Buying Lights Any Tips?

[ms2364]

Hi

I am buying some lights for video work. I am looking at some 3 piece kits on ebay. Mostly special flourscents wna t a barn door, some soft lighting too.

Any tips

[thebes]

I have one of the soft-boxes from Amvona. I forget what I paid for it, but it was quite cheap compared to the better known labels. It is 1000 watts, has a stand that is way overkill (14' ?), came with spare bulbs, etc. It was a real deal.

The only problem I have with it is now I need to get a mogul base 5000k CF at about 200 watts, and that is a very very unique bulb... I am moving to fluorescents for the color balance, energy efficiency, heat, etc.

I've also been looking at some of the multibulb per light kits at B&H, these have normal bases, cheap bulbs, and use several bulbs so you get a softer light without killing so much of your output in a softbox. These are a lot cheaper than the high end panel style ones, and a few have softboxes if you need one. I think I'm getting a couple of these this month, if I do I'll post back here about how they work out.

I've only made a couple of orders from Amvona, but their stuff has always been an excellent value, the quality is 85% of what you'd pay 2-3 times as much for. If I were shooting 5 days a week I'd buy the top tier stuff though.

BTW, if you need barn doors on a light that doesn't have them, try some aluminum foil (could paint it with engine paint to get black, will flake...) clipped to the light with oversized paperclips (the tiny triangle-ish black ones with folding silver levers). This is a trick we used a lot when I was in college. My experience with fluorescents has been that they are soft enough you want lighting modifiers further from the light... ymmv

[ms2364]

So what would you consider a good slightly better than basic setup?

[thebes]

Right now I have what I consider a rather basic setup. I just started doing video, and hot lights are new to me.

I have one 1000 watt softbox and 2 300watt clamplights and gaffers tape and a reflector and aluminum foil, etc. I consider that a too temporary basic setup.

I suppose that I would consider a basic setup 3 lights with stands. One twice as powerful as the others. A softbox or some skrims (?sp), a snoot, a few flags with stands, some clamps that the lights can mount too(!), good cords. Never underestimate the usefulness of these folding reflectors and some thumbtacks in a tight hotel room..

I have been having problems shooting with less than 1500 watts of tungsten light and some of my bulbs don't color match either.

I suppose that I might consider one of the amvona panel lights down the road. They would sure be convenient, but are a bit large to travel with.

I am very inerested in some of the new daylight balanced fluorescents. I have seen several with variable output, a huge plus.

I wonder what other people are using??? As I've mentioned I am new to hotlights (I've owned and sold and owned and sold lots of strobes over the years).

[paul7]

For lightning I prefer 1000W reflector bulbs. It's hardcore but working nice.

[refundovich]

I use two four foot four bank kino flos at 45 degrees to the set and I have a two foot diva to move around. This set up gives you tons of light, matches well with daylight from windows and gives a flatish kind of light that looks bright and snappy for porn. For those hard to reach areas, go to your local hardware store and get a two foot fluorescent fixture, then toddle off to a pet store that sells snakes and amphibians and get a light that frogs like...not kidding...it balances well with your daylight and you can shine it even where the sun don't shine for bright images. This set up is also perfect for really fast high production still shooting as well. Fuck the hairlight, it just slows you down and unless you wanna be a glamour guy, it is a waste of time. I shoot around 12 photo sets and three or four videos on a typical day, so this works really well for me. There are cheaper options, but the kinos are well worth the extra money over the years.

[Digitaldivas]

Check out the Smith Victor KT series lighting kits. It's tungsten, and 3 piece with lights, blubs, stands, umbrellas, etc are around 200 and up

[thebes]

I just got in a Cool Lights 220 watt 2ft kino flo clone today. I'll post back how it works out after the next shoot in about 10 days. The one I got is a light weight travel model, cost far less than a kino flo, and seems pretty well built. Hard to judge the light quality by eye. Its got daylight tubes and I picked up some daylight flo bulbs from bh too for my older lights. I am psyched because I've had some recent trouble with daylight ingress in a couple shoots with tungsten bulbs and the daylight made things surprisingly blue in small areas.