what light bulbs for diy light

K

kurt1111

Active member
I want to build some of the various DIY light projects on the internet. Generally speaking, which light bulbs should I choose? I'm thinking of color temperatures here, as I understand it's not so good to mix color temps in a shot.
 
First you should decide on daylight vs. tungsten.

Then look at what sort of sockets/fixtures are available.

I had to rig a very big greenscreen and bought some 4' shop light flos and daylight bulbs. Nice amount of light and mixed perfectly with my "pro" biax flos. And cheap. These fixtures are very hard to attach to a stand and aim.

Your best bet may be to get a bunch of china balls in various sizes, and hunt around for high-wattage spiral flos. Nice soft light, and you can get 45 watt spirals (seems like about 200 watt equivalent) from Steve kaiser & other dealers. You can also take a really big china and spray paint the back black for a really ghetto softbox.

There have been many posts here about tungsten photo flood bulbs - standard household size bulbs but in the 250w range. These suckers are very hot and have a short life, and I don't think they're as efficient as the various small tungsten globes that fit various photo/theatrical lights.

The hardest thing to DIY is harder directional light. But there are usually a lot of open-faced tungsten units on eBay used, photo and theatrical. If you check regularly you can often get a deal on older fresnels in the 300-1000w range. With open faced lights, I feel getting something with barndoors (or at last something you can buy doors for) will save you a lot of hassle. You may have to buy a TVMP stand adapter for theatrical lights, which often have a pipe clamp or just a hole that a clamp bolts into. If you save a link to the continuous lighting area on eBay and check daily, you can get lucky. (click the "used" box to save a lot of page views...)

Band & DJ typer par cans may be a cheap option, but you'd want to check the color temp of available bulbs.

For broad, soft light, open-faced stuff works well - you can shoot it through diffusion, bounce it, etc - but it's hard to control spill without barn doors. I haven't seen a lot of DIY stuff in that area, I'm guessing bolting a socket into a coffee can isn't worth the hassle.

I've seen some DIY plans for biax-type flos, using aquarium-supply ballasts; but the chinese imports are getting down to $200 for a 2-tube biax - about 400-500w daylight equivalent - an the hassle of making cases, yokes, and some sort of aiming system (that weighs less than 20 pounds of plywood) makes DIYing them seem like a huge hassle when they're getting so cheap.

There's always the shop-light route, and you can lamp a shop light from 100-1000w with cheap bulbs. A lot of light, some hassles getting them on a standard stand, and the lack of barndoors may be problems, but many DIYers start there.

Overall, you may find that saving up for some import knockoff stuff is your best bet - it's not mole/altman quality, but it would be hard to DIY something to even those standards.
 
Most of them now have electronic ballasts - I find they flicker at crazy-high shutter speeds, like over 1/1000th. Just fine at normal speeds.

EDIT: you could always take a camera to HomeLowesDepot and aim it at the display of lights to be sure. Just cycle through shutter speeds.
 
Michael Carter said:
Most of them now have electronic ballasts - I find they flicker at crazy-high shutter speeds, like over 1/1000th. Just fine at normal speeds.

EDIT: you could always take a camera to HomeLowesDepot and aim it at the display of lights to be sure. Just cycle through shutter speeds.
Click to expand...


WHAT? are you telling me crappy cheap home depot shop lights no longer flicker? I mean isn't this the whole point of buying super mondo expensive kino flos is for their flicker free balasts? if these things don't flicker anymore why would anyone in their right mind pay 2000$+ for a Kino?

I was just in home depot the other day buying something else and just eyed the shop lights and the ones i saw visibly flickered to my EYE (unless they had bad/old tubes or something).

can you tell me any brand names or something in particular that have these ballasts and don't flicker? i would be interested in constructing my own kino flo style thing out of it
 
Homunculus said:
can you tell me any brand names or something in particular that have these ballasts and don't flicker? i would be interested in constructing my own kino flo style thing out of it
Click to expand...

When I bought my 4 footers, I asked the lighting guy - he said "we don't sell anything with magnetic ballasts anymore" - as usual, grain of salt needed with HD advice.

I have a 2-foot and a 4-foot - the 2 foot flickers at about 1/250... my guess is there are some either "improved magnetic" or "el cheapo electronic" ballasts out there. My best guess would be t take a D90 or Canon with a 100mm lens and point it at various fixtures and see what's what.

And I guess I think of "shop lights" as flos and "work lights" as those tungsten rectangular deals - which are cheap and won't flicker (but are probably a pain, I've used them for remodeling, but not shooting).
 
