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Brightshot Luminator instead of HMIs


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Hello guys, I'm going to start shooting a feature soon. Somebody I know suggested the use of the brightshot luminator LED lights to completely replace 1.2 or 1.8 HMIs for the shoot. I'm a little skeptical honestly. I saw the demonstration videos and they seem very good lights, just for different puropses than HMIs.

I wanted to ask you, what is the light output for the lights ? I mean does it compare to a 1.2 HMI ? and I don't mean in spot mode at 3ft, I mean longer trows and use in daylight scenes and night exteriors

. I donwloaded the specs form their website and I'm a little confused, there seem to be more than 2 models, one rgb and one white. and with very different specs. I know that of course a white light it's going to brigheter than a colored one, but that's phisics, I'm just worried that replacing HMI completely with those would be a risky move. I will still rent them for other puropses . I hope you colf give me some information to anybody that have used them . Thank you..

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Somebody I know suggested the use of the brightshot luminator LED lights to completely replace 1.2 or 1.8 HMIs for the shoot.

 

I have never heard of brightshot luminator LED lights and a google search turns up nothing. Does the manufacturer have a website that you can direct us to?

 

Guy Holt, Gaffer, ScreenLight & Grip, Lighting Sales & Rentals in Boston

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How often do you really work with a single point source anyway? once you but it into diffusion it's no longer a single source. I'd say these days almost every light is going through a little something.

Let us know what you think though when you see them. Maybe you can even sneak some video etc.

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Marco,

 

I haven't personally use the Brite Shot products, but I did see them at NAB and talked with their company rep. Their target market was originally effects lighting - like fire flicker and police lights. In fact, they were originally used on police dramas to emulate police car roof top lights. The lights come with a handheld controller that lets you program effects into the fixtures. If you look at the user manuals you'll see that programming lighting effects is their main concern. I haven't seen anywhere where they publish CRI or TLCI information yet.

 

If you're absolutely stuck on using LEDs then I might recommend the Fiilex Q500. It's one of the few LED fixtures I've used where the color rendering seemed pretty decent. I think that's reflected in the latest TLCI report that includes Fiilex. The Cineo lights also scored very well in color rendering.

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How often do you really work with a single point source anyway? once you but it into diffusion it's no longer a single source. I'd say these days almost every light is going through a little something.

Let us know what you think though when you see them. Maybe you can even sneak some video etc.

Adrian, you are right on the diffusion 100%, but in the rare occasions that you'll need it, it would be bad to see multiple weird shadows from a single light. Again this is just my concern and I'm not sure that's the case

 

Marco,

 

I haven't personally use the Brite Shot products, but I did see them at NAB and talked with their company rep. Their target market was originally effects lighting - like fire flicker and police lights. In fact, they were originally used on police dramas to emulate police car roof top lights. The lights come with a handheld controller that lets you program effects into the fixtures. If you look at the user manuals you'll see that programming lighting effects is their main concern. I haven't seen anywhere where they publish CRI or TLCI information yet.

 

If you're absolutely stuck on using LEDs then I might recommend the Fiilex Q500. It's one of the few LED fixtures I've used where the color rendering seemed pretty decent. I think that's reflected in the latest TLCI report that includes Fiilex. The Cineo lights also scored very well in color rendering.

 

 

 

Stuart Thank you for your input. I'm not stuck just on LED, but I'm probably stuck on those because the director really likes them, apparently he used them in another project, and for some reason he's really against HMIs....don't ask. Anyway, I will go to see a demo and report back.

 

Thank you guys

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Marco,

 

If your director is biased against HMI's and the Brite Shot fixtures aren't what you hoped for, you could consider Plasma lights as a compromise. They do have a warm up time of a couple minutes, but unlike an HMI you can immediately re-strike them. The ballast runs at such a high frequency that you won't get the audible whining you can get with some HMI fixtures - i.e. the audio person will still be your Facebook friend. I use the Hive fixtures quite frequently and I haven't had an issue with color rendering yet.

 

The output from the Hive lights seems to be somewhere in between a larger LED Fresnel and a 575 HMI in my experience.

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Marco,

 

If your director is biased against HMI's and the Brite Shot fixtures aren't what you hoped for, you could consider Plasma lights as a compromise. They do have a warm up time of a couple minutes, but unlike an HMI you can immediately re-strike them. The ballast runs at such a high frequency that you won't get the audible whining you can get with some HMI fixtures - i.e. the audio person will still be your Facebook friend. I use the Hive fixtures quite frequently and I haven't had an issue with color rendering yet.

 

The output from the Hive lights seems to be somewhere in between a larger LED Fresnel and a 575 HMI in my experience.

Yes, I've seen the Hive lights and they look amazing but pretty expensive right now. I think I doesn't want HMI for the power draw and heat...Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to check out these lights and report back

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doesn't want HMI for the power draw and heat

 

LED is about as efficient as HMI, so the amount of power required and the amount of heat generated for a given amount of light is going to be similar.

 

P

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LED is about as efficient as HMI, so the amount of power required and the amount of heat generated for a given amount of light is going to be similar.

