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durable fixtures for shipping
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[Erik Anschicks] “Bill’s wish of a universal lighting kit with an unbelievably small footprint, both in actual size and power draw, is closer than ever”
It is, indeed. Not that long ago (and I’m talking five years or less) I traveled with a truck full of instruments and all kinds of assorted grip and gak.
Not anymore…
Today, it’s almost unbelievable the size/weight difference in what we travel with. It’s almost nothing, compared to the “olden days.”
Three things happened…
Number one, I hit the big 5-0 two years ago and realized I (and my similarly-aged crew members) was tired of dragging around so much weight.
Number two, cameras got soooooo much faster, it changed the entire way of thinking about lighting. Back when I was shooting film, I didn’t really like shooting 5219 because it was a tad grainy for my taste, but when I did break down and shoot it we would all marvel at how fast it was. At 500 ASA. Yes, FIVE HUNDRED, and we thought that was like lightning. Today I regularly shoot at 850 ISO, and sometimes several multiples of that (I shot something at 16,000 ISO a couple of weeks ago), so it has changed everything about the way we think about lighting. Much less firepower is needed now, and often times DP work is now much more subtractive and thinking “What can I turn down, kill, or flag?” rather than the old additive way of thinking.
And thirdly, LED instruments are so much better, smaller, and affordable now. And I run all of mine on bricks (some of which came equipped that way, some of which we added goldmount plates to ourselves). I still use tungstens and flos when on stage, but when on location with the occasional exception of HMIs I never use AC power anymore. And if I never have to look for juice or run a stinger again, that will still be too soon.
Can I light as well with the instruments I have now? Good question. Sometimes yes, sometimes its more “Ehhh, close.” I have given up some control, but I think that will be changing as LED instruments improve, more true LED fresnels are developed, and the fixtures become more flaggable and cuttable. But mostly my lighting now is not really “better” or “worse,” it’s just “different.” And it’s a whole heckuva lot easier.
Yes, times are changing.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Do you think this era will have a signature “look”, as others used to? I’m thinking back to how one thing that makes eighties video “look” “eighties” is the way we did 3-point lighting with a “kicker” plus a hard back light, giving a strong rim light to add separation from the background and simulate “depth”. Back-lighting for general situations got much more restrained and muted as the nineties came in, and often today, folks don’t bother to add it unless motivated by practical sources in the frame, or for a specific reason. In the late nineties/early singles, the naturalistic, low-budget “Dogme 95” eschewed all but actual practical existing light, and camera sensors were just getting good enough to enable that, if you were smart about how to structure the shot and manage exposure.
When you light to simulate a particular era’s style, these things add to the authenticity of the setup.
As we move deeper into the 21st century, what will the “tells” for lighting be? I’m thinking whacky color temps will be one, because early LED products just didn’t have high CRI, and they were also harsh looking without adding diffusion and filtration to recombine dozens of tiny point sources into one larger light-emitting polygon.
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Bob,
The super cheap test unit I grabbed on the last shoot was a Neewer 216. A insanely cheap “pretty much daylight temp” plastic box around a basic LED array with a simple circuit board and nothing but a plastic cold shoe mount with a 1/4-20 embedded brass tap. A whopping $30 out the mail order door!
By contrast, I needed a traveling LED so I bought a bi-color Dracast LED unit at about $200. Way better construction and controls. Aluminum instead of plastic, Upper and lower mounting points, WAY slicker all the way around – BUT the practical level of illumination is sadly WAY lower than the cheap Neewer gizmos.
And I can own 6-7 of the Neewer units for the price of one like the Dracast.
Lets say you’re looking for a Lightpanel 1×1. The off-shore versions are $300 verses $2000 for the name brands. It’s clear you get a HUGE build quality increase – but what s the delta for the functional increase?
And thats why I’m trying to re-think things. Is a BAG of 6 cheap plastic lights MORE valuable – day to day – than ONE bi-color much higher quality instrument?
If it’s exclusively used as an Obie, probably not. In rigging alone, more money gets you real advantages in not dealing with plastic crap.
But can I leverage those 6 cheap heads with gang mounts, soft boxes, grids, umbrellas and flags (all of which are super light, super easy to travel with, and dang cheap – and start thinking in “disposable lighting” for the future.?
I do NOT claim to have an answer to this. But it’s part of why I looked around at all that tungsten gear and realized that for me that era is officially OVER.
FWIW.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Todd Terry] “And I run all of mine on bricks (some of which came equipped that way, some of which we added goldmount plates to ourselves).”
Todd,
For what it’s worth – part of my recent sale was also gritting my teeth and jettisoning all my old Gold and V-mount gear as well.
My HOPE was that I could standardize on one battery type for everything, but the “small light power efficient” world is still too fragmented for that.
My overall target was Sony M type SQ InfoLithium. Which I invested in back in 2011 and the $450 or so I spent on chargers and batteries is still going very strong. I have a bunch and happily they power the Neewer lights – plus my Marshall LCD Monitor and I can usually find adaptor plates available for other gear..
But as always, the manufacturers seem to conspire to make battery consolidation impossible. I still have to run Canon batteries for my camera gear, my fun new SwiftCam gyro iPhone rig has a proprietary battery (boo hiss!) and It seems to me that I still have to drag along the older Sony NP batteries as well as bunches of AAs in my life for wireless audio, photo flash units and wireless triggers – wouldn’t it be great if I could consolidate THAT stuff?
Someday maybe there will be one battery type to rule them all.
