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Incandescent Phase-Out Rules
Greetings,
Our university marketing department is currently looking for a simple lighting kit to light a 12’x12′ area in one of our offices for photography purposes. I know video lighting would require a different setup, etc, but my main question concerns the new laws coming into effect for incandescent light bulbs.
B&H lists quite a few tungsten light kits, and so we wonder, would it be better to resort to the fluorescent lighting kits, since incandescent bulbs will soon be phased out by the government? Do photography/video lighting kits stand exempt from these rules because they are necessary to create the certain light temperatures needed in photos/video?
We appreciate any advice on this subject!
Thanks,
H. Hempen
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2 Replies
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I’m not fully briefed on the law you mention, but I assume video gear is exempted. But for shooting in an office, versus a dedcated studio, you have many good reasons to use Flos over incadescents anyway. One is power draw, which is way lower with flos. Another is heat, again, flos run very cool, so your air conditioning costs won’t go up, and noise from having tor RUN the air conditioner due to the hot lights won’t be a problem. Flos also have very long life if treated well. The popular way of lighting people for things like interviews these days makes use of large soft light sources and again, a bank of flos is good for this. Really the only thing I can think of that is a negative for flos is that you can’t make them as directonal and hard-edged as a point-light source like an incandescent light. Oh, and they are not as easily dimmable as halogens. IF you buy the right CRI tubes your color balance will be just fine. These setups cost more up front but pay off over the long haul in low continued operating costs.
If KinoFlo is not in your budget, we were quite happy with Videssence brand for our studio. I don’t think I’ve changed more than one tube in five years of weekly operation.
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Fluorescent lighting might be the way to go for what your doing.
If you are speaking of those silly rules about consumer light bulbs, I don’t think any of them apply to the type of bulbs used in production lighting fixtures. Specialty use bulbs are not effected, and in most cases quartz halogen bulbs are not included. Just the traditional, well loved tungsten/vacuum incandescent. And even in those tungsten styles it will still be possible to get the really big commercial bulbs used in old style scoops, china balls, and tower beacons.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.comI have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed…
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