If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
'cool' temperature lights
I need to buy or make some cool lights (as close to daylight/5500K) as I can
get, & that are a reasonable weight, are portable, and give a decent amount of f-stop/shutter speed - I cannot use flash/strobe and tungsten/halogen lights are too hot. Lowell make a unit called Scandles but it's only 200w and I am sure you cant get much of an exposure from them. Can anyone share their experience? thanks Frank -- xx |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
'cool' temperature lights
Tsotsi wrote:
I need to buy or make some cool lights (as close to daylight/5500K) as I can get, & that are a reasonable weight, are portable, and give a decent amount of f-stop/shutter speed - I cannot use flash/strobe and tungsten/halogen lights are too hot. Lowell make a unit called Scandles but it's only 200w and I am sure you cant get much of an exposure from them. Can anyone share their experience? How much light you can get from fluorescents ("Scandles") depends on their wattage and quantity. I would sure not call them portable though...not in any sense. Plus there is that red deficiency thing. Why can't you use speedlights? Light weight (relatively), truly portable (with batteries) and the most light per pound. -- dadiOH _____________________________ dadiOH's dandies v3.0... ....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that. Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico ____________________________ |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
'cool' temperature lights
Tsotsi wrote:
I need to buy or make some cool lights (as close to daylight/5500K) as I can get, & that are a reasonable weight, are portable, and give a decent amount of f-stop/shutter speed - I cannot use flash/strobe and tungsten/halogen lights are too hot. Lowell make a unit called Scandles but it's only 200w and I am sure you cant get much of an exposure from them. Can anyone share their experience? How much light you can get from fluorescents ("Scandles") depends on their wattage and quantity. I would sure not call them portable though...not in any sense. Plus there is that red deficiency thing. Why can't you use speedlights? Light weight (relatively), truly portable (with batteries) and the most light per pound. -- dadiOH _____________________________ dadiOH's dandies v3.0... ....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that. Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico ____________________________ |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
'cool' temperature lights
"Tsotsi" wrote in message
.. . I need to buy or make some cool lights (as close to daylight/5500K) as I can get, & that are a reasonable weight, are portable, and give a decent amount of f-stop/shutter speed - I cannot use flash/strobe and tungsten/halogen lights are too hot. Lowell make a unit called Scandles but it's only 200w and I am sure you cant get much of an exposure from them. Can anyone share their experience? thanks Frank HMI is one solution, the one the movies use. Expensive, and you need a ballast as well as the lamphead, but it is reasonably portable. The flicker rate is extremely high, making any flicker virtually non-existent when compared to tungssten lamps, which makes it much better for use with scanning digital backs. It is also almost a point source, so can give very hard light if yo want it, or be modified as appropriate. There are several makes, but the only one I'm familiar with is the Elinchrom: this has a colour temperature of 5,800K. It is a 575W lamp, but be aware that HMI is much more efficient than tungsten, so it is a lot brighter than a 575W tungsten lamp or photoflood would be: the Elinchrom produces 14,000 Lux, whihc is about the same as a 2,000W tungsten halogen lamp. The Elinchrom takes all the same reflectors, softboxes, snoots, fresnels and whatever else as their flash heads do. MSR and CID lamps are more or less similar technology to HMI, but I really don't know anything about these types. Photographic flourescents are the other option. These have a very near daylight 'temperature' (in inverted commas because flourescent doesn't behave like a black-body source, so strictly it doesn't have a colour temperature). However, because the peaks and troughs in their emission are rather different to other sources, they tend not to appear quite the same on different films - not a massive difference but enough to merit some testing before investing a lot of time or money. KinoFlo are the best known manufacturer of these types of lights. They tend to be large, and linear, of course, because of the shape of the tubes. This makes for a large light source, but the light is not as soft as the size alone would suggest - it seems quite attractive when I've seen other people use it, though I haven't done so myself. Popular with fashion photographers. Power is lower than HMI sources, but even so be aware that flourescents are far more efficient than tungsten lights, and so a direct Watt for Watt comparison is extremely misleading. Thus the Scandles you mention are going to be 'worth' a lot more in light output than that 200W power consumption suggests if you are comparing them to a tungsten lamp - you could ask the manufacturer for a Lux value. HMI is much cooler running than a tungsten halogen of equivalent brightness, but obviously flourescents are much cooler still, hence their other group of fans: food photographers. A lot of people hire both these types of light rather than owning them outright so you could always do a day's hire and take some light readings / shoot some test shots before committing to a purchase. Hope that's a bit of help, Peter |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
'cool' temperature lights
thanks for your in-depth answer - appreciated !
