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My First Lights / Gloves for Lighting? / Best Practices?


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I am a student from chinese film academy. There are three reasons i strongly AGAINST you use chinese light. frist and foremost, the lamp only a short time to use. so you maybe waste more money for fix or replace it. Second, its quality is awful, if you wanna mess up your set cause you don't have enough lamp for replace, try it. last but no least, the colour temperture of lamp is not accurate, when you start to post-production, you'll regret for how stupid am i trying to save a few bucks.

DON'T USE IT.

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Thanks for the information. I should be clear that I do not plan to rigorously test these lights in a "rental-like" or "continued production" type of capacity at all. These are for personal use on personal films. I saw the 3300 Kelvin listing on the Julius studio light...and I'm sure it will get a little more varied when using the dimmers too, but I think I can live with 100 Kelvin difference in color temperature, stylistically, too...and I am my own client in this case, so that works well for us both (me and me!). The one thing I cannot live with is being electrocuted. So safety is my main issue with these "poorly made" or perhaps "unregulated" lights. Then again, you guys have to understand...I am the type of person who enjoys a little lee-way....I like the art of playing with variables a lot more than the stagnancy of precision. I enjy precise knowledge pretty much only for the sake of knowing how to specifically bend and break it to my liking, that's it - so if there are ever any comments I hear about "you ought to do this because this is just the way it's done", then that to me is just blind lemming activity really, I mean come on. Anyway, not trying to rant - just give background on what I'm after - what I'll put up with. For example, I am shooting a feature on expired VNF reversal stock, processing it as E6. Do you think I care if my lights are 3300 Kelvin? I'm going to challenge myself to make it look good aesthetically. That's my job. Boring, regular, predictably precise to the point of yawning myself to death...is not my job! Again, just throwing that out there. What I want with this kit is basically the ability to "throw light....different types of light". To be able to have a nice short list of options...a pallette to play with. In my view, if I'm really a good artist, I can do it. I can make it work.

Edited by Matthew B Clark
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In my first painting class we were forced to paint with just white and burnt umber (dark brown basically) - mixing all shades in a warm, sepia grayscale (brownscale?). After that it was primary colors. Every color mixed from just three tubes of red, yellow and blue (white was permitted, in order to lighten colors). The point is, while there were certainly shades among the still lives of intense purple - folds in background drapery, or vibrant greens missing from the wild array of foliage scattered among the fruit etc., there was also an approximation that was remarkably "possible" from these limited options.

 

In the end, nicely drawn plants and good compositions were still nicely drawn and well composed. And interesting shades of that same drapery that threw us all a curveball, or that wicked, defiant speck of foliage trying to be "a certain green"....well, it actually still registered to the viewer as a naturalistically rendered plant somehow through the magic of relative shifts of perception, picking up the defiant shades anyway on their backs, carrying the art onward. Some of these paintings were even amazing. And although I'm sure a skilled colorist could tell quickly note the oddity of the unothodox green used here, they also could not deny there were also shades that the "correct" green could equally never produce. And so, some bad, but some amazing paintings came out of those classes. Just like some bad, some amazing paintings came out of the upper level classes. The ones where the big boys were allowed to use "all the colors".

 

So why blather on about this? Well, as a footnote to what I said above, this taught me it's not so much important to strive for the last, sometimes exotic five percent of "technical" perfection, but much rather to make sure that the basic, cheapest foundational elements really sing creatively...and to allow yourself to re-focus your mind around trying to make something even more exotic out of it's limitations (ironically)! This is the art...not the science....of anything. a spec sheet is not a talent. And after harnessing that, you actually deserve a tube of "Dioxazine Mauve", "Cadmium Yellow Deep" and "Cobalt Blue"!

Edited by Matthew B Clark
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IMHO the best way to lower the output of a fixture is to relamp it. For example a Lowel DP will take a 1k, a 750w or a 500w lamp. Otherwise, scrims are very useful and will allow you to vary the illumination across the field, as well as just reducing overall. I wouldn't bother with the dimmers right now.

you'll need spare lamps anyway.

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Those dimmers you pictured are "router speed controllers" and you can get them from Harbor Freight Tools for about $19 each. They are great as dimmers but they will blow fuses cause they're not that well made. So go out with a bunch of extra fuses and you're good.

 

Ouch. I got punked paying double that! Oh well. Yeah I was wondering about the fuses too. I'll make a nice bag of extra fuses and globes for all my cheap gear!

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  • 2 weeks later...

FIVE ELECTICIANS LATER: Everyone I found in ye olde Yello Book is scared to death of touching anything above 60 watts! Do rental houses typically do servicing/re-wiring? I'd have to think they know people at least who can. I'll give that a shot. I just can't believe how many folks are genuinely scared to death of "film lights", being that they are supposed to be "certified electricians".

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Yes rental houses certainly can. But truthfully for a tungsten head, it's really 3 wires.... it's not rocket science.

 

I do apologize for this basic lack of understanding...but are you saying I ought to just unscrew the head of the plug and check to see that three wires are connected? And also, do I do the same process at the connection "to the lamp"?

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Sorry, I'll quit bothering this place after this for a while! Just wanted to report that it was easier than I thought and I probably freaked myself out about all that electrical jazz. I checked over the plugs, picked up an outlet tester and a GFCI and just carefully plugged them in to avoid ripping cheap plugs etc....these things actually look really good to me. The only problem is THE SMELL. Man, I really hope whatever this Chinese factory uses in their paint and parts will burn off after an hour or two of use.

 

PS, fully expect crappy fresnel lens to blow in half. Part of the territory. Will replace. Happy these things were affordable and didn;t blow me up! Shot some tests and am ready to roll on a short. Thanks again for all yer help to all those who helped me get over the basic humps here of not knowing anything about anything!

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