What to buy for my first tungsten light?

V

Victor Nhat Nguyen

Well-known member
Seeing as how tungsten lights are so cheap on Ebay. I been looking to buy some mole richardson or arri. However, what wattage do you think I should go with for my first light. I want to be able to shoot this light through silk or some type of diffusion or make a book light out of it.
 
There are so many options. Consider a 650 Fresnel. It provides a decent amount of light, it's not too big/heavy to transport, it's easy on the wall socket and it can be scrimmed, dimmed, or fitted with a smaller bulb if you find it has too much light.

It may not have the power you are looking for to use as a book light depending upon the application. Maybe you need something bigger for what you want to do.
 
you can always dim/scrim DOWN a light thats too powerful for a given situation (or move it back if theres room), but you cant make it brighter if it isnt bright enough. therefore the less you have, the higher I'd be inclined to go with wattage (up to a point, you dont want something that wont work on a 15a circuit). that said, I would agree on a 650 as a middle of the road solution...not too powerful, not too weak.
 
Buy a 650 Arri Fresnel and buy some 650W bulbs as well as 300W bulbs...and yes, the 300w bulbs fit in the 650.
 
Just to get terms straight, the power draw is 1000 watts (1k is 1000 watts). The current draw is 8.3 amps. So you can run one of these on a 15 amp outlet and two on a 20 amp outlet.
 
depending on what kind of stuff youre working on, you may not be making book lights as often as you think. you may be pressed for and space and have to settle for pounding it through a simple piece of diffusion, bouncing it into foamcore (or similar) or even putting a Chimera/softbox on it.

Any light will work for a book light, BUT...I believe you more or less lose half your light with each bounce. so if a booklight is two bounces, youre looking at your 1k being a 250 by the time it actually hits the subject.
 
If you're doing bounce, a fresnel is a waste of money in most cases. Why would you focus a light that you want soft? An open faced light with decent barn doors is cheaper, and more versatile for bounce or diffusing.

If you are really limited in lights, start with fresnels since they are great direct lights. But keep your eye out for decent open faced units.

I really love having rectangular theatrical units. They take "work light" style lamps from 100w to 1K (that cost a couple bucks each in the lower wattages), they're cheap and tough. I use them way more than my fresnels for soft lighting.

DSC_0018.jpg
 
Book lights are rarely done with a unit smaller than a 2k blonde. Great light in my opinion, if you have the means to power them. They pack a lot of punch and are very lightweight and compact. I don't see them on fleebay very often though. A couple of those nook lights that michael speaks of will also work though, they're really cheap too.
 
I think folks were recommending the fresnel as a compromise if you were only going to have "one light" (for now), can be bounced, diffused, used directly, etc. Maybe not IDEAL for everything, but much easier to control than the open faced units. Vic what kind of stuff do your foresee yourself working on? More indie films or related material or more corporate video, etc.?
 
Josh Bass said:
I think folks were recommending the fresnel as a compromise if you were only going to have "one light" (for now), can be bounced, diffused, used directly, etc. Maybe not IDEAL for everything, but much easier to control than the open faced units. Vic what kind of stuff do your foresee yourself working on? More indie films or related material or more corporate video, etc.?
Click to expand...

I guess it's a mixture of both. The only thing that's a regular shoot on my schedule is a cooking show. Right now we're using 2 cheap EPhoto softbox. It works but it's very green.
 
An Arri 650w fresnel is totally a good suggestion. One of my friend's first lights was a Mole 2K redhead. It wasn't very useful by itself, but everybody wanted to work with him because he had the light nobody else did.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top