What bulbs are you using in your china balls?

Cool Lights said:
I second what someone else said, that you don't need a china lantern if you use CFLs. Especially like this big one:

CLSFT1%203-4%20View%20White%20Compressed%20Small.jpg


You can hang that upside down from a ceiling, put it in a softbox, side mount it as shown with nothing on it at all and it is one big bright but soft source. Its a 200w 8U bulb and you can get them in 3200K or 5600K.
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I have used bare CFLs many times to shot with, but respectfully disagree about replacing a china ball with them. Now, I haven't used the light you posted above (and have booked mark this post so I can snag some of those for latter use), but I have found that most CFLs I have used still emulate almost a small point source and are a little "Hard" for my tastes. When I put up a china ball, what I am looking for is an almost shadowless wrap. I find that very pleasing for portraiture lighting, in many instances. Now I would replace a china ball with tube fluorescence like Kino-Flos are what looks like some of the products you sell. I have even used regular hardware store fluorescent, dual T-12 reflectors to replace a china ball, but do have a tendency to have more spill.

My favorite soft source portraiture light is actually a large 14" white acrylic globe, for use on outdoor lamp posts. I jury rigged one, with CFLs in an aluminum Home Depot clamp reflector gaffer taped to the hole side of the globe and found it to be a beautiful soft source. I love it as a portraiture light. It is more robust than a china ball and our DIY thrown together one lasted us through 3 or 4 productions, until it ended up in the trunk of a car of I guy I haven't seen for a while. I am definitely going to put another one together as soon as I can.
 
Nothing thats 14" long and 5 1/4" wide could be considered as a point light source at all ;-). Will it be softer inside a china ball? Perhaps, but you also cut a great deal of light as well.
 
Cool Lights said:
Nothing thats 14" long and 5 1/4" wide could be considered as a point light source at all ;-). Will it be softer inside a china ball? Perhaps, but you also cut a great deal of light as well.
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I am looking forward to trying one. It looks like a very useful bulb.
 
David G. Smith said:
I was checking them out on your site. Good price for them. BTW, do they have medium bases or mogul bases?
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Mogul. You'll pretty much find that any CFL above around 105 to 125 watt range will be mogul base as they're just so big that the medium base seems like it might be overpowered by the size/weight of the bulb.
 
Cool Lights said:
Mogul. You'll pretty much find that any CFL above around 105 to 125 watt range will be mogul base as they're just so big that the medium base seems like it might be overpowered by the size/weight of the bulb.
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I have some fixtures that were designed for 500 photofloods, but have medium bases. You don't think that using that CFL, with a mogul to medium base adaptor would be any problem do you?
 
Its all according to how well the medium bases were mounted and supported in the fixture in question. Our CL-SFT1 fixture for example was designed from the ground up to support the added weight of a bulb the size of the 200w 8U bulb. Its just the right diameter and the bulb can rest on the inside and not cause added strain on the mogul socket or its mounting. Thats a key consideration in which fixture to use.
 
Cool Lights said:
Its all according to how well the medium bases were mounted and supported in the fixture in question. Our CL-SFT1 fixture for example was designed from the ground up to support the added weight of a bulb the size of the 200w 8U bulb. Its just the right diameter and the bulb can rest on the inside and not cause added strain on the mogul socket or its mounting. Thats a key consideration in which fixture to use.
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Thanks!.
 
RadioRocket said:
http://www.filmtools.com/nehoba2532qu.html
I just ordered these. They haven't received them yet, but I noticed that they are halogen bulbs. Do they get really hot? If so, wouldn't it be more likely for the china balls to burst into flames?
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All incandescents get hot because of the power they consume only 25% or so is converted to light while the other 75% produces heat.

One big virtue of these lamps is that the have a continuous light spectrum and their color temperature is 3200K, neither of which you can find in CFLs, unfortunately. OTOH, CFLs are about 4 times more efficient in converting energy to light.
 
Has anyone tried using a dimmer on these bulbs? They are tungsten and I think some people have said that dimming a tungsten creates noises? Just curious thanks!

slondon said:
All incandescents get hot because of the power they consume only 25% or so is converted to light while the other 75% produces heat.

One big virtue of these lamps is that the have a continuous light spectrum and their color temperature is 3200K, neither of which you can find in CFLs, unfortunately. OTOH, CFLs are about 4 times more efficient in converting energy to light.
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legrevedotcom said:
These would relatively the same bulbs right? That would save me from buying from abroad...

http://www.flashogfotobutikken.dk/fast-lys-video-lys/paere-115w-til-fast-lys-og-videolys-812.html
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I wouldn't count on that.
If you can check the packaging threre should be a three digits code somewhere in the form XYZ. X is the first digit of the CRI, and YZ stands for the first two digits of the color temperature. For example, 827 means CRI number in the 80's and color temperature around 2700K. Most readily available CFL bubls have CRI in the 80's. You should be looking for bulbs with 90+ CRI. Kino flo has lamps with CRI around 95. OSRAM CFL tubes with CRI 90+ are also easily available. It is harder to find E27 CFL bulbs with high CRI though.
 
prexdealer said:
Has anyone tried using a dimmer on these bulbs? They are tungsten and I think some people have said that dimming a tungsten creates noises? Just curious thanks!
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It's my understanding that noise produced depends on how the dimmer's rated... the closer you can get to a dimmer rated for the specific bulb, the better (using a 1k dimmer on a 100watt bulb is probably going to produce some noise)... unfortunately, with such a low-wattage bulb it's probably unlikely you'll find a close enough dimmer, but it depends on the dimmer and the bulb, so the only way to know is to test the bulb with the dimmer you'll be using.
 
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