whats more practical? Halogen or Fluorescent

Curtis.Laronde

Curtis.Laronde

Active member
Im a part time actor, I did a job with the movie network and noticed the crew used tons of fluorescent lights. I've always beleived that halogens would be better because the intensity is stronger and they dont flicker like fluorescents do. For my case fluorescent seem so obtainable and easy.

Do $10 home depot tubes do the job? or do I have to purchase a top notch brand to get the results I want? Oh I forgot to mention I'm looking to avoid the blue'ish lights. Im leaning towards a golden daytime type of light, often filmed in dim lit rooms.

Last couple of questions, what do u guys think about the halide lamps with stand for $40 at home depot? Or should I just get a few softboxes from ebay and save myself a few headaches.

Thanks
Curtis
 
Flicker has nothing to do with the tubes, its all about the ballast. You can find lights with electronic ballasts at home depot that don't flicker. If you happen to get one that does flicker, just take it back to HD and trade for another. When I was first starting out, I found one of the kitchen type 4 bulb fixtures there and it worked great for about $50. I personally consider the T8 four foot tubes like those at HD to be better for green screen lighting and like the 21 inch biax 55w tubes (like those used in Cool Lights fixtures as well as many other industry standard ones) for lighting subjects. Easier to flag off the light where you don't want it to go. Easier to use eggcrates filters with to also flag off light. But you can get away with all 4 foot tubes everywhere if you're just blanketing your set with soft light. You'll have a tougher time though finding the 3200K tubes you want with a four foot T8 type home depot fixture than you will with a pro biax 55w type fixture. Occasionally you can find 3000K 4 foot tubes though and that might work for you. Just make sure that the color rendering index (CRI factor) is about 85 or higher and you should be fine.

Your term "halide lamps" is misused I think you meant halogen lamps. Two different technologies. The halogen work lights at HD are another option for sure and many start out with these type units. Information is even available around the web and on my site on how to add barndoors to such a light to make it a bit more usable. But doing DIY is all a trade of time for money so you will spend more time messing around to get what you want with these kinds of lights.

The halogen worklights provide a hard light inherently where fluorescent provides a soft light. Thus, you need to add diffusion to make the halogen soft but you can never make the fluorescent fixtures hard so it all depends upon what you want to do with your lighting, what kind of shadows you want (or not want), the throw you need from the fixture, etc.
 
Thanks, its gonna help alot.

for lighting from above, what would be easier to use? I want to cast shadows so Im going to guess the halogen. Plus they come in single lamps. much easier to hang. I just want to double check and get a second opinion.
 
I use both fluoro and incandescent mixed. They mix well (assuming you get the temperatures close). I light the subject with the incandescent and the background with the slightly warmer fluoro, then white balance on the subject. That gives the subject a truer color and the background is a hair golden.

I agree with Richard that the HD fluoro does a good job lighting greenscreen.

The fluoro will also cast a shadow, albeit a little softer. I've used a 4 foot HD shining up from the floor on the actors to get a soft shadow on the wall...then shot at a Dutch angle.

Like Richard says above, the Cool Lights offers all the convenience and control of mountable fixtures, barn doors, egg crates, etc. You can be inventive to do those same things with HD lights, but If you do a lot of shooting, it's worth the extra bucks to go with Cool Lights.
 
I never even thought of lights from beneath. That would cast some intresting shadows on the subjects.

Im going to get some blinds from the store, or from the garbage, so I can put it infront of the lights to get the cool dawn look.

what effect does egg crates add? Or just reflectors?

This is just an idea but there must be a way to stick a computer fan on the back of the HD Halogen lights. Sounds like a project for the weekend. I heard they get super hot.
 
A while ago I tried to be clever and get work lights and make my own Flo's with grow light fixtures and other Flo fixtures from Home Depot. This was when pro Flo's were offered by just a few companies and were costly (and still are from some like Kino).

Richard and Cool Lights wasn't around yet. As it turns out, I spent more money than one pro light now costs from Cool Lights and I have nothing to show for it that really works or that I would let anybody see.

Save yourself money, time and looking like a non-pro and get at least one light from Cool Lights. You will be happier, spend less time farting around and look like you know what you are doing.

You'll even have something you can sell if you need to and get most of your money back. You can even rent them to friends and get all your money back. This will never happen with a Home Depot set up. If you really need to you can make a flo light stick from Home Depot work for putting on the floor or whatever, but you should have at least one solid pro light to work with. If you are willing to go through the trash like you said then spend a few days collecting aluminum cans and cash them in at your local recycling buy back center and you can pay for a starter pro light from Cool Lights.

And no, I don't work for Cool Lights. Richard has too much class to have a guy like me around:)
 
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hah the cans thing was funny, and probably would work because my neighbourhood has a certain day of the week aluminum cans are picked up from the curbs.

Im aiming towards a small army of halogens, just to be safe because im kinda worried about the light temperatures mixing.
 
Well if you stick with a 2800K to 3000K fluorescent color temperature you can match well to the halogen worklights as that's the range they are in. As long as you match color temps well there shouldn't be any problem with green spikes or such.

Don't bother with fans on the halogen worklights it will be aggravating for sound recording and won't help all that much as the light these emanate is very hot because of the high infrared component in halogen light. One major reason we call Cool Lights like flos and HMI "Cool Lights" is that they do not have this infrared output and thus, the light bathing a subject is not as hot although HMI bulbs do have UV output which is another whole subject.
 
No serious ones do other than some electronic HMI ballasts which may have a fan. But you don't really need a fan in the fixture itself unless they used some kind of material that the feel needs to be kept cool (like plastic). Fans are a no no on film and TV sets where sound is being recorded. Its really not necessary to use one.
 
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