I have used the Home Depot 4' shop lights many times to light with and have never had an issue with flicker. They are too cheap not to pick up a couple of them at least.
 
Michael Carter said:
First you should decide on daylight vs. tungsten.

Then look at what sort of sockets/fixtures are available.

I had to rig a very big greenscreen and bought some 4' shop light flos and daylight bulbs. Nice amount of light and mixed perfectly with my "pro" biax flos. And cheap. These fixtures are very hard to attach to a stand and aim.

Your best bet may be to get a bunch of china balls in various sizes, and hunt around for high-wattage spiral flos. Nice soft light, and you can get 45 watt spirals (seems like about 200 watt equivalent) from Steve kaiser & other dealers. You can also take a really big china and spray paint the back black for a really ghetto softbox.

There have been many posts here about tungsten photo flood bulbs - standard household size bulbs but in the 250w range. These suckers are very hot and have a short life, and I don't think they're as efficient as the various small tungsten globes that fit various photo/theatrical lights.

The hardest thing to DIY is harder directional light. But there are usually a lot of open-faced tungsten units on eBay used, photo and theatrical. If you check regularly you can often get a deal on older fresnels in the 300-1000w range. With open faced lights, I feel getting something with barndoors (or at last something you can buy doors for) will save you a lot of hassle. You may have to buy a TVMP stand adapter for theatrical lights, which often have a pipe clamp or just a hole that a clamp bolts into. If you save a link to the continuous lighting area on eBay and check daily, you can get lucky. (click the "used" box to save a lot of page views...)

Band & DJ typer par cans may be a cheap option, but you'd want to check the color temp of available bulbs.

For broad, soft light, open-faced stuff works well - you can shoot it through diffusion, bounce it, etc - but it's hard to control spill without barn doors. I haven't seen a lot of DIY stuff in that area, I'm guessing bolting a socket into a coffee can isn't worth the hassle.

I've seen some DIY plans for biax-type flos, using aquarium-supply ballasts; but the chinese imports are getting down to $200 for a 2-tube biax - about 400-500w daylight equivalent - an the hassle of making cases, yokes, and some sort of aiming system (that weighs less than 20 pounds of plywood) makes DIYing them seem like a huge hassle when they're getting so cheap.

There's always the shop-light route, and you can lamp a shop light from 100-1000w with cheap bulbs. A lot of light, some hassles getting them on a standard stand, and the lack of barndoors may be problems, but many DIYers start there.

Overall, you may find that saving up for some import knockoff stuff is your best bet - it's not mole/altman quality, but it would be hard to DIY something to even those standards.
Click to expand...

Thanks Michael, could you link to one of these Chinese imports?
 
IMO the Chinese knock offs are a terrible solution. Other than the ones made by Cool Lights they are terribly designed, to the point of being dangerous. If they last 6 months without falling apart you will be very fortunate.

Buy quality if you can afford. If you buy cheap knock offs you will find yourself replacing them two or three times. Add this up and you could have bought quality the first time!
 
I built some DIY FLOs a while back-I used the Kino Flo 2' daylight lamps. I contacted the tech person at Fulham Ballasts-sent him the specs on the 2' Kino bulbs,
and he recommended their Workhorse 7 ballast. Said that this was the closest they made to the Kino Flo Ballast(NO DIMMING). From what I remember, he said that this ballast
will power two bulbs-2' or 4'. My DIY lights are 2' daylight bulbs x 4, and I use two Workhorse 7 ballasts to power them. The color temp. and the output are right on
with the Kino Flos. I haven't checked for flicker-I don't own a camera. But if you're looking to build your own FLOs, this is something you should look into! If I get a chance
to test for flicker, I'll re-post.
 
Search ebay cameras & photo/continuous lighting for fluorescent - you'll see a ton of spiral stuff but also many 3, 4 and 6 tube biax fixtures - some stocked in north america, more from china/hong kong/etc;

Google Alzo digital - they have 2 and four tube units, and their non-dimmable units are on closeout, I think under $200 for twin tube biax;

There's flolight - I bought their three light twin-tube kit, pretty decent - the units have goosenecks vs. standard aiming hardware, but they're so lightweight it works pretty well; 3 lights, 3 really decent 10' stands, useable padded bags for everything, about $600 when I got 'em. Kit price has dropped, but the stands have gone from 10' to 6', not quite as useful. But good stands for flags/etc - never have enough stands.

