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New 1000w Plasma Lights from Hive.


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Since it's not my light and I don't currently have access to it, I'm not sure which brand/model of bulbs were involved. I also have no information about the age of the bulb. The Arri fixture was loaned to the shop for the day, so I normally have no access to one. I only produce videos for Video Gear. I'm not an employee.

 

I just want to clarify that I think the poor performance of the FilmGear HMI fixture we had access to is due to the specific bulb that was installed, ***NOT*** a product reliability or design issue directly related to the ballast or bulb housing.

 

If you would like to provide us with a fresh fixture with your recommended bulb installed we would be glad to review it in depth with color quality measurements. In fact, if you would like to have multiple bulb brands/models tested in the fixture to further the point, that might make an interesting video for our community. You can PM me if interested.

 

Stuart Allman

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

illuma.blogspot.com

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It appears that Hive offset the mounts for the plastic lenses further from the front lens on this unit, so it might not have the yellowing issue. Melting was mainly a problem if you used a scrim and lens on the 250W units. I imagine if you set a scrim right next to the lens on this 1k unit the lens will melt in the same manner. We didn't do a full day burn in on the light with a lens, so I don't know what to expect long term. The spectrums of the 250W unit and 1k unit are different and I don't have any data about the IR part of the spectrum

 

We had an Arrisun 1200W unit in the shop at the same time. You can see it in the background of the video. The Arri unit put out about 1/2 to 3/4 stop more light. The extended CRI had about the same average on both units with R9 being severely low.

 

Speaking of that, Dom really liked that the unit doesn't melt your face. The Arri felt light a hotter light to stand under. No issue with the Hive.

 

Dom's skin is a pretty good green detector. What I noticed by eye is that his skin went a bit green under the Arri unit, whereas I didn't notice it as much with the Hive light. Seems weird give the large yellow spike in the Hive spectrum, but this was just my non-scientific judgement and I don't have any data to back it up. Of course, the two lights are different color temperatures with Arri being spot on at 5500K (measured) and the Hive at 6000K. That difference was noticeable by eye.

 

We didn't want to highlight the fan noise in the video, but the ballast and fixture were very noisy. Hive is going through a production change to change out the fans to quieter ones so by the time you see a unit that may not be something to be concerned about. the fixture is brand new, so you have to expect a few things to get fixed in the first few months of production.

 

I really love the 250W units, especially now that they're color tunable. I use them all the time, but it took two years for Hive to figure out how to make them reliable in terms of the ballast and bulb flicker. I've pretty much given up on their lenses and bounce or diffuse the light. Sometimes I'll use it as a hard light through a window. I also like that they produce nice, healthy looking skin tones, unlike a lot of LED and HMI units.

 

Stuart Allman

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

illuma.blogspot.com

 

Did i read this correctly - that a 1200w arri HMI outputs half a stop more then the wasp 1000? I thought the wasp compared more to a 1.8k

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We measured it a few times with both lights configured as a PAR (no lens installed). The Arrisun output more light at the approximate center of the beam as compared with the demo unit Wasp 1k they provided to us. What I don't want to do is get caught up in marketing claims of any vendor. This is why we like to stick to boring, old, quantitative analysis. We measure what the light does and let you decide if it's the right tool for yourself.

 

Keep in mind that you can still plug two of these lights into a wall socket. You can't do that with an Arrisun 1.2k. It also doesn't fry the talent with infrared. So the light has its advantages. If you're interested in getting familiar with this technology I would recommend renting a 250W Bee and seeing how well it works for you. It's been a great go-to light for me.

 

Stuart Allman

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

illuma.blogspot.com

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We measured it a few times with both lights configured as a PAR (no lens installed). The Arrisun output more light at the approximate center of the beam as compared with the demo unit Wasp 1k they provided to us. What I don't want to do is get caught up in marketing claims of any vendor. This is why we like to stick to boring, old, quantitative analysis. We measure what the light does and let you decide if it's the right tool for yourself.

 

Keep in mind that you can still plug two of these lights into a wall socket. You can't do that with an Arrisun 1.2k. It also doesn't fry the talent with infrared. So the light has its advantages. If you're interested in getting familiar with this technology I would recommend renting a 250W Bee and seeing how well it works for you. It's been a great go-to light for me.

 

Stuart Allman

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

illuma.blogspot.com

 

Thanks a lot for the info. Indeed specs sheet and real life can be quite different!

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