This Dumb Question again…

[Ken Zukin]

Well, personally I have HMI’s, tungsten, and fluorescents, and since you mentioned the the “time” factor, I’d steer you toward the fluorescents. Using them, I know that no matter what is at the end of the elevator, be it daylight-balanced or tungsten, with the Divas I can respond quickly. They also break down fast as you don’t have the cooling-of-bulbs issues. Dimmable, too. If you get two, make sure to go big/small, or very-big/big.

The fixtures themselves produce nice, flat, flattering type light, but lack “punch.”

I’m sure some would steer you toward LEDs — they’re probably fine as well.

The tools help — but it’s mastering the craft that’s most important.

[Terry Leahy]

True…So Kino Flo Diva Lights. Yeah the more I read about using them in cramped spaces the more I kinda like them. They don’t seem that great for lighting a room, but good for lighting a subject, which at this point is more my focus.

You mentioned very big/big or big/small…What do you mean? Like a 401 and 201?

Any other thoughts?

[Terry Leahy]

I ask because I am looking at these

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/504311-REG/Kino_Flo_KIT_D42_120_Diva_Lite_400_Two_Fluorescent.html

[Mark Suszko]

Sorry I’m late, Lowel Rifa gets my vote for the interview light.
You didn’t really expect me not to say it, right? 😉

[Bill Davis]

My 2 cents.

Tungsten lights are three things. First, fully understood. Second, extremely variable and controllable. Third, astonishingly inefficient burning up most of their power as heat rather than light.

Fluorescent lights are three things. First, WAY more energy efficient than the above. Second, moderately harder to understand and control. Third, significantly more limited in practical use than tungsten sources.

LED fixtures are three things. First WAY, WAY more energy efficient than ALL of the above. Second, even harder to understand and control than BOTH of the above. Third specialized, but developing faster than either of the others.

These are all gross simplifications and even exaggerations, but there’s a whole bunch of truth to it anyway.

Tungsten is going away BECAUSE of it’s profound inefficiency. No other reason because it’s totally flexible and useful, comes in a zillion varieties, and is totally understood by generations of pros.

Fluors and LEDs (and to a lesser extent other niche solutions like HMI and even ceramic discharge) require more babysitting and effort to work with – and there are serious holes in each technologies suitability for doing common lighting tasks – particularly compared to tungsten – which over time has been bent and adapted and enclosed to make it superb for everything from spotlighting, broad fill, soft lighting and everything else you might need to do with light. Which would make it perfect – if it wasn’t so damn ridiculously INEFFICIENT at it’s basic task.

You live in the middle era. Inefficiency is increasingly intolerable. And the other stuff isn’t nearly as well developed – so you have to pick and choose what you value most. Control? Frugality? Efficiency?

The other issue is that mixing them can be an issue. Most people seem to buy LED suff in 5600k – which means you have to deal with color correcting them to work with Tunsten – or buy bi-color LEDs or TWO groups of tubes for your Fluors.

Welcome to modern lighting.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Terry Leahy]

Wow Bill, Thank you for ruining my dreams of an easy choice. 🙂

This makes my purchase way more difficult. I mean truthfully I need something controllable that can be used for various situations from lighting a full on location set, to a simple interview. But I can’t blow a circuit wherever I am. I also, often need to pack up quickly so waiting for lights to cool down will suck. But, these were the tools used by the pros for 100 years and fully understood as you said.

Something is telling me to go flourescent with two types of bulbs on diva lights but now i’m not sure. I mean, does it make sense to grab a tungsten kit for 2 grand as a base kit before expanding into flourescent, or should I just start with 2 diva lights and build around them?

Decisions…decisions….

[Terry Leahy]

I think I know what I’m going to do. After consulting with a couple DPs I worked with, they recommended to go with an ARRI kit first. Basically, master lighting using the tools everybody else did and then add in the others as neccessary. And seeing as a diva lite 401 kit is 1400 and an arri kit with 3 650s is 1800, to start with the basic kit. Then when funds are available, grab a diva lite and begin using that to light subject and using the arris to light the backgrounds. After all, if I just have a diva lite, then the subject looks great but thats it, since I wouldn’t have enough light to actually light the rest of the location.