-- xx "Bandicoot" wrote in message ... "Tsotsi" wrote in message .. . I need to buy or make some cool lights (as close to daylight/5500K) as I can get, & that are a reasonable weight, are portable, and give a decent amount of f-stop/shutter speed - I cannot use flash/strobe and tungsten/halogen lights are too hot. Lowell make a unit called Scandles but it's only 200w and I am sure you cant get much of an exposure from them. Can anyone share their experience? thanks Frank HMI is one solution, the one the movies use. Expensive, and you need a ballast as well as the lamphead, but it is reasonably portable. The flicker rate is extremely high, making any flicker virtually non-existent when compared to tungssten lamps, which makes it much better for use with scanning digital backs. It is also almost a point source, so can give very hard light if yo want it, or be modified as appropriate. There are several makes, but the only one I'm familiar with is the Elinchrom: this has a colour temperature of 5,800K. It is a 575W lamp, but be aware that HMI is much more efficient than tungsten, so it is a lot brighter than a 575W tungsten lamp or photoflood would be: the Elinchrom produces 14,000 Lux, whihc is about the same as a 2,000W tungsten halogen lamp. The Elinchrom takes all the same reflectors, softboxes, snoots, fresnels and whatever else as their flash heads do. MSR and CID lamps are more or less similar technology to HMI, but I really don't know anything about these types. Photographic flourescents are the other option. These have a very near daylight 'temperature' (in inverted commas because flourescent doesn't behave like a black-body source, so strictly it doesn't have a colour temperature). However, because the peaks and troughs in their emission are rather different to other sources, they tend not to appear quite the same on different films - not a massive difference but enough to merit some testing before investing a lot of time or money. KinoFlo are the best known manufacturer of these types of lights. They tend to be large, and linear, of course, because of the shape of the tubes. This makes for a large light source, but the light is not as soft as the size alone would suggest - it seems quite attractive when I've seen other people use it, though I haven't done so myself. Popular with fashion photographers. Power is lower than HMI sources, but even so be aware that flourescents are far more efficient than tungsten lights, and so a direct Watt for Watt comparison is extremely misleading. Thus the Scandles you mention are going to be 'worth' a lot more in light output than that 200W power consumption suggests if you are comparing them to a tungsten lamp - you could ask the manufacturer for a Lux value. HMI is much cooler running than a tungsten halogen of equivalent brightness, but obviously flourescents are much cooler still, hence their other group of fans: food photographers. A lot of people hire both these types of light rather than owning them outright so you could always do a day's hire and take some light readings / shoot some test shots before committing to a purchase. Hope that's a bit of help, Peter |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
'cool' temperature lights
thanks for your in-depth answer - appreciated !
-- xx "Bandicoot" wrote in message ... "Tsotsi" wrote in message .. . I need to buy or make some cool lights (as close to daylight/5500K) as I can get, & that are a reasonable weight, are portable, and give a decent amount of f-stop/shutter speed - I cannot use flash/strobe and tungsten/halogen lights are too hot. Lowell make a unit called Scandles but it's only 200w and I am sure you cant get much of an exposure from them. Can anyone share their experience? thanks Frank HMI is one solution, the one the movies use. Expensive, and you need a ballast as well as the lamphead, but it is reasonably portable. The flicker rate is extremely high, making any flicker virtually non-existent when compared to tungssten lamps, which makes it much better for use with scanning digital backs. It is also almost a point source, so can give very hard light if yo want it, or be modified as appropriate. There are several makes, but the only one I'm familiar with is the Elinchrom: this has a colour temperature of 5,800K. It is a 575W lamp, but be aware that HMI is much more efficient than tungsten, so it is a lot brighter than a 575W tungsten lamp or photoflood would be: the Elinchrom produces 14,000 Lux, whihc is about the same as a 2,000W tungsten halogen lamp. The Elinchrom takes all the same reflectors, softboxes, snoots, fresnels and whatever else as their flash heads do. MSR and CID lamps are more or less similar technology to HMI, but I really don't know anything about these types. Photographic flourescents are the other option. These have a very near daylight 'temperature' (in inverted commas because flourescent doesn't behave like a black-body source, so strictly it doesn't have a colour temperature). However, because the peaks and troughs in their emission are rather different to other sources, they tend not to appear quite the same on different films - not a massive difference but enough to merit some testing before investing a lot of time or money. KinoFlo are the best known manufacturer of these types of lights. They tend to be large, and linear, of course, because of the shape of the tubes. This makes for a large light source, but the light is not as soft as the size alone would suggest - it seems quite attractive when I've seen other people use it, though I haven't done so myself. Popular with fashion photographers. Power is lower than HMI sources, but even so be aware that flourescents are far more efficient than tungsten lights, and so a direct Watt for Watt comparison is extremely misleading. Thus the Scandles you mention are going to be 'worth' a lot more in light output than that 200W power consumption suggests if you are comparing them to a tungsten lamp - you could ask the manufacturer for a Lux value. HMI is much cooler running than a tungsten halogen of equivalent brightness, but obviously flourescents are much cooler still, hence their other group of fans: food photographers. A lot of people hire both these types of light rather than owning them outright so you could always do a day's hire and take some light readings / shoot some test shots before committing to a purchase. Hope that's a bit of help, Peter |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
'cool' temperature lights
thanks for your in-depth answer - appreciated !
