what would you buy with this budget?

K

keaten

Active member
Alright, what would your list of lights and accessories be with my budget and what I am going to be shooting...

I have a 3,000 dollar budget

I am shooting with the canon 7d and sometimes my hvx

I have a couple music video and short film shoots coming up. Scenes from indoors at night with crowded rooms to outside in bright sunlight up against buildings in shade. So really I need lights that will get me by in all kinds of conditions. You may ask why don't I just rent? well I want to start somewhere collecting my gear and now is an opportunity for me.

Now I am not a fan of home made rigs with cardboard and foam ****. I like the real deal even if it means I am going to spend more money for the same product in the end. Basically I like to look professional.

Also this thread isn't to hear everyone rant about me needing more "experience" and so on. I want to know what others would purchase with what lies ahead of me. This could be fun and interesting to see the differences in opinions and also very educational for a lot of us.

thanks
 
1200 hmi + 4x4 kino or two and the proper stands...It's a good start and it'll get you enough light 90% of the time.

I don't think you should bother with tungsten units if you've got this much money to start out. You can alwyas get daylight and tungsten kino bulbs and gel the 1200 orange if you really need it tungsten. It's much hardr for you to get some 2k's and gel them blue for daylight lights, as they won't really output enough.

Look for this stuff used though. No sense in buying it new...this stuff lasts forever.
 
I guess you want different opinions.

I understand the recommendations for an HMI but I suggest you not go in that direction. What is hoped for with the 1200W (PAR) is that it is bright enough to compete with the sun in your outdoor shots. I own four such lights and they are barely useful in direct sunlight and only if quite close to the talent.

Handle your daylight stuff differently. For shooting in open sunlight. position the talent so that sun is behind them. Then you can use a nice, flat bounceboard for fill. Make the bounceboard instead of buying a flexfill using a 4'X8'X1" white polystyrene beadboard cut into two 4'X4' pieces. Cover one side of both with something like Lee soft silver, which is 4' wide and about $5 per linear foot.

Use the bounceboards for open shade under a tree or next to a building as well.

If your talent has to face the sun fly a 12'X12' overhead with 1/2 frost, which will allow some shadows and modeling without too harsh shadows or squinting. An affordable artificial silk rag will look like open shade not daylight.

For indoors buy Kino Flos or their close equivalents. Maybe one 4' four bank and one 2' four bank. Get full sets of both tungsten and daylight balanced tubes.

Buy four tungsten fixtures from about 250W-500W to use for rim lights, kickers, specials, etc.

You'll need some half color temperature blue gel and some diffusion as well.

Ask questions if you want details.
 
China balls! --- cheap, reliable, great on skin tones, the 7d likes warm tones.
Some kino flo's --- diva, 4x4 whatever just pick up 1 or 2 and stands for them.
also grab some used mole 1k's and 2k's there are a million sites that will sell them for cheap, get 2 of each if you can.

Then get the gripage, clamps, bounce, gels, dimmers, stingers, ect and maybe 2 used C stands.

Thats my take on it.
 
Don't try to compete with ambient daylight with that little to spend without renting. One 1200 HMI isn't going to do anything for you in ambient daylight. Approach shooting day exteriors with consideration for time of day and directions first, and use whatever the largest frames your crew can handle with griffolyn or silver lame' on them (as needed).

I wouldn't bother with any tungsten fixtures less than 1K since you can always screen down a 1K if needed and/or lose a stop with full blue (as needed) and/or waste some of it with diffusion or barndoors.

Don't waste what little money you have on Kino fixtures. Look for a good fluorescent alternative like the coollights stuff or something like the Photoflex Constellation with 150 watt CFL's with a medium softbox.

China balls are a great cheap item that you can put either a 500 watt (or 2) photoflood into, or even the CFL's.

I'm a big fan of open face focusable quartz lighting and I'd suggest looking into Lowel DP fixtures and you'll probably have to buy new since any used Lowel units will be overpriced.

You can get cheapo par cans, buy a TVMP for 'em and put some VNSP globes into them for some massive punch.

Try and find used c stands with arms (good luck) and good quality "kit" stands and also try and procure at least 2 high Junior stands with baby pins on them.

This place is great also for grip gear:

http://www.advantagegrip.com/

.
 
Chris Santucci said:
I wouldn't bother with any tungsten fixtures less than 1K since you can always screen down a 1K if needed and/or lose a stop with full blue (as needed) and/or waste some of it with diffusion or barndoors.
Click to expand...

I actually would not recommend a 1k. A few smaller lights is always better than one big light. Put on a 1k and it drastically reduce your ability to run additional lights on that circuit, plus it's such a heavy fixture that it's extremely hard to rig it when you're in a small space. Having several smaller 300w and 150w with appropriate grip gears such as C-stand and super clamps, complimented with 650w and less power hungry fluorescent fixtures like Cool Lights would give you a much more versatile set up.
 
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