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KinoFlo vs Softbox


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Hey Guys,

 

I'm shooting this weekend and I need a soft light source which would you recommend, A Kino Flo Diva Light 400 or a Lowel Rifa Light 88 (1k Softbox) . They both have their advantages and disadvantages. what are your suggestions?

 

Cheers

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Hey Guys,

 

I'm shooting this weekend and I need a soft light source which would you recommend, A Kino Flo Diva Light 400 or a Lowel Rifa Light 88 (1k Softbox) . They both have their advantages and disadvantages. what are your suggestions?

 

Cheers

Get both

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Anyone able to say what the color rendition of a kino-flo is like in practice? After all it is a fluorescent tube and will have spikes. I'm sure it's fine for fill and backgrounds, but how is it for skin tones when used as a key?

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It's in the 90s, 95 IIRC. It's fine for skintones, used all the time. I don't particularly like it -v- a Tungsten unit, but then again I feel the same about HMIs on skintones. Point of fact is, they're used and used wonderfully and are quite useful. I personally find a bit too "cool" of a feeling from 'em though, but you'd need to play 'round with them yourself to see whether or not you like them.

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Other people just don't understand, do they? :)

 

Actually my preferred soft light is a red or blonde on a stand with half spun onto a frame with trace (or whatever) on another stand. The amount of flood on the lamp combined with its distance and that of the frame give a lot of control over intensity, fall-off, and the degree of hot-spot-ness (there's gotta be a proper term for that). Easy to move around too.

 

Add to that half a dozen flags... :D

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Amen!

 

Punching thru double 4x4s or 6x6s is fantastic.

 

For me, I enjoy the setting up and Lighting of a shot as much as actually rolling or later viewing a shot. Love the equipment.. and love to use it! :wub:

 

I love using mechanical items for an artistic end!

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Amen!

 

Punching thru double 4x4s or 6x6s is fantastic.

 

For me, I enjoy the setting up and Lighting of a shot as much as actually rolling or later viewing a shot. Love the equipment.. and love to use it! :wub:

 

I love using mechanical items for an artistic end!

 

Just be sure not to exceed the maxiumum C-Stand to Light Ratio or the grips go crazy.

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Well.. I started as a Grip then Electrician then Key Grip.. before Gaffing.. before DPing.. so I am at home in Grip & Electric Jungles... :wub: Just shot some table top close ups of Pills. You should have seen my kitchen/ dining area... Stand forrest. My Ac and I were two happy campers snuggled in a G&E nest :lol:

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It was a joke. I was picking up on your saying that you'd set up a complex lighting rig on your dining room table, and was responding as if I had misunderstood your post to mean that you always set up a full lighting rig around your lunch...

 

Oh, never mind...

 

Still, I am tempted to install a 200Hz strobe on the ceiling here so I don't get any motion blur as I move my breakfast to my mouth. Gotta keep those corn flakes crisp and shiny!

 

:D

 

(Difficult to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night with all these bloody flag stands in the way!)

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The stairs are still a problem, what with those pseudo-Hitchcock shadow effects I put in last summer. And I'm not allowed to touch a light switch without an electrician in attendance. It's a nightmare. I tell you those folks living in TV sit-coms with overhead rigs have it easy! :(

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If you use rented equipment, I'd say avoid Diva lights,

I find them not exactly consistent colorswise, dimming them

does no help. You can get a 4x2'tubes for the same

price, and they usually do better. Divas rellay are just

useful when you are working alone on shoots that you

must set up fast or in documentary.

 

What I like about stronger soft boxes is that you can

put them farer from your subject and get a better

sun or "light from window" effect I think you can put

2x1k in the lowell' riva. Same thing with

shooting lights trough frames will indeed give you

more control.

 

peace

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The stairs are still a problem, what with those pseudo-Hitchcock shadow effects I put in last summer. And I'm not allowed to touch a light switch without an electrician in attendance. It's a nightmare. I tell you those folks living in TV sit-coms with overhead rigs have it easy! :(

 

The Reality rigged homes even easier! What with just Kinos...?.. and everything hand held? Easy! :lol: Love your Shadow Stairs!