-- xx "Bandicoot" wrote in message ... "Tsotsi" wrote in message .. . I need to buy or make some cool lights (as close to daylight/5500K) as I can get, & that are a reasonable weight, are portable, and give a decent amount of f-stop/shutter speed - I cannot use flash/strobe and tungsten/halogen lights are too hot. Lowell make a unit called Scandles but it's only 200w and I am sure you cant get much of an exposure from them. Can anyone share their experience? thanks Frank HMI is one solution, the one the movies use. Expensive, and you need a ballast as well as the lamphead, but it is reasonably portable. The flicker rate is extremely high, making any flicker virtually non-existent when compared to tungssten lamps, which makes it much better for use with scanning digital backs. It is also almost a point source, so can give very hard light if yo want it, or be modified as appropriate. There are several makes, but the only one I'm familiar with is the Elinchrom: this has a colour temperature of 5,800K. It is a 575W lamp, but be aware that HMI is much more efficient than tungsten, so it is a lot brighter than a 575W tungsten lamp or photoflood would be: the Elinchrom produces 14,000 Lux, whihc is about the same as a 2,000W tungsten halogen lamp. The Elinchrom takes all the same reflectors, softboxes, snoots, fresnels and whatever else as their flash heads do. MSR and CID lamps are more or less similar technology to HMI, but I really don't know anything about these types. Photographic flourescents are the other option. These have a very near daylight 'temperature' (in inverted commas because flourescent doesn't behave like a black-body source, so strictly it doesn't have a colour temperature). However, because the peaks and troughs in their emission are rather different to other sources, they tend not to appear quite the same on different films - not a massive difference but enough to merit some testing before investing a lot of time or money. KinoFlo are the best known manufacturer of these types of lights. They tend to be large, and linear, of course, because of the shape of the tubes. This makes for a large light source, but the light is not as soft as the size alone would suggest - it seems quite attractive when I've seen other people use it, though I haven't done so myself. Popular with fashion photographers. Power is lower than HMI sources, but even so be aware that flourescents are far more efficient than tungsten lights, and so a direct Watt for Watt comparison is extremely misleading. Thus the Scandles you mention are going to be 'worth' a lot more in light output than that 200W power consumption suggests if you are comparing them to a tungsten lamp - you could ask the manufacturer for a Lux value. HMI is much cooler running than a tungsten halogen of equivalent brightness, but obviously flourescents are much cooler still, hence their other group of fans: food photographers. A lot of people hire both these types of light rather than owning them outright so you could always do a day's hire and take some light readings / shoot some test shots before committing to a purchase. Hope that's a bit of help, Peter |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
'cool' temperature lights
I just bought a bunch of 48 inch "shoplights" from the hardware store - the
units are all wired up and ready to plug in. A bank of 10 units would give a 4 foot x 4 foot light bank - all connected to a good power bar. With 2 tubes in each unit at 40W per tube = 80W, 10 units would draw 800watts which should be ok for a household circuit. I found Philips "natural sunshine" 48 inch tubes rated at 5000K and 92 CRI. What do you all think of this plan? -- xx "Bandicoot" wrote in message ... "Tsotsi" wrote in message .. . I need to buy or make some cool lights (as close to daylight/5500K) as I can get, & that are a reasonable weight, are portable, and give a decent amount of f-stop/shutter speed - I cannot use flash/strobe and tungsten/halogen lights are too hot. Lowell make a unit called Scandles but it's only 200w and I am sure you cant get much of an exposure from them. Can anyone share their experience? thanks Frank HMI is one solution, the one the movies use. Expensive, and you need a ballast as well as the lamphead, but it is reasonably portable. The flicker rate is extremely high, making any flicker virtually non-existent when compared to tungssten lamps, which makes it much better for use with scanning digital backs. It is also almost a point source, so can give very hard light if yo want it, or be modified as appropriate. There are several makes, but the only one I'm familiar with is the Elinchrom: this has a colour temperature of 5,800K. It is a 575W lamp, but be aware that HMI is much more efficient than tungsten, so it is a lot brighter than a 575W tungsten lamp or photoflood would be: the Elinchrom produces 14,000 Lux, whihc is about the same as a 2,000W tungsten halogen lamp. The Elinchrom takes all the same reflectors, softboxes, snoots, fresnels and whatever else as their flash heads do. MSR and CID lamps are more or less similar technology to HMI, but