Jason Robert Tompkins Posted August 1, 2007 Share Posted August 1, 2007 I'm on a short film shoot with some large softlight needs and am wondering is it worth it to get rent two 10k Softsuns instead of less expensive HMI's? My understanding is that the Softsuns have a slightly higher luminous efficacy than HMI's, no green spikes, immediate full power, etc. Anyone who has experience with Softsun's please share your pro's and con's... j Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Fritts Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 I gaffed a comedy feature a while back called 'Frankenhood.' We had a 50k Soft Sun for 3 of our bigger exterior days. I was extremely impressed with the light. I had fill control that cover half of a basketball court at any time of the day. The light has a very wide spread (I believe about 150 degrees) right off the unit. One other cool feature, is that it can dim within 3 percent of its total output with only about 100-200 degrees of color shift. (Try doing that with an HMI) Which comes in useful as the sun starts to set and you can stand right next to camera with the DMX controller and keep the ratios consistent, without running around with scrims. I found the light to be very even coming off he unit, but I still put Hampshire Frost in front just to make the light fill a little more organic. The only downside I found was the power consumption, which I dont think you'll have a problem with since your going with the 10k size. The 50K pulled around 750 amps total or 220-250 a leg (If I remember correctly). Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I found the light to be fantastic. In quality and versatility. Normally, I would have had between 2 to 4 18k Fresnels rolling around, but they never made it off the truck while we were using the Soft Sun. If you have any more questions about them, let me know and I'll try and answer them to the best of my ability. Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Robert Tompkins Posted August 2, 2007 Author Share Posted August 2, 2007 Good to know, thanks Josh. We're shooting 1080p on a HVX in a fairly compact one story house, so i'm assuming 10k's will work fine. The point about consistent color through dimming is key, as 1/2 of the shot list is for night interiors. Trivial question, but i'm assuming there's conversion phosphor coating on the lamp to convert UV output? I didn't see any info on their site... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Fritts Posted August 3, 2007 Share Posted August 3, 2007 Trivial question, but i'm assuming there's conversion phosphor coating on the lamp to convert UV output? I didn't see any info on their site... That, I don't know the answer to. But, I'm sure if you called lighting strikes they could help you out. Its a smaller company that manufactures everything there, including the globes, so someone could give you a quick answer. Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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