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Cheaper alternatives to Dedolights?


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Try looking at a set of Lite Panels sola LED ENG. Im not entirely sure, but my guess is that being LED, they are cheaper than Dedo lights.

From experience, they offer a similar quality of spotted light, with the flexibility of having a wider flood if needed.

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Not really. What makes Dedos special are the dual lens optics, which are not cheap. If you can deal with a normal fresnel, then a 150w or 300w would probably be the closest to a classic Dedolight. Arri or Mole will last you the longest. Just don't get an LTM Pepper, those things fall apart pretty quickly.

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+1 to Satsuki's point.

 

What's special about Dedos is that they're Dedos, the optical elements in the fixtures are what gives you such precise control of the beam.

 

I have a couple of both 150w and 650w Dedos for precisely that precision. They are pricey, but totally worth the outlay - they're built to last so they'll give you 20 years of usage no question if you don't abuse them.

 

They can also be rented quite cheaply and easily, so if you can't fork out the cash to buy just yet, renting is always an easy option.

 

Here's my four in a Dedolight Soup:

 

ZMVsbnm.jpg

 

And the results:

 

F51748.jpg?format=1000w

 

5cBdP1c.jpg?format=1000w

 

Buy once, cry once is my philosophy David, the nice thing about Dedos is that there's rarely any crying involved, just smiles. Mine come out on almost every scene I light, and have easily paid themselves off within a year.

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Lol, I was thinking the same thing! Results look great though. What's inside the homemade Jemball?

Whatever you want (that's one of the beauties of it!). Sometimes I use one or two 2k open-faced blondes (clean or corrected for daylight), sometimes I use a 1.2k or 1.8k HMI.

 

One of my favourite aspects of the 'Orb' is how lumen-efficient it is, you get a fraction of the spill you get from a conventional book light, so you can get away with lower-wattage fixtures and still have silky soft light.

 

In that photo above it's a 1.2k HMI, and here's the end result:post-21122-0-92625700-1430611408_thumb.jpgpost-21122-0-00221500-1430611421_thumb.jpg

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You have umbrellas that can take 4k of tungsten?

 

And how do you mount the head so it doesnt shadow itself?

 

Well the brollies are 7' in diameter, so there's enough space between things for heat to not be an issue, even with 4k of tungsten. I use Triple-Headers to mount everything to the one stand, and that spaces things out nicely.

 

I pull the barndoors off the fixtures, and compared to the size of the umbrellas, they're just not very big, so shadowing isn't really an issue by the time your bounced light is filtered back through the frontal diffusion.

 

You also get the added benefit of nice, circular catch lights in talents' eyes, which I tend to prefer.

 

Add all of those benefits to a key light that you can setup (singlehandedly) in about 4 minutes, and wheel about set to reposition in mere seconds, and you have a pretty nifty little setup. :)

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Really?

I have some westcott umbrellas somewhere but i thought they were just for strobes so i figured theyd melt with anything continuous through them.

 

Give them a shot, they work a treat for me (though again, the broader spacing of the big 7' brollies certainly improves the heat situation, a smaller brollie, with the components closer to the heat, may not fair as well).

 

Am I missing something....what's inside your rolling "orb light"?

 

Mentioned it above - Whatever I want (that's one of the beauties of it). Sometimes I use one or two 2k open-faced blondes (clean or corrected for daylight), sometimes I use a 1.2k or 1.8k HMI.

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How about some construction detail of the Orb? Image of the insides, grip hardware used, etc? Please....

 

I can't find any detailed images of the construction (I'll take some next time I set it up), but it's super simple:

 

Ingredients:

- 1x Combo Stand

- 1x Wheel Set for Combo Stand

- 1x Triple Header

- 1x 7' 'Shoot Through' Umbrella

- 1x 7' 'White Bounce' Umbrella

- 1x 2.5" Grip Head

- Lighting Fixtures to taste

 

Recipe:

- Put your wheels onto your combo stand

- Put your Triple Header on top of your combo stand

- Put your Grip Head on the centre mount of the Triple Header

- Put your light fixture(s) on the outer mounts of the Triple Header

- Feed your two Umbrellas through opposite ends of the larger hole of the Grip Head and tighten

- Wheel the 'Orb Light' into position, turn on your lights, and enjoy the silky soft shadow quality!

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And do the umbrellas nestle nicely together?

Seems like theres be side spill.

 

I dig it but i cant see anyone letting me use it on one of my jobs. Super inflexible.

 

But its cool.

 

While it's physically possible to press the umbrellas together until they touch (killing any side spill) in reality, with tungsten and HMI fixtures, that puts too much heat on the umbrellas for my taste. A couple of Hive plasmas would be perfect if you wanted to press the umbrellas together.

 

You can easily throw some blacks over the gaps to kill side spill if it's causing you grief though.

 

This is a book light alternative though, and compared to a conventional book light setup, the amount of unwanted spill is absolutely minute.

 

What do you find inflexible about it? It's a book light that can be repositioned in just seconds - that makes it MASSIVELY flexible and efficient to my mind, saves so much time.

Edited by Mark Kenfield
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