Marc Galerne

Closest large rental house with Jokers is DTC Berkeley: D.T.C. Grip & Electric 1280, 65th Street EMERYVILLE, CA 94608 I hope tis helps, Marc

We have made a small accessory called the Cross Over adapter to fit our HMI Joker-Bugs. More here : http://www.k5600.com/products/crossover/index.html I hope this will help.

Oups!!! Must have done something wrong as I did not mean to have the same message twice. Sorry.

As Richard mentionned: " You can think of the fixture as a heat sink for the bulb. The more heat sink the more the life of the bulb." If you look at a Joker Bug 800, it is 2 parts; the Bug part which holds the lamp socket and the Beamer which is the part holding the parabolic reflector. The Bug part is actually designed as a big heatsink and the Beamer is made of machined thick aluminum. The reason it runs hotter is because it is actually doing its job of evacuating the heat generated by the bulb. It takes longer to cool down because it's solid thick aluminum but I am convinced the bulb will be cool sooner that in a conventionnal housing.

As Richard mentionned: " You can think of the fixture as a heat sink for the bulb. The more heat sink the more the life of the bulb." If you look at a Joker Bug 800, it is 2 parts; the Bug part which holds the lamp socket and the Beamer which is the part holding the parabolic reflector. The Bug part is actually designed as a big heatsink and the Beamer is made of machined thick aluminum. The reason it runs hotter is because it is actually doing its job of evacuating the heat generated by the bulb. It takes longer to cool down because it's solid thick aluminum but I am convinced the bulb will be cool sooner that in a conventionnal housing.

I don't know. I just know it's not in Osram catalogue anymore...? I guess the 4K Double ended only exist in the short gap version and they felt they had no need to call it GS anymore especially since they are adding XS now...?

Hi Marc What you need is a HMI 4000W / XS OSRAM product number : 4050300216553 The original, you are right, used to be named HMI 4000. They introduce the DE (for Double-Ended) when they came up with the Single-ended versions of 4Ks. DXS was the reference they started to use when they introduced their Higher temperature seal, meaning permissible temperature at the seal of the lamp is higher: 450°C instead of 350°C before. They are not using this any more, they just use XS. GS is for Gap Shortened but there is no 4000W with a short gap only 575, 1200 and 2500 W. FYI, you can get these from other bulb manufactuers as well: Philips (MSI 4000), Sylvania (BA4000DE HR) GE/KOTTO (CSR4000/DE). I hope this helps. Marc G.

Xenon is less efficient than HMI. It is so widely used as event lighting (for searchlight effects) and military because they produce a short arc that makes them ideal for parabolic refllectors and therefore produce an extremely visible beam at long distance. Maximum lumen per watt for Xenon is 50 when HMI lamps (in our business) are beyond 80 (200W single-ended) up to 95 (18Kw Double ended) as per Osram data sheets. Overall classification of light source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy

Maybe with correction you can improve the CRI, but I am not even sure about that. Maybe someone out there have the answer. But I know you can correct Color temperature. You can adjust it and use any kind of light bulb. But each time you are doing this you are losing stops. That is why the idea is to go with something which as close to perfection as possible and then do your creative perception of the scene.

CRI is just a value. As all values, they are a landmark. CRI of a 100 is basically the color rendering of colors exposed to natural daylight. You want to be as close as this number and then you do the effects you want to see. If you have lamps with a bad CRI, what your eyes see is not totally accurate as you can check in the chart enclosed. So you might, from this wrong information, start to over expose a bit or change you camera setting to adjust this to YOUR own eye. We all know that, depending on your film stock and your video camera technology, colors will be different from what you saw on the set. They will probably be altered in post production, anyway. The thing is we judge from the start with our own vision. CRI and color Temperature are guidelines to help the cameramen create the picture with a greater accuracy of his own vision.

Ideal light for Chimera or any light bank in general is a bare bulb type fixture. The reason is Chimera started in the photo business and therefore created lightbanks to accomodate strobes. To better cover the front diffusion, they designed their banks to reflect light from the internal side in a paralel way. So whatever the size of the light bank, the 360° unit you will use (whatever it's wattage) will evenly cover your front diffusion resulting in a softer result and better light quality. This also avoid to use an internal baffle to spread the beam even more when using regular lights (open face, fresnel, par...). You end up having more output and softer effect. A Bug 800 W is giving more output (and a softer light) in a Chimera than a 1200W Par (with internal baffle). You can put a Large and still cover the all surface. Try this with a regular light (with reflector), you'll end up with a spot in the center of the light bank. There are lots of bare bulb fixtures both in tungsten and HMI available. Hope this helps.

Hey Warwick, When I think that I was impressed to see you working on your booth with your computer. Now, I understand you were just on Cinematography.com OK, any one interested in lights should come and see us on our booth. We're next to the VIP room. We have a few new toys.

The bigger wattage the lamp the more lens breaking problems. What causes breakage on lenses is the thermal shock. It's is the temperature difference between the hottest area on the piece of glass and the coolest. Basically, it's temperature on the center of the lens (hottest) and the edges of the lens. When using a Fresnel fixture 4K and up (to be on the safe side) always start your fixture in spot mode as it is the position where the bulb is the farthest from the lens. You let it heat up for 5 minutes and THEN start going to flood. Same thing when you turn off: go back to spot and close the barndoors and put scrims. The rule is AVOID THERMAL SHOCK.

