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Colin Elves_18850

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Everything posted by Colin Elves_18850

  1. Following on from John's point - get have the exact same feature in grading software like Resolve (it's the RGB mixer in Da Vinci) which allows you to vary how much luminance is received from the Red, Green or Blue colour channels when converting to black and white. Given this you could potentially use coloured gels on the lights to separate out foreground and background subjects (for example) e.g. By throwing blue on the background and red on the subject and using the channel mixer to adjust the relationship between the two - but I'd recommend shooting some tests and working through a 'system' with your colourist to establish what your final look is going to be and how this might be helped with coloured gels. pg 658 of the Resolve 12 manual details the use of the RGB mixer in grading black and white footage - I'd say it's worth taking a look at it!
  2. I wouldn't at al be surprised if the switch was fake. To be hones, for the price, I honestly don't caret. Maybe I could get a quieter fan and a proper bulb (that'd probably help with the green spike too) but then, what's the point? - I got it because it was super cheap if I spend time and money on minor improvements then it becomes a quite expensive not very good lamp!
  3. I've got a Chinese 1.2K HMI. It works fine. I ran it off an equally cheap 2.8kw petrol generator and, again, it worked fine. As Phil says it does seem to be permanently stuck in flicker free mode (240fps flicker free, if anyone is wondering) despite having a knob on the front to supposedly change modes (thanks for clarifying that Phil, I thought I was going mad!) so it is indeed very noisy: the head buzzes loudly and the ballast has a huge noisy fan inside, so not so great for narrative... Build quality is utter shite, although I'm confident the lens is proper as no one has got horrible sunburn from it so far: the focussing screw is sticky as hell so I suspect it will just get stuck eventually and the stand nut is always wobbly (a tad worrying) but hey, as Phil says it's really really **(obscenity removed)** cheap. I bought the damn thing for the cost of 4 days hire - including a stand and I've already used it for more than 4 days. To be honest. I hope they bring out a 2.5K version as that's one of the lights I'm missing from the 'low budget feature' kit I'm trying to put together.
  4. Well, the Hive certainly doesn't start quick it takes a good 90 secs to reach temperature. I've never times a restrike but I think it might be around 2-3 mins to restrike. Personally I've never had an issue with that - if you're moving the light anyway (why else would you need to restrike?) then you can probably spare the 3mins. I ended up getting the Hive for much the same reason as the OP - I was basically after the cheapest high output solution I could get that could still be battery operated (if needed) that gave a hard light (as hard can always be softened, but a panel LED can't really be hardened - and the Hive is more powerful than fresnel LEDs like the F8). The fact it's also flicker free to 1,000,000 fps was also a big seller for me (as I've been shooting a lot of high speed recently) whilst remaining still cool (very handy for macro high speed, which I've also been doing) and the quality of the light really is only bettered by tungsten. One extra bonus of it not running hot means you can use first cheap flash soft boxes with it no problem - so I got a nice 5ft octagon with it for around $200 - including speed ring! A word of warning though: you can get hard-ISH shadows from the lamp with the super flood lens. Bare - or using the other lenses gives you a few split shadows because of the reflector. To get really hard shadows you either need to remove the reflector - or buy a standard source 4 lens. The lens replaces the barn doors (no need for any adapter) and boom! Instant daylight Leko, hard shadows included (another nice feature really). I guess maybe the CDM might be a good alternative - maybe you should put together a Kickstarter to manufacture one Phil (seriously, people are always after cheap, good and robust) but Until there is one purpose built for film I'll stick with the Hives. I believe they're working on a more powerful unit as well - something more equivalent to a 1.2K HMI which would be awesome. In terms of the cheap spectroscope, no need to break a set of binoculars, just get a gemmology pocket spectrascope, $30 from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00D49E8XE/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1451405397&sr=8-2&pi=SX200_QL40&keywords=pocKet+diffraction+grating&dpPl=1&dpID=41LEhZ-p2kL&ref=plSrch
  5. In practice it's rarely simple as that as adding a gel can affect the characteristics of the lamp in terms of spread (ie it can soften it a bit) depending upon where it is positioned in the beam - which means your exposure will also be affected due to the inverse square law (which is basically that wider, softer sources tend to lose output over distances at a faster rate than smaller point sources).
