Small Lowel light kit

January 16, 2007

Hey,

Well I've finally decided to move up from my cheap hardware lights that I was using, and investing in some small lights from lowel. The lights I have my eyes on is the tota (750 watts) and the pro light (250 watts). I plan to use a shoot through white umbrella with the tota as a soft light, and eventually when i have some more cash invest in a photoflex softbox to put on the tota. I plan to use the pro light as a background light, and kicker/hair light. Also I'm going to utilize some home made cookies/gobos, coloured gels, and home made flags to control my lights.

Now as a small operation, and someone shooting on minidv, what do you think of this light set up. Anything weak in the chain, or extra light(s)I will need? Is the pro being 250 watts bright enough? And anything else you recomend before I make my purchase?

Thank you

Luke

Brian Baker · January 16, 2007

Walter Graff of video monkey lights primarily with basic Lowell lights, although (off the top of my head) I'm not sure the exact units.

A "Ditty Bag of Free Resources" provides a plethora of articles on videography with his conservative + low-budget yet complete equipment package. I'd suggest reading "What's in my Light Kit?" and "Beyond Three Point Lighting" for what he has to say on simple lighting set-ups with the Lowell's and putting together thorough and compact video kit.

Hope his articles help in putting together your package -- best of luck.

Enjoy,

BtB

Link: http://www.gomediamonkey.com/ditty-bag.php

Dan Salzmann · January 16, 2007

While Tota lights are cheap and compact they heat up a lot and are hard to control.

I suggest Omni's and DP lights in the Lowell range.

The Pro light is a bit small to light a background.

You should be more precise about the kind of productions you want to do before we can make suggestions about what you require.

Brian Dzyak · January 16, 2007

I'll second that and suggest that you not use the umbrella to light anything. While it and the Tota will give you a lot of light, it is nearly impossible to control, particularly in small rooms.

If you're doing head-and-shoulders interviews, I highly recommend that you use a Chimera (extra small is perfectly fine) on any light that you have that is at the very least 500w or more. Use that as your key on the interviewer side. For women, bring it close to the lens. For men, take it farther away. You'll likely want to control the spill off the background, so you can either use some kind of flag (C-stand and solid work best), but I've gotten away with clipping Blackwrap to the Chimera itself.

Use a smaller unit than your key to provide a back/rim light, preferrably with a dimmer that won't make noise (or your soundman will hear the buzz). It should be roughly 6 feet-ish behind the subject and preferrably right behind his/her head held aloft by a C-stand arm extended out so you don't see the stand.

Those two lights are enough to light the subject. After that, you use whatever your background requires. The trick is in controlling the key light from spilling onto the background so you have complete control over what that looks like.

Bob Hayes · January 16, 2007

I think your plan is pretty good. Make sure you get solid stands, not the smallest Lowell stands which aren?t sturdy enough. And I would add an extra stand and a French flags so you can get rid of lens flare and perhaps flag the background. I find the Umbrella works well as a key light but I use it to bounce rather then light through it. And Omni light may work better for your back ground but isn?t as compact as a Tota. You may want to go with 1 Omni, 1 Tota, and 1 Pro. And don?t forget the gel frames.

January 17, 2007

Hey,

Thanks all for the quick replies! I checked out Walter Graff's lighting kit, I see he has a few lowel pro lights in his kit. I was worried about the prolight's intensity because I can only compare it to the 300 watt photoflood bulb I use in a simple reflector/clamp hardware light I presently use.

Bouncing the tota off a ceiling seems to make the most sense to me, to bump up the light level in situations, I thought I could get away with using it as a soft key with the umbrella for the time being, but maybe I really should invest in a softbox for it. Now I've heard it's a cheaper route to buy a tota, and buy the softbox material (literally just the box) from a different manufacturer like photoflex. The softbox I got recomended to me was the Photoflex Medium Silverdome and Speed Ring (for Tota). Not sure how it will attach tho.

I was also considering some of those weights that you put around your wrists and ankles to put around the legs of the lighter lowel light stands to keep them from being knocked over easily. Not sure if it'll work haha.

The lighting I need to do will be mostly indoors, in bedrooms, living rooms, basements, etc for short dramatic videos.

Bob Hayes, What is the best way to use the flags to get rid of lens flare or flag off the background? I'm going to be using black foamcore attached to small light stands with clamps.

Thank you all

Luke