tunsgten lighting kit for dv

[vikeira]

Whats a good affordable lighting kit (tungsten) for the panasonic AGDVX 100A. I'm doing a skateboarding documentary with a lot of indoor interviews.

thanks

[Werner Van Peppen]

Whats a good affordable lighting kit (tungsten) for the panasonic AGDVX 100A. I'm doing a skateboarding documentary with a lot of indoor interviews.

thanks

 

I'd get an 800W or i believe they're 650W open face. with some 300W fresnels (you can get away with one). Get some hampshire frost or opal for the open face (or a chimera box) to create a nice soft flattering sidelight and use the 300w as a hairlight. Get some white polystyrene boards from you local dyi store and paint one side black (for negative fill) and use to bounce some openface light back on the subject. The other 300W can be used to rake the background to create some interest. If you haven't got the money get aq chinese lantern for the flood with a photoflood or a exposure bulb.

[Michael Collier]

Get a lowell kit. Great kits for an affordable price. Get 2 omnis and a tota. Get the umbrellas, get the tota-frames. Go out and buy some diffusion. Tuff-spun (made by roscor) is great for eng style shooting, it holds up much better than any other diffusion.

 

any more than 3 lights is more than nessisary for a dv kit, and if you plug in more than 2000w into a house circuit, well you will have an auto dim feature.

 

Make sure to get the barn-doors for the omnis, and buy a bunch of blackwrap (from cinefoil, about 20bucks a roll) its an aluminum foil with a matte black finnish so it doesnt reflect light. great for controlling light and you can cut patterns into it and use it as cookie to break the light up on the background.

 

also werner had some great suggestions with the bounceboard and chimeras.

 

Goodluck and if you get a chance check out Nice Gordon, a snowboarding/skate film I did in Alaska with Jason Borgstede.

[Matt Irwin]

For documentary work, I'd have to agree with Michael. Those Lowel kits are very lightweight and great if you're on the move a lot, especially if you're a one-man-band. If you do end up going with Lowel, also look into their Rifa lights. They're very simple, very fast to set up soft boxes that get small for travel.

 

In my experience, Lowel's tungsten units sometimes have the tendancy to fail. I shoot mostly narrative right now, so I invested in some heavier, more reliable Arri lights. But again, for doc work, Lowel's have served me well.

 

I don't know if it's in your budget, but have you considered fluorescents? Small units from Kino Flo (Divas) or Lowel's CaseLights would be good becasue you can put daylight tubes in them and not loose any output to CTB if you have to shoot in a room with daylight coming through the windows.

[Dan Salzmann]

I'll agree with all above yet I find the Totalights get really hot and are difficult to control with what you would have in a small kit.

[Matt Irwin]

I'll agree with all above yet I find the Totalights get really hot and are difficult to control with what you would have in a small kit.

 

Yeah, I personally hate Totas. They're only good for limited uses like inside a soft box or bouncing a high ceiling from a wall spreader. They spill like crazy and those gel frames act like hard reflectors sending hot spots back behind the head. Pain in the arse.

[Michael Collier]

I only use the totas for general fill lighting, to bring the ambiant up. sometimes off the umbrellas, but there is tons of spill even using that. I have used a tota covered in an halfmoon cover I made out of red gels, diffusion and blackwrap. It controlled all light spill and gave a crazy sunburst pattern behind a full-size cardboard cutout. the totas are odd in that they are soft in one direction, but hard in the other (if the light is close.)

 

Omnis are the workhoarse of the lowell line though. I did see a soft bank kit that had 2 soft faces with lighting insrument and stands (like 2x4ft softlight or something like that) 1000w units (unlike the 250w riffas) for under 500 bucks for the set on B&H photo video. Im definatley considering them.

[Tom Bays]

If your really going to be in a hurry...you could get a camera mount light and buy some diffusion and color correction to wrap around it if needed.

[vikeira]

ok, there's a kit including an omni light, a tota, and a pro - light. i've worked before with the omni light and the tota, but not the pro - light. it sell for almost 800 at b & h. any thought on that smaller pro - light.

