought, they can fuse their prongs to the ballast, and destroy it. You save a good deal of money in the long run buying quality two bulb ballasts... you save yourself the trouble of having inconsistant footage by renting or buying Kinos/MoleScents(or whatever they are called)/Caselights. Caselights are also relatively inexpensive for what they do for you.

In reference to the mounting question before, you could probably just buy one of the mounting brackets off of a Kino and mount it to a DIY rig. They simply affix in a hook and eye type system. Good luck,
 
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