Desisti 2K does not mean much since Desisti makes a full range of Tungsten lights (2Kw can not be a HMI). It could be a Fresnel, a soft light, or a blonde. Ask the author of the list for some input. Same for Speedrings (these are adapters to fit Chimera light banks onto a specific light): you need to know for which light they are. There should be some light banks as well, unless the rings are to fit Joker Bug on the 30" Lanterns (in which case, they are from Jem Lighting). The 30" Lanterns are probably the Springballs from Jem lighting. Now for websites : http://www.jemlighting.com/ http://www.desisti.it/country/en/index-lighting.asp http://www.chimeralighting.com/ http://www.k5600.com/ I hope this helps

The French market has been slow in Jan and Feb, excellent in April, May, June, fair in July and bad in August (what else is new). The major problem we have is with the announce of the President Sarkozy to stop commercials on public TV (that's 4 major channels and 3 minor ones). As a result, all projects involving these channels have been either cancelled or delayed until further notice. It is a total of over 70 feature length fictions which were not shot in the first semester. The US market is very different. News for example are a real show with commercials breaks. There is money there. When we did our first NAB in 1993, freelancers were laughing at us about the price of kits then. They had very little experienced with HMIs and could not understand how we could offer a 200W for over 2.000 $ when they could buy a 800 redhead for 250 $. It took some time and a few guys to change this state of mind. Free lancers there can deduct their investements from their revenues. Once they understood that return on investment on Hmi's was far quicker (50 to 70 days rental) than with cameras, things started to change. Also, a light with a Chimera and no color correction gel looks much nicer when you shooting celebrity in his home or a politician in his office. Chances are, there will be 10 Amps available and daylight will be flooding through the windows. So HMIs makes some sense then. Enjoy the weather Michael: it's awful here

Hi John, Thank you very much for your appreciation. I know the big British rental companies are either Panavision or Arri, but there will always be smaller, more service oriented little companies and these are the ones I would like to work with. Big rental houses doing big US features will order the equipment when it's requested (after trying to offer whatever they have in stock in replacement). Thanks Marc

Hi Ed, I guess only the US is a Free Lancer market. I need to make sure that the rental houses have our equipment and more over that it is requested. Thank you very much for the infos Marc

Thank you very much for your comments. Always good to know when people like the gear. Did you buy or do you rent? Thanks and regards Marc

Hi Michael, Thank you very much for the banner. My concern is more to understand the UK market and what members do read, visit (shows), use. We are supplying a few rental companies eventhough there are less of them but they are much more Film oriented. What we are after is the free lancers market. Obviously feed back on equipment is always welcome. Meeting people is the most important thing but where? BSC show is mostly for Film DPs which are more interested in cameras than in lights. And Video Forum was very "amateur" and lacked of pros. Are there any associations and publications we should look into? We are definitly considering promoting and selling directly into the UK as we, so far, found it was the best way. we're not so far and can ship overnight. Thanks for your time and congratulation on your forum. I am always connected into the lighting section. Have a good week end Marc

Dear All, The reason I post this mesage is that we have been existing for 15 years now, came up with innovative products such as the Joker Bug system, softube, Black Jack and now Alpha 4K and Alpha 18K. We are exhibiting at all the major international trade shows (NAB, IBC, Cinec, Camerimage, Cinegear...) We have made many attempts with different UK based dealers. We have participated to a few BSC shows, Videoforum and placed adds in British Cinematographer. And yet, results are disappointing. I know that Arri has a strong hand on the world market but still we sell more units in Germany than we do in the UK !!! European operations are in France and from there we service and provide equipment that we do stock at all times. All K5600 employees are english speaking and the ballasts we used for our kits in Europe are British made (Powergems)... Any suggestions? Best regards

Hi All, a few things to add to this subject. There are two kinds of inverters "quasi sinus" and "sinus". The sinus wave inverters are exactly like a plug in the wall so you can plug in whatever you want: Electronic ballast, magnetic, fluorescent... Quasi sinus are cheaper but not as versatile. We have a lot of customers using the Xantrex Prosine 1800 W. It is crystal controlled and you can get it at around 1.200 $ in Marine shops. A good battery for this application is the Optima : http://www.optimabatteries.com/optima_products/yellowtop.php These are clean and specially designed for fast drain and quick charge. This is the winning situation compared to small genie (which is noisy) and cleaner in your trunk (no oil and diesel spill). This is used by rental companies with great and longlasting satisfaction. Hope this helps

Dear Frederik, Reasons for a head to flicker are mostly due to either bulb or ballast and not really to the head itself. As manufacturer of the Alpha 18, I called our dealer Anders Johansson in Sweden who remembers about the problem which happened some month ago. The Alpha was not used with a ballast that we provided (neither was the bulb) and apparently when he got there there was no problem. He along with the rental company technicians did tests that showed no signs of flicker when in Flicker Free mode. The unit has been used since without any problem. Maybe it has been operated in the silent mode on your shoot by mistake... The thing is the Flicker Free mode brings a buzzing noise (especially on big units) and sometimes someone would just switch to silent mode for comfort.... I am just guessing at this point. Everyone has to be carefull about this because it happens more than we think. Anyway Frederik, I hope this did not cause you a rejection of the light. Marc Galerne

Hello, The Black Jack is a fresnel meaning optimized control of the beam, clean shadow and nice spread. The Joker Bug is a Par so it's very punchy and more difficult to control the beam. I would say the Par is a large paint brush and the Fresnel a fine one. Most of our sales are Joker-Bugs though. I guess users find it more versatile.

Hi, What do you mean by popped? Is the bulb dead? Did it make any noise or did it just shutdown? Did you see any sign of arcing on the bulb pins? It is pretty unusual. My guess would also be that it is a problem with the mains electrical circuitry.

There is a rental company in Brussels which adapted one of our Alpha 4K to a Space light. Also, a Bug 800 in a chimera pancake is commonly used for small sets. A real (6 bare bulb type fixtures) HMI spacelight seems pretty expensive to me. Who knows maybe one day...