Daylight Balanced Fluorescents

Andrew Rawson · January 5, 2008

I've seen a lot of discussion on here about putting kino tubes in standard fixtures and/or trying to balance to existing fixtures.

The Philips TL950 is a fantastic daylight balanced T8 tube and of course with the high frequency ballasts you can shoot any speed you like. 5000K and no green spike.

We swapped out a good portion of a hospital with them and have been shooting for the last 7 years with them.

The other cool part is, to help offset the costs we were given a rebate from the State of California for switching to the more energy efficient fixtures :)

Andy

Michael Nash · January 5, 2008

Thanks Andrew, would that have been "Scrubs"?

Andrew Rawson · January 5, 2008

Lol, you guessed it Michael.

I also agree with you on your dislike of the Kino2900's, I can't stand them.

It drives me nuts that they don't have have the 3200's for the ParaBeam.

Andy

Matthew Parnell · January 5, 2008

They dont make a 3200k for the Diva's as well. One of the gaffers i work for occasionally had found a range of Osram tubes that were 3200k with next to no green, but recently they changed(needing close to 1/2 minus green to correct) so we're stuck with the Kinos again.

Michael Nash · January 6, 2008

I've spoken with Kino a couple times about getting 3200's for the Diva, and they've always told me, "we're working on it" but I haven't seen 'em yet...

Mike Williamson · January 6, 2008

Out of curiosity, what do you guys dislike about the 2900K tubes? I've been using them in the regular 2' and 4' Kinos because I find they match most small tungsten heads better than the 3200's.

I got started using 2900's after sitting through the color correction of a short I did using a mixture of tungsten units and 3200 Kinos and having to warm up every single shot keyed with the Kinos, a problem I haven't had since.

But I'm always interested in finding new problems with gear, so curious to hear from you guys, thanks!

Peter Anderson · January 6, 2008

Ive wired up a 4ft domestic fluorescent fixture with a high frequency ballast - Whats my best bet for good colour rendition on film - a) Using a Kinoflo tube (My film school has plenty of these) (B) Using a domestic tube with a high CRI and gelling appropriately. Ive been told that kinoflos lose output in domestic fixtures and the colour temperature drops as a result.

Im having trouble finding those suggested phillips tubes in the UK, does part of its product code refer to its voltage?

Freya Black · January 6, 2008

Ive wired up a 4ft domestic fluorescent fixture with a high frequency ballast - Whats my best bet for good colour rendition on film - a) Using a Kinoflo tube (My film school has plenty of these) (B) Using a domestic tube with a high CRI and gelling appropriately. Ive been told that kinoflos lose output in domestic fixtures and the colour temperature drops as a result.

Im having trouble finding those suggested phillips tubes in the UK, does part of its product code refer to its voltage?

Hiya again!

Go with the Kino tubes! They are free (or at least you already paid to use them) if they were to go off in colour you could gel them anway, and someone here suggested that they will NOT drop in colour, only in output. To be fair they are probably not really dropping in output either it's just that Kino overdrive the tubes so it's more like the kino fixture boosts the output than the ordinary fixture drops it. If there is enough light output from your fixture then I wouldn't worry about the lower output.

I guess this is where you could do with running some tests and seeing what your light meter says. Also perhaps the school or someone there (ask around) will have a colour temperature meter and you can also test the colour temp. If not you can try using a digital camera or something to get an idea of the colour temp of the tubes. Theres also a really neat trick where you can use a cd as a sort of prism to see the spectrum of the tubes.

Also apologies, as I'm starting to guess that I and others didn't understand your situation and we may have been sending you a bit on a wild goose chase. I just assumed you were putting together your own flo lighting setup, whereas perhaps you are trying to create something that will fit in a smaller space than the kino fixture? I'm still not sure what you are up to. Perhaps you can fill us in a bit more?? Anway the kino tubes are the way to go if you can get the ones you need out of them.

Perhaps you don't have access to the kino fixture but can get access to tubes and gels and stuff and are routing around any problems you are running into in which case props to you! :)

You aren't mixing light from a kino fixture and this domestic fixture BTW?

Anyway if we have been telling you lots of irrelevant stuff to what you are doing, then hey, it's always useful to know for another time! ;)

Good luck! Great to hear you have already got your fixture together! :)

love

Freya

Michael Nash · January 6, 2008

Out of curiosity, what do you guys dislike about the 2900K tubes? I've been using them in the regular 2' and 4' Kinos because I find they match most small tungsten heads better than the 3200's.

My experience has always been exactly the opposite. The 2900's appear significantly "pinker" than tungsten movie lights, and since it's pink, not orange, you can't simply gel either with CTO/CTB to get a match. White balancing a video camera to the 2900's makes tungsten light look yellow-green. I've never had this problem with Kino 3200's.