  6. A lens f-stop represents the amount of light (theoretically) transmitted through the lens. Each full f-stop is half the light transmitted relative to the previous. So f2 is half as much light as f1.4. F2.8 is half again (1/4) etc. When people talk about the 'stop loss' of a gel they're basically equating the drop in light output from a lamp caused by placing that gel in front (due to light being absorbed by the gel). So if a gel causes a 1 stop loss it means it abosrbs half the light put out. In a more practical sense: say you have a lamp exposing a subject and your light meter (or camera) is reading an exposure of f2.8 - but you decide you want to change the colour of the lamp (tungsten to daylight via CTB for example) and you know the ge causes a two stop loss - then you'd expect your exposure (from that lamp) to drop from f2.8 to f1.4 (2 stops). In other words to have the same area lit by the lamp exposed the same with the gel in front as without, you'll need to open up the lens by two stops.
  7. " If the issue is raising the ambient temperature of the room, he can use a portable room air conditioner to keep the room from becoming too hot. There are better solutions than using LED sources." The thing is: that's often not the case. Using a portable air conditioner might seem like a great idea to us, but to the people in charge of such places it's not. These places are very often strictly controlled in terms of temperature and humidity - and the control offered by a portable air conditioner might not be considered sufficient. It might just be a question of perception: and that matters a lot since the people in charge of these places are often quite cautious and don't really care for film crews to come in and mess about with their treasures, so any excuse to kick them out is warranted. Being told the art objects are sensitive to heat then bringing in a bunch of lights so hot they need an air conditioner unit makes you look callous. And that's quite apart from the fact the air conditioner would require even more power to run. Honestly, I agree with you on the quality of light from tungsten sources - but the question is: if you can't use tungsten, because of the best and power issues, what would you suggest?
  8. I don't think it has barn doors. I'd slam it through one of the diffuser discs you get in those 5-in-1 reflectors. If you're buying you should think about getting an airbox soft box: http://airboxlights.com
  9. Also, if the issue is one of picking cour temperature, go for Cineo units, then the correction is on the light and tailored to it: http://www.cineolighting.com/maverick/maverick-color-quality/or bi-colour systems.
  10. Guy, I'm with you on the tungsten. In terms of light quality tungsten is very reliable. But it's not without it's issues as Phil points out. I said LED because the OP specified you can't use hot lights - and HMIs run hot. I did try posting again to day 'or light from outside' in which case the temperatures of the light fixtures themselves aren't an issue and the light output of HMIs is cooler (and the heat filters might be an option for tugsten units outside - assuming you have the power needed to use I units powerful enough to make a difference coming from outside). In terms of CRI / well, HMIs and fluorescents are petty awful in that regard too (and likewise discontinuous). What HMI has going for it is power output: if you need punch LEDs just don't cut it. Of course you still have to issue of reliability of supply (which is not always great in these old houses) But if the issue is working *within* a climate controlled environment then then you need to work with lights that run cool - which means LED or fluorescent - and if you want something focusable, that means LED. If you want something with reasonably reliable colour and decent dimming that also means LED (flouros are pretty crap in that regard - unless you're a fan of magenta) - and within the output ranges available they're pretty energy efficient too: you can run most LED units off a battery (which deals with unreliable supply) Horses for courses.
  11. Epic dragon 5K - the extra resolution helps keying. Green screen is pretty much all Epics are good for.
  12. LED is the way to go. The remote phosphors are very trainee colour wise. Talk to Pat at Green kit film lighting - he basically specialises in LED, used to work at Lees, left when it went to Panalux. He's got a pretty substantial selection of units and can advise you on colour quality - nice guy too and good value http://www.greenkit.london
  13. I don't think it's a source 4, judging by the shape it makes on the floor - and I doubt they'd have enough punch. Also it would flicker like mad on the high speed shots. Possibly it's an HMI par, but I suspect it's probably just a 5 or 10K fresnel. I suspect that a lot of the 'soft light' you're seeing is just reflected off the ice - or just a bit of poly board flown in for the clos ups. However, if you're looking for something soft, yet focusable maybe think about getting a Briese light. The umbrella reflector makes it a lot like an episoidal
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