Strange lighting question

Matt Rozier · November 2, 2016

Hi everyone,

I've not seen this question come up, but just wondering if this may work? I'm going to be shooting in a situation where I'd be looking to use a single jemball or chimera pancake - which obviously has a limitation to the amount of light that it can put out.

If I needed to raise the level of the ball, if I pointed a source 4 at it, would there be any reason why that wouldn't work? I'm wondering whether you'd get keep diffuse light from the actual bulb as well as get the bounced light from the source 4 (a source 4 as the spill is more controllable?).

Any thoughts why in a pinch this wouldn't work?

JD Hartman · November 2, 2016

HMIs and pancake Chimeras....perfect together.

Matt Rozier · November 2, 2016

Hi JD thanks for your reply :-) - I'm just wondering if I need more juice when I'm shooting in a 3200 environment. I think the large pancake can take an 800 joker? (can it take any other HMI fixtures that you know of?) which is equivalent to maybe 4k of tungsten light? Which is great in a 5600 environment. But once I gelled it down for 3200 I'd lose half of that - so i'd be looking at being back at around 2k of tungsten light. Then once it goes through the chimera fabric I'd be losing some more.

I'm just wondering if I could get more kick out of it - instead of introducing a second chimera (which would widen the footprint of the source) whether it's possible to up the intensity of the light by using the face as a bounce source too (by bouncing something like a source 4 off it)?

know this is a really weird question, I've never tried it or heard people doing it, but I just wondered if it was possible? Let me know if I'm calculating stuff wrong too :-) Obviously I can move the chimera in closer too to increase the intensity and softness but I'm just curious as to whether a softbox can be shone through and bounced off at the same time and whether there's much benefit to that. I know, very weird question lol

JD Hartman · November 2, 2016

800 in a medium is okay, more power in the large pancake I'd check the Chimera website or maybe someone will post the wattage limitations of the large pancake. Must it be 3200K? What about using a large softbox suspended above, maybe a 6k spacelight.

Sandy Tworkowski · November 5, 2016

HMIs and pancake Chimeras....perfect together.

Curious to know if Matt Rozier wouldn't be better off using LEDs if he doesn't want to over drive a Jem Ball or what ever he ends up using. I kinda thought the trend was to get away from high wattage.

David Mullen ASC · November 5, 2016

There's nothing wrong with unconventional solutions if they work -- if you have something white being used like a paper lantern and it works to hit it with a Source-4 leko if you need more output for one shot, maybe a slow-motion shot, then go ahead...

The spacelight idea isn't bad either if you need that much light -- and there are now LED versions of those.

I like the large 4x4 LED Litemats that can be velcro'd into a lightweight frame with some grid cloth covering the mat.

JD Hartman · November 5, 2016

Good point(s) Mr. Mullen.

Stuart Brereton · November 5, 2016

What globes/units are you currently using with the lantern?

timHealy · November 6, 2016

And what size jemball and/or pancakes are we talking about? The bigger the fixture the larger bulb it can take before it bursts into a ball of flames. I also use a bunch of compact fluorescent bulbs in them with medium base Y adapters.

But to answer your original question, I agree with david, why not try a bounce too. Not a crazy idea.

Edited November 6, 2016 by timHealy