Homemade Kino

[John Sharaf]

Mark,

Of course you can do this and have the benefit of the pure photographic colors of the KF globes (in fact I do so in my shop), but when used with the proper KF ballast the light operates at double the frequency, both doubling the tubes output and eliminating flicker at off speeds.

JS

[Mark D’agostino]

Thanks for the quick response John,
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I thought but not having tried it it’s nice to hear from someone who has.

Mark D’Agostino
http://www.synergeticproductions.com

[Richard Crowley]

I am using commodity 4-ft “shop lights” from Home Depot just for lighting green screen. Be SURE to get the kind with high-frequency electronic ballasts vs. the old traditional strobing, buzzing, heavy 60Hz magnetic ballasts. You can get very inexpensive fixtures at commodity outlets with HF electronic ballasts that function just like Kino’s ballasts.

Note that the traditional fluorescent tubes have a horrible green spike in their spectrum which is why they are mostly unsuitable for shooting quality video. HOWEVER for simply illuminating the green screen (NOT lighting the foreground actors/objects) that green spike turns into rather an asset. 🙂

Spending extra $$$ on balanced-spectrum tubes seems like a waste for dedicated green screen illumination. OTOH, if you needed to use the light fixtures ALSO for more traditional kinds of lighting, then balanced-spectrum tubes would be necessary.

[Mark D’agostino]

Thanks Richard. I hadn’t thought about using the green spike to my advantage for the screen. I will check out the HF elctronic ballast fixtures though since I already own a bunch of Kino tubes.

Mark D’Agostino
http://www.synergeticproductions.com