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ARRI Studio Ceramic 250 opinions pros and cons


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ARRI Studio Ceramic 250

Hi Guys 

I am interested to hear peoples opinions on this light it sounds like something that would be very handy to have in my kit. It seems to have a built in ballast and the bulbs can be swopped between a tungsten 3300k bulb to a hmi type bulb with a 5500k temperature. They power usage is 250 watts and has a light output the equivalent of a 1k tungsten. They sound to have a lot versatility and they run cooler temp wise. But am i missing something here. Why are these not that popular, fair enough they are an older light fitting buti have never seen one of these on set or in any hire houses? The CRI is 90 is this the reason. I d love to hear opinions on this light the pros and the cons off anyone who has used them.  I am considering buying one but dont have any where to hire it from to test one first.

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I have never used the Arri 250 in particular, but I can talk about ceramic in the context of several Source Four PARs which I converted to 150W ceramic metal halide (it's just a case of adding a ballast and changing the bulb.) They're highly efficient, very serviceable and the colour rendering is fine. Mine are not hot restrike, as they use the conventional commercial ballasts and bulbs, though the Arri 250 is.

Bear in mind HMIs rarely measure above 90 CRI and nobody worries about that. It is possible to get ceramic metal halide bulbs at various wattages which you would not want to use for cinematography, outside special effects. However, I think the only ones that fit the Arri 250 are things like the Philips MSR 250 1CT/4 HR which is a 6000K light and behaves broadly like an HMI. Bear in mind that's a £150 lightbulb in the context of a £300 light, so make sure  that a low hours bulb is included.

Honestly, the Arri 250s you can get secondhand are a pretty inexpensive way to efficient, hard daylight. Even if you had to buy a bulb, it's still half the price of an Aputure COB 300D Mk. II. They're not directly comparable as the Aputure is (by default) is brighter, not only because it's a higher wattage but because open-faced lights suffer fewer optical losses. The Aputure is smaller, lighter, battery-powerable (given £1000 worth of batteries) and dimmable; it can take bowens-mount accessories, though bear in mind that Aputure's fresnel is another £100 or so and is a smaller, less efficient lens. The Arri is far cheaper and is a controllable fresnel, as well as probably being a bit sturdier. It also looks better on a kit list and is probably more saleable to clients who are impressed by brand names.

I suspect the dubious popularity of the Arri 250 largely comes down to people not knowing what it is and being suspicious of it. Arri typically supplies high-end shoots with experienced gaffers, and it is my observation that these people can actually be fairly ill-informed about the technology and tend to sit very much in a rut of what they're used to. It is also at a power level which is very much being overtaken by LED. A technological cul-de-sac, perhaps, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work.

 P

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Hello Phil 

Thanks for the response, Id imagine these are like them German Hedler DF25 lights. But the fan assist in them puts me off. Comparing them to the aputure Cob is a good comparison in alot of ways, but its hard to know the life span of the COB 300d MK 2  and how serviceable they are just yet. There is a rather long waiting time to get one serviced and a very high fee also. With the arri i could service it myself as they are a much more basic.

So i just pulled the trigger and got one of these for 250 pounds, I think its a fair price. However i can not seem to find a supplier for the daylight bulb. Just wondered if you had any links or leads to one.

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On 4/12/2020 at 11:12 PM, Niall Flynn said:

Hello Phil 

Thanks for the response, Id imagine these are like them German Hedler DF25 lights. But the fan assist in them puts me off. Comparing them to the aputure Cob is a good comparison in alot of ways, but its hard to know the life span of the COB 300d MK 2  and how serviceable they are just yet. There is a rather long waiting time to get one serviced and a very high fee also. With the arri i could service it myself as they are a much more basic.

So i just pulled the trigger and got one of these for 250 pounds, I think its a fair price. However i can not seem to find a supplier for the daylight bulb. Just wondered if you had any links or leads to one.

Do let us know how you get on, I find this stuff quite interesting.

Looking into it, I notice that Arri's own one-sheet for the product requires a bulb having a GZY9.5 base. Googling for that base reveals a few matches though most are 200W. I think the GZY is the hot-restart version of the GY9.5 base which is more common, but I found a few matches. This would seem to be the daylight option, but obviously, you should make sure you like what you're buying as they're not inexpensive. I would pick one up - and a spare, maybe - nowish, as this sort of thing may go out of manufacture at some point as LEDs take over.

Watch out for non-hot-restrike versions, and for things using the GY9.5 base which is clearly different. Some 250W metal halide bulbs are probably intended for intelligent lighting and other theatrical applications and may have odd colour or very high colour temperature, so check all the vital statistics before buying.

The DF25 are interesting. They are marked up as using the Sylvania BriteArc lamps, which are as far as I can tell a metal halide reworking of HMI so that there can be a tungsten option (which I suspect you can also do with the Arri 250, or could in theory; you can certainly do it with the 150W stuff.)

It's trivially easy to retrofit a lot of lighting devices with vastly-more-efficient 150W ceramic stuff and with an inverter it can be run from batteries, so it's an interesting route to go down.

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last time I looked the replacement lamps for those were very expensive.

 

 I have a couple source4 HID instruments that I used Coollights daylight lamps in. They worked very well.   I don't know if they are still available.  

At this point I would recommend an Aputure 300D or equivalent though over that Arri

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On 4/15/2020 at 2:29 AM, Phil Rhodes said:

Do let us know how you get on, I find this stuff quite interesting.