 

 

While that may be true in terms of lumens generated per watt, I am discovering that a lot of LED AC power supplies are not power factor corrected making them much less efficient than HMI ballasts which are, for the most part, power factor corrected (pfc) these days. With power factors as low as .45, LEDs can draw twice the current than a HMI of the same wattage. If you don’t take into account the extra current they will draw and the harmonic currents they will generate, you may find breakers tripping and portable generators running erratically.

Litepanel_Sola_4_Composite_Sm.jpg

(The Litepanel Sola 4 has a pf of .60 and Total Harmonic Distortion of 77.7%)

 

Unfortunately, the manufacturers of LED Light fixtures generally do not give power factor specifications for their products. One would think that the less expensive LED lights would not be pfc, while the more expensive ones would, but that proved not to be the case in recent testing I did of fixtures. Over half of the fixtures that I tested at random (from the inventories of Boston area rental and lighting sales companies) were not pfc. With power factors ranging from .45 to .63, these fixtures generated considerable harmonic distortion (THD ranged from 75-85%.)

 

Astra_Composite_Sm.jpg

(The pf of the Litepanel Astra drops to .54 when dimmed to 50%)

 

Even those that were pfc generated harmonic currents when dimmed. For instance, the pfc of the new Litepanel Astra 1x1 above dropped from .99 to .54 when dimmed 50% (THD increased to 83.2%.) Use this link to see which LED lights are power factor corrected or not.

 

 

Guy Holt, Gaffer

ScreenLight & Grip

Lighting Rental & Sales in Boston

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The Nila SL looks interesting. 800w draw, and a claimed equivalent output to a 2.5kw HMI. I've no idea about colour quality or beam spread, but being able to run two of them on a single household socket is very interesting.

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I have tried to use the Nila lights in the past, but have run into issues with the particular model I was using being very green. We tried to mix lights between Fiilex and Nila and found that the Fiilex remained pretty neutral, but the Nila was clearly giving off a green/yellow cast on camera. So my advice would be to test the Nila before using it. Perhaps my experience with their products was limited to one model and not all their lights perform similarly.

 

I used the UPRTek MK350 meter to measure the spectrum and CRI and found that the meter reported a CRI of 69 from the Nila Varsa.

 

www.video-gear.com/blog/011514.php

 

That said, I did like using the Fiilex Q500. It doesn't have anywhere near the output of a 2.5k HMI. However, the color rendering seems to be OK so far.

 

I have a C-700 spectrometer on loan from Sekonic right now and we're going to do another blog video that shows the spectral measurements of each of the lights we have in the shop. That video should be done in another two weeks or so.

 

Stuart Allman

-----------------------------

illuma.blogspot.com

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Arri just released the L10 - look into that one. I've used the smaller L7C many times and absolutely love it. The full RGB spectrum saves so much time, and the Fresnel lens makes it palatable and one source. I personally can't wait for LED units but bigger in the L-series from Arri. There's no time to cut gels and glue it to frames anymore, that's the reality. Better to just dial it in straight on the lamp.

 

Filmmaking is changing. There isn't time to do the stuff the way we've done them in the past. The new naturalistic generation of directors/producers cut their teeth on 5D with flares, no lighting and expect minimal lighting time, if any at all. Only way you can keep it cinematic, put your stamp on it and be able to light at all is if you're quick. LED's help with that.

 

I heard from my agent just the other week how a producer on a commercial had complained to the agent that the DP had used an 18K HMI for an exterior on only one shot. They wanted to know why and they wanted a reduction in his fee because he had rented such an expensive light and only used it once. True story. That would never have happened just 5 years ago. Expect more of that stuff in the future.

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Adam, I haven't had a chance to use the Arri LEDs yet. How do you find the shadow quality from their beam compares to a conventional fresnel?

My only complaint is that it gets a little spotty halfway in and towards full spot. It's just how it's constructed. The LED array doesn't "fill" the whole fresnel as much as an incandescent. But it's a great light nonetheless. And the color rendition feels natural.

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Sure they'll complain about the lighting list. That's standard procedure. So we do the dance - I knock some stuff off and then everyone feels happy. But to have a producer call an agent after the shoot to ask for a refund after it's all done and dusted - that's a new thing.

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Just wanted to give everybody and update. I went and tested these brightshot in person a few days ago and decided not to rent them at all. They are useful lights for FX and light gags but I wouldn't use them as main lights, so we decided to rent some other units for the same budget. Shooting starts today so wish me luck! anyway as far as testing, the brightes one they have is the white led, with a spot lens on it (not sure what exact angle, I think 15deg) it was reading f 16 at iso 320 at about 12 feet. This reading dropped a lot with a wider lens of course. The other unit tested is a RGB led and the output i measured at same distance with the led set in white mode was about f 5.6, that of course dropped when choosing a single color (less leds used). In the RGB they have very useful effetcs that can replace for sure a flicker box and colored gels for light gags like fire, TV, police etc. They are a useful tool if you have budget to spare and a lot of these FX to do. I hope this little testing will help somebody

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