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Practical Light Bulbs


Wai Choy

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Hi,

 

On my thesis film we'll have various practical lights in the interior sets, which we're building on a soundstage. We'll be shooting on Vision2 200T 5217, so I assume that the practical lights will need to output a significant amount of foot candles so that the lampshades, etc. will appear to be illuminated from within by the practical light bulbs even though we'll obviously be supplementing the lights with off-camera lights.

 

My art director and I are buying lamps from consumer places like Bed, Bath, & Beyond, and many of the lights specify "40 watt bulb," "60 watt bulb," etc, which seem to be very low wattages.

 

What can we do to get the most light output from each of our lamps?

 

Is there a way to use higher wattage bulbs in the lamps than specified? Are there certain kinds of lightbulbs that would have a higher light output?

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

Edited by Wai Choy
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I'm not sure whether it's recommended, but for short durations I've put up to a 300w bulb from home-depot inside of a lamp. I normally just stick in a 100W, which on a 60w rating you should be mostly, and i stress that, safe. Keep a damned good eye on it though if it starts smoking/melting and i'd not leave it burning all day, myself (powering it up for the shot, and then turning it off for a bit to cool).

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Those practical lamps are WAY underrated for an extra measure of safety. As long as the shade isn't too close to the bulb, you should be fine up to 300 watts, possibly 500 watts.

 

I like to use the JDD type jacketed halogen globes:

 

http://www.lightbulbsdirect.com/page/001/CTGY/JDD+Type

 

Or these:

 

http://www.buylighting.com/Photoflood-s/164.htm

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