I really don't know anything about these types. Photographic flourescents are the other option. These have a very near daylight 'temperature' (in inverted commas because flourescent doesn't behave like a black-body source, so strictly it doesn't have a colour temperature). However, because the peaks and troughs in their emission are rather different to other sources, they tend not to appear quite the same on different films - not a massive difference but enough to merit some testing before investing a lot of time or money. KinoFlo are the best known manufacturer of these types of lights. They tend to be large, and linear, of course, because of the shape of the tubes. This makes for a large light source, but the light is not as soft as the size alone would suggest - it seems quite attractive when I've seen other people use it, though I haven't done so myself. Popular with fashion photographers. Power is lower than HMI sources, but even so be aware that flourescents are far more efficient than tungsten lights, and so a direct Watt for Watt comparison is extremely misleading. Thus the Scandles you mention are going to be 'worth' a lot more in light output than that 200W power consumption suggests if you are comparing them to a tungsten lamp - you could ask the manufacturer for a Lux value. HMI is much cooler running than a tungsten halogen of equivalent brightness, but obviously flourescents are much cooler still, hence their other group of fans: food photographers. A lot of people hire both these types of light rather than owning them outright so you could always do a day's hire and take some light readings / shoot some test shots before committing to a purchase. Hope that's a bit of help, Peter |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
'cool' temperature lights
I just bought a bunch of 48 inch "shoplights" from the hardware store - the
units are all wired up and ready to plug in. A bank of 10 units would give a 4 foot x 4 foot light bank - all connected to a good power bar. With 2 tubes in each unit at 40W per tube = 80W, 10 units would draw 800watts which should be ok for a household circuit. I found Philips "natural sunshine" 48 inch tubes rated at 5000K and 92 CRI. What do you all think of this plan? -- xx "Bandicoot" wrote in message ... "Tsotsi" wrote in message .. . I need to buy or make some cool lights (as close to daylight/5500K) as I can get, & that are a reasonable weight, are portable, and give a decent amount of f-stop/shutter speed - I cannot use flash/strobe and tungsten/halogen lights are too hot. Lowell make a unit called Scandles but it's only 200w and I am sure you cant get much of an exposure from them. Can anyone share their experience? thanks Frank HMI is one solution, the one the movies use. Expensive, and you need a ballast as well as the lamphead, but it is reasonably portable. The flicker rate is extremely high, making any flicker virtually non-existent when compared to tungssten lamps, which makes it much better for use with scanning digital backs. It is also almost a point source, so can give very hard light if yo want it, or be modified as appropriate. There are several makes, but the only one I'm familiar with is the Elinchrom: this has a colour temperature of 5,800K. It is a 575W lamp, but be aware that HMI is much more efficient than tungsten, so it is a lot brighter than a 575W tungsten lamp or photoflood would be: the Elinchrom produces 14,000 Lux, whihc is about the same as a 2,000W tungsten halogen lamp. The Elinchrom takes all the same reflectors, softboxes, snoots, fresnels and whatever else as their flash heads do. MSR and CID lamps are more or less similar technology to HMI, but I really don't know anything about these types. Photographic flourescents are the other option. These have a very near daylight 'temperature' (in inverted commas because flourescent doesn't behave like a black-body source, so strictly it doesn't have a colour temperature). However, because the peaks and troughs in their emission are rather different to other sources, they tend not to appear quite the same on different films - not a massive difference but enough to merit some testing before investing a lot of time or money. KinoFlo are the best known manufacturer of these types of lights. They tend to be large, and linear, of course, because of the shape of the tubes. This makes for a large light source, but the light is not as soft as the size alone would suggest - it seems quite attractive when I've seen other people use it, though I haven't done so myself. Popular with fashion photographers. Power is lower than HMI sources, but even so be aware that flourescents are far more efficient than tungsten lights, and so a direct Watt for Watt comparison is extremely misleading. Thus the Scandles you mention are going to be 'worth' a lot more in light output than that 200W power consumption suggests if you are comparing them to a tungsten lamp - you could ask the manufacturer for a Lux value. HMI is much cooler running than a tungsten halogen of equivalent brightness, but obviously flourescents are much cooler still, hence their other group of fans: food photographers. A lot of people hire both these types of light rather than owning them outright so you could always do a day's hire and take some light readings / shoot some test shots before committing to a purchase. Hope that's a bit of help, Peter |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
