'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

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
____________________________

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
____________________________

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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