Looking into it, I notice that Arri's own one-sheet for the product requires a bulb having a GZY9.5 base. Googling for that base reveals a few matches though most are 200W. I think the GZY is the hot-restart version of the GY9.5 base which is more common, but I found a few matches. This would seem to be the daylight option, but obviously, you should make sure you like what you're buying as they're not inexpensive. I would pick one up - and a spare, maybe - nowish, as this sort of thing may go out of manufacture at some point as LEDs take over.

Watch out for non-hot-restrike versions, and for things using the GY9.5 base which is clearly different. Some 250W metal halide bulbs are probably intended for intelligent lighting and other theatrical applications and may have odd colour or very high colour temperature, so check all the vital statistics before buying.

The DF25 are interesting. They are marked up as using the Sylvania BriteArc lamps, which are as far as I can tell a metal halide reworking of HMI so that there can be a tungsten option (which I suspect you can also do with the Arri 250, or could in theory; you can certainly do it with the 150W stuff.)

It's trivially easy to retrofit a lot of lighting devices with vastly-more-efficient 150W ceramic stuff and with an inverter it can be run from batteries, so it's an interesting route to go down.

The light has arrived so I am thankful for the info on where and what exact bulb it will need. And yes they are definitely not cheap. I wondered about a tungsten color version it would be great to have the two different color temperature bulbs to get maximum use out of this fitment. Also when you talk about retro fitting with vastly-more-efficient 150W ceramic stuff. Where can the actual bulb fitting be got? And also what is the output of the 150w ceramics to are talking about? I would be interested as I have some old lights that maybe cold be retro fitted and given a new lease of life.

 

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On 4/26/2020 at 1:40 AM, Niall Flynn said:

Also when you talk about retro fitting with vastly-more-efficient 150W ceramic stuff. Where can the actual bulb fitting be got? And also what is the output of the 150w ceramics to are talking about? I would be interested as I have some old lights that maybe cold be retro fitted and given a new lease of life.

I realise I never replied to this over a year ago! I suspect that this sort of thing is becoming ever less useful now LEDs in the 150-watt range are fairly everyday. Still, it can be done very inexpensively. This involves mains wiring and higher voltages than that, so only proceed if you're happy you know what you're doing.

Example bulb. Search "150W ceramic G12". There's a three-digit colour code. The first digit is often 7, 8 or 9, indicating colour quality. You are only interested in 9. The second two indicate colour temperature in hundreds of kelvins. Thus 930 is roughly tungsten and 942 is roughly halfway between tungsten and daylight. 5600K versions, for some reason, tend to be listed as 5600K rather than 956. I like 942 which creates a nice contrast to actual tungsten or daylight without being overpoweringly blue or orange.

Example base. Search "G12 ceramic socket." If you have a light that already takes G12 bulbs, which many knockoff source four PARs and repurposed theatre lights do, then you're in luck. If not, get a G12 base. You'll potentially need to figure out some engineering to get the arc tube in the right place, centred in the reflector, and so on. Some lights take a shortened G12-base bulb which will cause things not to line up.

Example ballast. Search "150W ceramic electronic ballast." Any 150W ceramic metal halide ballast will work. Get an electronic one which should be largely flicker free. If your light was not originally a ceramic metal halide type, you'll need to work out some sort of box to bolt it on the yoke or hang it on the stand, or whatever.

A lot of this stuff can be dumpster-dived these days as they are being pulled out of shopfits.

Output will be, well, 0.6 times your 250W light!

P

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personally I think the under 400w range is pretty well covered with LEDs nowadays. If you are handy and know enough about electronics to do it safely you can even build a cob led light by yourself, I am just building a 100w one and will make a much larger system after that. The 100w system cost something like 60 euros for the parts including the 31v 150w mains power supply and the bowens mount. will make a housing and controller system for it next :)

the small hmi's are OK if you can get the light for cheap and it has a working bulb. they are heavier than leds but they have the advantage that the bulb can be changed when it ages. When your expensive cob LED light ages and develops colour shifts you can't do much than to curse it and buy a new one. ( on a recent feature shoot we had couple of Aputure 300D mk1's which were less than two years old and already had huge green cast. they were so green that I did not want to use them unless I absolutely had to when running out of lights... I used them maybe 3 times during the whole shoot. they were just too ugly and sad to use. So if your expensive Led light goes green and does not have g/m correcting or cannot be gelled, then it was complete waste of money because even if you COULD use it, you just don't want to and it stays in storage most of the time.) The advantage of building your own light is that you can actually replace the led chip to new one by yourself if the old has colour shifts. That is pretty huge because you can't do that by yourself for factory made leds and it would be very expensive to get the chip replaced by the manufacturer even if it would be possible.

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as for the swappable tungsten/discharge bulbs on the Arri 250.  It is neat to have this option but I can't imagine many situations where swapping the bulbs would really be practical compared to just having separate tungsten fresnels available and keeping the 250s always with the discharge bulbs installed. One does not normally change bulbs in the middle of the shooting day because there is no time for it (waiting for the light to cool and so on) and one loses all the benefits of the changing option if it cannot be easily done between shots or scenes. Additionally tungsten lights are cheap so I would just get comparable tungsten fresnels separately and keep the 250 lights always equipped with the same bulbs. Having the discharge capable lights and using them with tungsten bulbs would just feel wasting

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40 minutes ago, aapo lettinen said:

One does not normally change bulbs in the middle of the shooting day because there is no time for it (waiting for the light to cool and so on) and one loses all the benefits of the changing option if it cannot be easily done between shots or scenes.

This is true. I have a total of five 150W ceramic lights (three Source Four PARs and two Coemar mini profiles) and an accessories case for them that's full of bulbs of every colour. I often switch lights to change colour, but I don't think I've ever once changed bulbs in the middle of the day. As you say, too time-consuming.

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