'cool' temperature lights
Use high frequency ballasts if you're going to try that. Standard ballasts are 60Hz. The high frequency ones are something like 30-40Khz. Same tubes work for both ballasts. The problem is how to control/position a bank of lights. Take a look at: http://www.goodmart.com/products/bul...dimmable.ht m They have HF dimmable, various color temp screw-in bulbs.The max bulb is 20 watt but they are much smaller than a shoplight. Four bulbs would be 80watt. Also would give you more adjustable light levels. I'd estimate 80 watt fluorescent is about 240watt standard bulbs. Wes Tsotsi wrote: I just bought a bunch of 48 inch "shoplights" from the hardware store - the units are all wired up and ready to plug in. A bank of 10 units would give a 4 foot x 4 foot light bank - all connected to a good power bar. With 2 tubes in each unit at 40W per tube = 80W, 10 units would draw 800watts which should be ok for a household circuit. I found Philips "natural sunshine" 48 inch tubes rated at 5000K and 92 CRI. What do you all think of this plan? -- xx "Bandicoot" wrote in message ... "Tsotsi" wrote in message ... I need to buy or make some cool lights (as close to daylight/5500K) as I can get, & that are a reasonable weight, are portable, and give a decent amount of f-stop/shutter speed - I cannot use flash/strobe and tungsten/halogen lights are too hot. Lowell make a unit called Scandles but it's only 200w and I am sure you cant get much of an exposure from them. Can anyone share their experience? thanks Frank HMI is one solution, the one the movies use. Expensive, and you need a ballast as well as the lamphead, but it is reasonably portable. The flicker rate is extremely high, making any flicker virtually non-existent when compared to tungssten lamps, which makes it much better for use with scanning digital backs. It is also almost a point source, so can give very hard light if yo want it, or be modified as appropriate. There are several makes, but the only one I'm familiar with is the Elinchrom: this has a colour temperature of 5,800K. It is a 575W lamp, but be aware that HMI is much more efficient than tungsten, so it is a lot brighter than a 575W tungsten lamp or photoflood would be: the Elinchrom produces 14,000 Lux, whihc is about the same as a 2,000W tungsten halogen lamp. The Elinchrom takes all the same reflectors, softboxes, snoots, fresnels and whatever else as their flash heads do. MSR and CID lamps are more or less similar technology to HMI, but I really don't know anything about these types. Photographic flourescents are the other option. These have a very near daylight 'temperature' (in inverted commas because flourescent doesn't behave like a black-body source, so strictly it doesn't have a colour temperature). However, because the peaks and troughs in their emission are rather different to other sources, they tend not to appear quite the same on different films - not a massive difference but enough to merit some testing before investing a lot of time or money. KinoFlo are the best known manufacturer of these types of lights. They tend to be large, and linear, of course, because of the shape of the tubes. This makes for a large light source, but the light is not as soft as the size alone would suggest - it seems quite attractive when I've seen other people use it, though I haven't done so myself. Popular with fashion photographers. Power is lower than HMI sources, but even so be aware that flourescents are far more efficient than tungsten lights, and so a direct Watt for Watt comparison is extremely misleading. Thus the Scandles you mention are going to be 'worth' a lot more in light output than that 200W power consumption suggests if you are comparing them to a tungsten lamp - you could ask the manufacturer for a Lux value. HMI is much cooler running than a tungsten halogen of equivalent brightness, but obviously flourescents are much cooler still, hence their other group of fans: food photographers. A lot of people hire both these types of light rather than owning them outright so you could always do a day's hire and take some light readings / shoot some test shots before committing to a purchase. Hope that's a bit of help, Peter |
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Good starting set of studio lights for Nikon D100 | Charlie Self | Digital Photography | 11 | July 16th 04 08:21 AM |
fridge and heat problems | Edwin | In The Darkroom | 15 | July 7th 04 04:43 AM |
LARGE FORMAT IS VERY COOL! | Radio913 | Large Format Photography Equipment | 2 | March 17th 04 02:48 AM |
ISO variation with temperature. Is it important? | Rachel Koktava | Film & Labs | 8 | December 27th 03 11:43 PM |
Northern Lights - Yukon/Alaska... | mjlp | Photographing Nature | 1 | October 5th 03 10:50 AM |