Basically, I’m thinking master the basics…then add to.

Thoughts?

[John Sharaf]

Hi Terry,

I feel your pain, although it was 35 years ago (or more) when I was in the same spot as you. Since then I’ve bought, owned and used more than 150 lighting instruments; Tungsten, HMI, Fluorescent and recently LED, but in all that time I never bought a “kit” other than a two-light Joker 200 kit and a four-light Dedo kit.

Instead, I used to buy kit boxes, mostly the red ones from Mole Richardson, because they were nicely squared and stacked and fit on my shelves and in the vehicles I used at the time.

Now, because I work out of a 20000 lbs truck with shelves and a liftgate, I use large carts (Backstage Studio Equipment) populated with lights in milk crates.

I guess what I’m suggesting is that you buy particular lights in the order of necessity and design you own “kit” in the process.

Obviously the first light one needs is a “key” light for portraiture; for this, the choice of a 400 Diva is a no brainer, although if price were no object I’d recommend a PRG TruColor HS LED Light instead (I recently bought two of these and they’ve become my first-choice go-to unit, although they’re expensive and the kit box is large).

Both of these lights share the requisite features of daylight and tungsten interchangeability, soft and bright source light effect yet with dimmer capability without changing color, high efficiency and low heat. Tungsten lights have none of these features.

As with all lighting equipment, it’s best to buy like Noah did with his Arc, two at a time, so you have an instantly available spare and backup.

You are clearly interested in lighting the background next, and this is a good strategy, although many times you can pick a proper background from the practical set and just light the person in the foreground to the proper ratio. In that case the next most important light would be a backlight or scratch light.

The Arri 300’s you mention are very good backlights; they are bright enough to take a CTB gel to correct for daylight use (with your Diva in that mode) and still have a usable effect. They can also make a pattern on the background (although relatively small) or light an object in the background to create depth. Gain, if price were no object, I’d recommend a Dedo kit (3 or 4 lites) and the dichroic filter accessory they offer.

In fact, when pushed (like traveling very lightweight) I often go with two Joker 800’s with Chimeras (for Noah’s Arc backup and use as key and background) and a set of Dedo’s; it’s amazing how much damage one can do with these three kit boxes (plus of course stands, sandbags and AC extensions).

Another excellent choice for backgrounds is the ETC Source Four Leco. This is a relatively cheap unit, can use 575 or 750w globes and with choice of instertable “gobo” patterns is very flexible and creative. It’s only tungsten, but that’s often a good choice with a daylight key to create color contrast in the background quickly without even putting on a gel. The one drawback to this unit is that it’s difficult to case and/or transport.

I could go on and on to describe the use and necessity of owning a hundred different types of lights, but I believe I’ve covered the basics here.

Additionally, I’d just remind you to seek out buying used lights of the type you want to save some money. There are many sources of used gear and these types of motion picture lights are designed and built like trucks, meaning for a long life of hard use, so there’s no reason not to buy used if you have the time and patience to wait for the right opportunity.

Good luck!

JS

[Dennis Size]

Excellent advice John … as usual.
The PRG Trucolor is a very good fixture, with a wonderful quality of light.
Have you tried the new Litepanel Helio Hi-Output LED? It’s an excellent alternative and even compliment to the Trucolor, especially for throw distances as far as 20′-0″. It is 5600 Kelvin, and at only 100w, it’s 72 10deg LED’s replace the need for a 1.2kw HMI. We bought about 40 of them for our lighting at the London OLYMPICS.
We then used them for the Democratic National Convention and will be sending them out for the upcoming Presidential Debates.

DS

[Terry Leahy]

Very interesting…Go with individuals instead of kits…I like this idea.