 

That picture you posted is as beautiful to me as the shot itself probably is... kinda like the mad scientist who indulges in wild experiments and every time he enters his labor-a-tory.... he grins at his massive set up of beakers, pipettes and test tubes...

 

Lighting & Grip Rigs themselves are works of art!

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I've never been happy with the quality of light out of a KINO or DIVA. Plus, it seems harder to control the spill.

 

I prefer using ARRI fresnels with Chimera's as a key. Either a 1K or 650K usually is enough for a closeup. And depending upon the size of the room, I usually put up a solid to keep the spill off the background.

 

What's the difference b/n that and a KINO you might ask? ANY light you put up will have some spill, but again, the quality of light coming from a tungsten fresnel source trumps whatever advantage might be gained from a KINO. About the only reason I can think to ever put up a KINO aside from needing to tape it to a wall or other flat surface is the lack of heat it gives out. They are good for long term use, when needing to leave it on all day long in a small place, but otherwise, I prefer the other way.

 

But that's just me.

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I believe that color balancing is rather like setting the output levels on the individual RGB sensors. You can't adjust for spikes. If you had that much control the creative possibilities would be amazing.

 

 

David, I came up through the sparks route too, so I know exactly where you are coming from, with the addition that initially I worked in theatre. So when I go to see a show I always look up at the lighting rig! (And see no flags!) I like to see a complicated rig put to good use, but much more I admire seeing a beautifully lit show with a half empty rig. That is real artistry.

a little something I operated lighting board on - beautifully designed and lit by John Bury with a deceptively minimal rig. That was at our National Theatre where we had a 2001 style 'memory room'. There must have been several megabytes in there. :lol: Re-booting after a crash was a closely guarded secret. Among many others I also operated a Rank Strand MMS (the first memory lighting board - it was ancient by then) on the first production of Sweeney Todd at Drury Lane.

 

My favorite light will always be the Strand Sunspot 501 carbon arc follow-spot

 

strand.patt.501.jpg

http://www.regalgroup.org.uk/sunspot.JPG

http://www.dhub.org/object/378538,lighting

 

It produced a gorgeous light, and had the most sophisticated lens I've ever seen on a light source - hence no color fringing, which is a common fault with follow spots (and profiles). The carbons had to be fed manually (which was a skill in itself!) and the gel changers were operated through a nice linkage that meant you didn't have to lean forward. The fader was in the arc housing, so the fade really was a fade, not like the common clunky ones that go a bit sharp as they approach darkness.

 

Some genius had drilled a tiny hole in the arc housing just above the lens assembly. This sent out a very tight spot of light that hit the wall above the window through which the light shone. That section of wall was painted black, and when a new show came in you would 'map out' the key features of the set on it with chalk. That way if you needed to do the classic 'pin spot pick-up in a blackout' you positioned the spot on the relevant bit of chalk drawing, faded up on cue, and (provided the actor was in the right place) the light would magically come up, during a complete blackout, tight on the actor's face.

 

I even briefly got to operate the last remaining of these things:

 

lightconsole2.jpg

 

The Rank Strand Clutch Dimmer. I bet you have no idea what a "rem dim move" is, do you? Ours (the biggest ever built) had two hundred individual dimmers housed in a special room under the stage. Each one (with a capacity of 2kW) had a huge mechanical sliding potentiometer with a complicated linkage system with motors that drove large spinning electro-magnets where the level of current they induced in an adjacent coil determined the rate a particular dimmer would move at. It was a dangerous place during a show. :D

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I see the complicated kitchen lighting setups, and the comment someone made about how the grip set ups are art in themselves reminds me of something Gordon Willis said.

 

"people get so caught up in the process and really forget it is a means to an end"

 

I agree that people, it seems are so caught up in the equipment to make the film rather than the film itself. I think as cinematographer we should never get more caught up in the tools and forget about what we are really there to accomplish.

 

That’s just my two cents, I don’t mean to offend.

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