Shooting with CFL lights
 

I have been shooting with Lowell Tota (Halogen)...
Due to power consumption vs output and heat I am considering using cool lights or CFL.

I am looking into Interfit Photographic INT217 Super Cool Lite 9 Twin Head Kit, with Softboxes & 18 28 watt Fluorescent Lamps, 5200 K Color Temperature.

Any one has used it? Any opinions on such lights...This would give me 270 Watts consumption with 1000 watts output per light....It also has dimmer...

The hall I shoot frequently, is very very dark. They rely on videographer's lights...

I use a a different but similar fixture. I have 9 100 watt CFL's in my fixture. Instead of a dimmer I have a switching process that allows me to use either 4 bulbs or 5 bulbs or all 9.
I love the soft light (no need for diffusion) and daylight color. I have been using 2 fixtures for about a year and have no complaints. I must tell you that soft light (by its very nature) has "no throw". Dependning on ambient light, I get about 10 to 15 feet of usable light.
By the way the Fotodiox fixture I use costs about 90 dollars without the bulbs (which I get at Home Depot).
Gary

Can you tell me the model number? I have a co-worker (photographer) and he loves fotodiox....I would like to pick them up today...

Well, I just forgot that I can at least try to look for it..
I found two of them one with 16 and other with 9 bulbs...

I will check them out today.

Based on your experience can you tell me what bulbs (Company, watt, day/soft/..light)?
I would like to use something that I don't have to modify and matches the outdoor shooting.

You got it. There are in fact 2 versions a 9 and a 16. I have two of the 9 socket fixtures. At first I put Nvision daylight in 5 and 3500 kelvin in the other 4. Giving me the option of daylight or tungsten. I recently replaced all with the Nvision daylight and made a CTO filter if I ever need it.
The Bulbs are available at Home Depot. They are 23 watt (100 watt equivilent) with a pretty good CRI.
GAry

Gary,
Are you using the softbox?

No I've never had the need. The light is a nice balance of soft. They are bright though.
Gary

Gary,

Your thread on the home-made CFL light was great. I went to Home Depot and bought one N-Vision 23 watt (100 watt) daylight bulb to test out using a Nikon D2X, and the results were very good. With a pre-set white balance, even better.

It takes about five minutes for the bulb to "warm up", but then is really bright.

A question I have: Is there any chance of picking up any kind of "flickering" due to the bulb being of the flourescent nature and that US electric is 60Hrtz.

I don't have a video camera to test this but am curious as to whether shutter speed, frame rate or a combination of both has any unwanted surprises.

Are there any combinations that DON"T work.

Otherwise I am going to start looking into building something like this as my main light source for interviews, and mixing that with other lighting for hair and background lighting.

On another note, Home Depot also sells a 300/600 watt halogen "work light" for under fourty bucks. I can't tell what the color temperature of this unit, but it gave me food for thought!

Jonathan Levin

OOPS!

I was actually looking at this thread http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/photon-ma...ing-units.html

Thanks Martin.

Jonathan

I've never seen flicker issues with the N:Vision bulbs. One guy reported an issue once with some though. Perhaps it was just one batch. He did mention that there was a big sale going on so it could have been a slightly different model than normal.

Halogen worklights are about 2600 to 2800K so a more "warm" or reddish color temperature than your standard 3200K. If thats all your using or you're mixing with other 2800K type lights (N:Vision has a 2800K--or is it 3000K?) your camera white balance will take care of it and it will work fine. Otherwise, you can get color correct 3200K bulbs for that type of fixture but I don't remember the source. One thing to remember, the higher the color temperature in that halogen tungsten bulb the lower the life. Those 2800K versions may have a life in the range of 1000 to 2000 hours. Raise the color temperature to 3200K and it goes down to 100 to 200 hours.

So, thats one reason you'll find the worklights with the 2800K, people that buy worklights aren't primarily using them for film/video; they're using them for other uses and don't care about color temperature.

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the informative post! I want to make my own nine bulb light panel simular to Martin Catt's in his thread, but I'm have a hard time locating the appropriate light sockets. I'll keep poking around.

Thanks again.

Jonathan

The light sockets should be very easy to find. All you need as long as you are using a low wattage CFL (up to around 60w or less) would be the standard plastic E26 (Edison / Medium) base type sockets. If you can't find them at Home Depot then look at a place like this:

http://www.lightingparts.com/millerpdf/1-50.pdf

They have a ton of stuff there. The L9063 on Page 8 would be a good choice for instance. Phenolic plastic but rated to 660w / 250v so more than enough to handle these small N:Visions. Home Depot has a model just like that as well and its what I used when I first converted my worklights to run these N:Vision bulbs 3 years ago.

Jonathan
I bought my light sockets from Home Depot. The only problem with them is if you try to remove the screws that hold the wires it usually ruins the socket. I wanted to remove them so I could use the closed crimp on eyelets. After ruining 3 sockets I used the spade crimp ones. The spades will work but I would feel safer with the closed crimp on eyelets.

Also, a big thanks to Martin for his help when I built my fixture.

Norm

Richard and Norm.

Off to Home Depot I go.....

Jonathan