[Edwin Pieroelie]

Greetings everyone, I know in other posts they call responding to a very old thread “raising the zombie” but i feel this fluorescent lighting topic is still very “hot” today.

My situation is unique in that I live (and work) in Jakarta, Indonesia and we don’t always have access to all of the materials/products mentioned on the posts. Take for example my longing to engage in DIY fluorescent lighting. I have searched high and low for the following products but they are no where to be found. I even phoned the philips distributor here in Jakarta and they couldn’t help me.
lighting: Philips T8 Tl 930 and 950, Optima 32, Optima 50.
support: Philips ADVANCE Mark 10 Ballast.

My question to the forum is: When I look for fluorescent lighting what do I look for? Is it enough for me to look on the box and see 3200k and know that this is good for inside? And look for 5500k for outside lighting?

What makes the Philips and Optima lights so special? I am sure there must be equivalents here in Jakarta but I don’t know what specs I have to ask for! I know about the cool white, and the other “flavors” of fluorescent. Of course watts are important too.

Let me give you the following example of where I am right now.

I want to shoot green screen indoors on a AVG-HPX 172 EN Panasonic P2 (just bought it :-)) and for my key light i figure i need 1000w of light, do all i need to do is go to the store, find the fluorescent lights that are 3200k (let’s say the cool white ones) , read the wattage (let’s say it is 250) which means I buy 4 of them, put the package together and I am ready to go??

WHat other specs do I need to worry/know about? And here in Indonesia the ballasts available are just simple ones that go above your tiles on the roof beside the fluorescent lights … is that the same as what I need? If you have the time, it would really be appreciated! I would be willing to send over free stock footage of Indonesia if you ever need it! As long as I don’t have to pay to travel hahahaha but I would be happy to put it on DVD and pay for the regular postage to send it over to you. Kind of like a barter for assistance, video style.

Thanks in advance for all the help,

edwinp