I find the twin-tube biax stuff incredibly handy, about 500 watt equivalent or so - the plastic housing ones are so light weight, you can use them in all sorts of places, and you can stack several when you need more punch. And the light blends perfectly with daylight, seeing no spikes or casts here.
 
bruce southerland said:
I built some DIY FLOs a while back-I used the Kino Flo 2' daylight lamps. I contacted the tech person at Fulham Ballasts-sent him the specs on the 2' Kino bulbs,
and he recommended their Workhorse 7 ballast. Said that this was the closest they made to the Kino Flo Ballast(NO DIMMING). From what I remember, he said that this ballast
will power two bulbs-2' or 4'. My DIY lights are 2' daylight bulbs x 4, and I use two Workhorse 7 ballasts to power them. The color temp. and the output are right on
with the Kino Flos. I haven't checked for flicker-I don't own a camera. But if you're looking to build your own FLOs, this is something you should look into! If I get a chance
to test for flicker, I'll re-post.
Click to expand...


Is this the one you're referring to?

http://www.prolighting.com/wh7-120-h.html

Are these the bulbs to use with them?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/728827-REG/Kino_Flo_488_K55_S_6P_4_Kino_800ma_KF55.html

what else did you need to get it up and working?


Thanks so much for your insight
 
Is there a difference in the "look" of tungsten and colder lights like flos, if the color temperatures are machted?
 
kurt1111 said:
Is there a difference in the "look" of tungsten and colder lights like flos, if the color temperatures are machted?
Click to expand...

Tungsten lights are usually in the form of a bulb, and as such are more of a 'point source' than fluorescents, which have at least a 2' or 4' axis. Even the compact versions that 'look' sort of
like bulbs still have more scatter/diffusion at the source than the tungsten equivalent.

Hence, you can get 'sharper' edges from the Tungsten.

Obviously if you are going for the diffuse effect, that is easier with fluorescent, so either way there is a difference in the characteristic of the light.
 
kurt1111 said:
Is there a difference in the "look" of tungsten and colder lights like flos, if the color temperatures are machted?
Click to expand...

Absolutely.

Their spectral content is not the same. K temperature doesn't take into account true spectral content, just average color.

There is a reason that the CRI is 100% on tungstens and much less for flos. Even Kino Flo doesn't seem to list the CRI for their lamps although they state "high color rendering".

Tungsten is more like sunlight in spectral output, weighted heavily on the IR/red side. Flos have peaks in greens and blues and will always look more white/green than their K color would make you think.

I used 3200K flos and tungstens together on a shoot recently. Honestly, I prefer tungsten. It just looked more natural.
 
Michael Carter said:
Search ebay cameras & photo/continuous lighting for fluorescent - you'll see a ton of spiral stuff but also many 3, 4 and 6 tube biax fixtures - some stocked in north america, more from china/hong kong/etc;

Google Alzo digital - they have 2 and four tube units, and their non-dimmable units are on closeout, I think under $200 for twin tube biax;

There's flolight - I bought their three light twin-tube kit, pretty decent - the units have goosenecks vs. standard aiming hardware, but they're so lightweight it works pretty well; 3 lights, 3 really decent 10' stands, useable padded bags for everything, about $600 when I got 'em. Kit price has dropped, but the stands have gone from 10' to 6', not quite as useful. But good stands for flags/etc - never have enough stands.

I find the twin-tube biax stuff incredibly handy, about 500 watt equivalent or so - the plastic housing ones are so light weight, you can use them in all sorts of places, and you can stack several when you need more punch. And the light blends perfectly with daylight, seeing no spikes or casts here.
Click to expand...

Do you have a favorite from eBay? How do you like the Konovas from seller Konovacamera?

I've got four KinoFlos but you can never have too many fixtures or stands, what?
 
Sounds like I should try tungsten first. What kind of wattage would I generally need to light 1-2 subjects in a 20' x 20' room?
 
kurt1111 said:
Sounds like I should try tungsten first. What kind of wattage would I generally need to light 1-2 subjects in a 20' x 20' room?
Click to expand...

You need to know the lux/footcandles delivered to the subject from the lamp. The problem with most DIY lamps/bulbs is that they rarely give a nice number in terms of feet/meters vs. fc/lux. This is the value
that factors into your camera f-stop and ISO selection.

Hence the distance from the lamp to the subject is the important value, not 'how big the room may be', other than that constrains the maximum distances that may be involved... well, a 'small ' room does suggest that walls with reflect some light that may affect the light on the subject...so that needs to be accounted for...
 
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