[Tim J Durham]

I don't know if it's in your budget, but have you considered fluorescents? Small units from Kino Flo (Divas) or Lowel's CaseLights would be good becasue you can put daylight tubes in them and not loose any output to CTB if you have to shoot in a room with daylight coming through the windows.

 

I just went up to B&H last week and bought a Lowel Caselite 2 kit and a Caselite 4 kit. I'm totally sold on these, the "kit" packaging makes them much handier than Kinos, I think, and I'll never have to scorch my fingertips again. But that's nearly $2K for two lights. I also bought a LitePanel kit which I'm pretty stoked about.

Light... but no heat. And very little wattage so you can use them (both the Caselites and the LitePanel) in the oldest, crappiest tenements in the Bronx.

 

I learned using Totas and Omnis so for the money, you can do a lot worse.

[Matt Irwin]

any thought on that smaller pro - light.

 

I have two pro lights. They are very compact, very lightweight. Never had malfunctions, although I gotta say the bardoors are... weird. The split-leaf design has it's advantages, but most of the time I just want some normal doors. Also, the inability to use normal scrims can be a pain (like if you use one as a rim light and want put in a double and then a single to knock it down, you can't).

[Werner Van Peppen]

my $2c or pennies in the Uk...

 

Reason is suggested an openface (redhead originally) is that they're so darn cheap 2ndhand. I agree that if space weight is an issue the lowel kit becomes interesting. I'm kinda spoilt that I usually drive a car/van/truck with a few dozen or more lights and am far removed from my run/gun days.

 

Another link I found which is very interesting is from Walter Graf. On his website he give some examples, including homemade fluorescent!! for about $20... His pictures/examples look good, so see if it works for you.

 

http://www.bluesky-web.com/new-page6.html

 

If you really wanna go for fluorescents get some hydroponic grow lights and buy some kinoflo 55W tubes (tungsten colour)

 

this light for example (uk only sorry): http://www.hydroponic-shop.com/product_inf...products_id=676

can also be bought without tubes so the price is a lot lower (and runs flickerfree ) so I used a bunch of them and their 4fixture friends to light up a large area. For the price of one divalite you can't complain...

[Filip Plesha]

If you want really cheap, and live near Germany, you can get what I'm using for photography.

 

Video/photo tungsten lights from Hedler.

 

It has all kinds of accessories, like barn doors, honeycombs, soft boxes etc.

Comes in 500W, 1000W and 1250W.

Has cooling and is protected with fuses. Also switches temporarily off in case of

overheat (like when you leav one on the floor with no ventilation room by mistake turned on)

 

The only problem is that barndoors are not so great (sometimes they show steam when you close them too much), but you can get any other kind with better coating.

 

The units themselfs are great for low-budget work.

The bulbs are rated at 75 hours of work, and are halogen type at 3200K

 

Now comes the punchline:

 

You can get a 1000W or 1250W head with barndoors and a temporary 15 hour bulb for only

about 250 dollars. I got it even cheaper (it was cheaper at the time), at about $200 per head.

 

That's really a bargain, and unless you are a cinematography pro, or something like that, it really lacks nothing. Secure, well built, strong, great support, and a lot of accessories (for such entry-level lighting)

 

That's by far the cheapest professional option out there.

 

 

http://www.hedler.com/produkte/c-leuchte/c-leuchten.htm

 

These are the C series, "Compact"

Of course they make regular larger tungsten and HMI lights, but these are perfect for me cause they are not that larger from a flash, but are cheaper and continuous.

Edited February 28, 2006 by Filip Plesha

[mariner5564]

Whats a good affordable lighting kit (tungsten) for the panasonic AGDVX 100A. I'm doing a skateboarding documentary with a lot of indoor interviews.

thanks

 

I would take the time to look at the Spiderlight from Westcott. They have a few different kits available, very inexpensive and such a great value. I have a pretty good inventory of lights, but for indoor interviews this is the best kit for the money. They have a "location kit" which gives you a few different sizes, very versatile. It packs up very small. You can also get extra soft boxes for these in any size they make and add this to your kit. along with some extra or different size bulbs and now you have a kit that is really versatile.

One of the best values I have found.