A guy can dream, anyway.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Todd Terry] “And I run all of mine on bricks (some of which came equipped that way, some of which we added goldmount plates to ourselves).”
Todd, how many bricks do you usually bring to a shoot? One of the main reasons I don’t power my lighting with batteries much is that in my experience, most times a single Dionic Gold or Vmount around 90wh or so with any kind of discharge mileage on it can only power my LED units at full blast for about a couple hours, at best. Even before that, they can start to flicker or otherwise have issues that can ruin a shot, especially if they’re rental ones where I have no idea how long into their life they are.
Though not always, often times we’re lighting for a couple hours or so at the beginning of the day and then using the same instruments for the shoot duration. To add enough bricks plus backups for multiple lighting units at the aforementioned run times in addition to 1-3 kitted-out camera packages and occasional accessories like a mobile monitor, I’d figure we’d be needing to bring 20+ bricks plus a few chargers every single 10 hr day to feel safely covered.
Obviously, the types of shoots and hours involved will vary greatly, and many will be significantly less that the scenario I mentioned. I just wondered what your workflow was in powering so much off of bricks.
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Hey Erik…
I generally travel with one battery for each instrument (or other device) that I’m powering, and maybe a spare. I know that doesn’t sound like any wiggle room but I have yet to run out of juice on any instrument (and if I did, I can AC backup).
When we first got the LEDs we use now, after I had configured them for goldmounts I decided to run a real test, and picked a couple of different ones, put on a fresh batt, turned them on full blast, and started the clock. I killed the test part-way through, because I was ready to go home and they were still going strong six hours later. So, I stopped worrying about batteries.
I always use goldmount when I can, because those are the batteries we have and also because I HATE V-mounts. A couple of things we’ve had came with V-mounts, and I swapped them out for goldmounts (goldmount plates are not cheap but you can find them inexpensively on eBay… I’ve paid as much as $40 or as little as $5 for them).
I use them for as many things as I can… almost all lighting fixtures (except a few little ones), the field monitor we use, and some cameras. I use the Canon batteries with my C300 now, but with my previous camera the XLH1 I used a brick with it… I had a goldmount adapter from Canon that cut the voltage in half and and I rigged it so that a single battery would power both the camera and the P+S Technik 35mm lens converter that I was using at the time.
I used to be super picky about only using real Anton Bauer batteries, and would have them re-celled when needed by an authorized AB place that guaranteed matching cells, etc…. but no more. Now, I a little embarrassed to admit that I chiefly use these cheap Chinese-made batteries that we get off eBay.
Why? Because they are frikken awesome, that’s why.
These aren’t full bricks, but the pancake size, and they are great for several reasons…
Firstly they are cheap (compared to AB)… it’s been a while since I’ve needed to buy any but if I recall they are well under $200.
Secondly, they are very reliable and powerful.
Thirdly, they have an on-board push-of-a-button fuel gauge so I can instantly see my juice level.
But the best best BEST thing about them is they need no charger. That bears repeating… THEY NEED NO CHARGER. You just plug ’em in, and off they go. I no longer need a $500 charger, and can charge as many as I like all at the same time. Our makeshift “recharging station” used to have a boatload of chargers on it… now, it’s just a bunch of cords.
The only problem I’ve had with them is once the seller shipped me the wrong ones, and I got V-mount versions instead of goldmount. Maybe not normally a big deal, but while it is easy to import batteries into the US, it is much more difficult to send them back to Hong Kong and that part was a big pain in the neck. I’m not sure if the same rules are still in place, but at that time you could not export batteries…. so, it took a while and there were some hoops to jump through (and maybe a little fibbing on the Customs form) to get them changed to the right ones.
Otherwise, they are great.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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These aren’t necessarily the cheapest but they’re my personal favorite LED units by far:
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP eXchange – FCPX Workshops -
Wow Todd, I guess my settings were off and I never until now saw your response. Very detailed and thorough, thank you!
I too have a few batteries that don’t need a charger (Switronix), as they charge with a power cord plugged into the P-tap. I suspect, however, that this might take a decent bit longer than snapping them up to a traditional charger? How long does it normally take to charge the batteries you have through just the power cord, in comparison to an actual 4-brick charger or something akin?
I looked the company up and they’re almost comically cheap comparably for a 130wh brick. Might have to pick up a couple and try them out. Thanks for the reco!
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First: Thanks for the many great insights into LED lights.
Second: I’m most interested in fixtures that are extremely light-weight, to make it easier to “fly” them at the ends of a boom.
Third: I’m still leery of the CRI issues, as well as “drift” over time. Has anyone tried the cheaper units available from B&H? e.g. Generay, Ikan, Dracast, Flolight.
Bob C
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I can’t speak to the cheaper units personally, but I’ll speak for someone else (don’t you love when people do that)….
I do recall that someone on the COW (I’m 99% sure it was Rick Wise) tried the Generay units… he liked the design and the accessory attachment points (built in umbrella holder, etc.), but said the units were pretty bad. I can’t remember if it was a color shift issue, or that they were noisy, or what… but there was some factor that rendered them unusable, and he ended up sending them back. This was a little while back, I remember being very disappointed in the review because I liked the design and had toyed with the idea of getting some myself.
If you want a very small/light unit that you can fly on a boom, the tiny little TorchLEDs from Switronix are great. We’ve flown one on the end of a 10-foot boom as a talent backlight before with no issues. Bicolor, too. Very inexpensive, and very punchy. Battery life could be better, but it’s decent.
Maybe he’ll chime in. Rick, was that you?
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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