Chimera vs Kino Flo

[marcelo kron]

Hi Guys

 

I'm shooting in a small studio and used a Kino Flo Vista Beam to make my fill light

I chose this type of light to have a soft light but at the same time leaving more focused and not spread to the entire set.

 

I'm not too happy with it because I think that's still a bit harsh

 

Do you guys think an Arri with chimera and egg crate can produce a softer light than the Vista Beam?

 

Thank you!

marcelo kron

[David Mullen ASC]

The softness of a light depends on the size of the source relative to the distance to the subject. Second, "harshness" is a confusing term because it mixes up concepts of brightness and hardness.

 

The Kino VistaBeam is roughly a 3'x3' source, a medium quartz bank Chimera is roughly 3'x4', a large Chimera is around 5'x6'. Assuming the light behind the Chimera fills the bag evenly so that the front surface is the "source", then the 4'x3' Chimera is slightly softer than the VistaBeam being one foot larger in one direction, and the large Chimera would be much softer.

 

I would consider using a diffusion frame in front of the VistaBeam to soften it further, like a 4'x4' or 6'x6'.

[marcelo kron]

Hi David!

Thank you for your swift reply and great explanation!

 

I'll try to do some sort of chimera on the Vista Beam

 

bests

kron

 

 

 

 

 

The softness of a light depends on the size of the source relative to the distance to the subject. Second, "harshness" is a confusing term because it mixes up concepts of brightness and hardness.

 

The Kino VistaBeam is roughly a 3'x3' source, a medium quartz bank Chimera is roughly 3'x4', a large Chimera is around 5'x6'. Assuming the light behind the Chimera fills the bag evenly so that the front surface is the "source", then the 4'x3' Chimera is slightly softer than the VistaBeam being one foot larger in one direction, and the large Chimera would be much softer.

 

I would consider using a diffusion frame in front of the VistaBeam to soften it further, like a 4'x4' or 6'x6'.

[Nor Domingo]

The softness of a light depends on the size of the source relative to the distance to the subject.

 

Sorry David, but can you expound on the science (or math) of this theory?

[David Mullen ASC]

Sorry David, but can you expound on the science (or math) of this theory?

 

I don't know the science, but imagine the ultimate soft source being an overcast daytime sky. From every direction, light is striking the subject so that any shadow that one ray might create is blurred and filled-in by all the other rays coming from different directions.

 

Or imagine that the sky has one thousand point sources in it in a large grid pattern, each creating its own shadow of the subject on the ground, but there are a thousand shadows because of the thousand sources, so the net effect is a very blurred shadow.

 

Or imagine one sharp source creating one sharp shadow of the subject on a wall, then adding another source next to the first and creating a double-shadow on the wall, and then imagine adding and adding more and more sources until you get a thousand overlapping shadows of the subject on the wall.

 

So the larger the source, and an evenly-filled diffusion frame is now the source, not the light behind it, then light rays are striking the subject from the center of the frame and from out to the edges of the frame, creating a fuzzy shadow, and the larger that source is, the blurrier the shadow would be. I drew something to illustrate this though it's not accurate, I don't know how to draw a blurry oval:

 

 

Now what determines the softness is the size of the source relative to the subject -- imagine you are a subject and you see a 6'x6' frame of diffusion in your field of vision. Now imagine replacing that with a 20'x20' frame of diffusion but backed away until it occupies the same area in your field of vision. From your perspective, 6'x6 and the 20'x20' frame are the same size and the softness of the shadow they produce would be the same, except that the fall-off in intensity is much more gradual with the light that is farther away, in other words, if you take a step closer or farther from the farther source, you won't change in brightness as noticeably as you would with a light source that is very close to you.

[Nor Domingo]

Thank you David! As usual, a very clear explanation!