Followspot 400G
 

I'm looking for a Followspot light, I borrowed a 500W HMI Spotlight which gave me beautiful white light from 25m away with a 3m diameter. Many of the speakers complained that is was too bright, looked great on camera though. I'm looking at buying my own light now and came across the Chauvet Followspot 400G (Products Followspot? 400G | | CHAUVET® Lighting). Does anyone know if a ENX 360W light bulb is any good? I want something that in bright and beautiful, I shoot mainly weddings.

Sorry to say, but the ENX 82V 360W is a MR16 size halogen lamp - it is not an HMI which is a discharge source - colour temp of HMIs is pretty high - around 6000K, so do look rather blue - which helps them cut through. The ENX has a much lower colour temp - just over 3200K - much more orange/red. Most people tend to work on the discarge types being around 4 times brighter, watt for watt.

If you want a discharge sourced followspot, then there are some, but they are more expensive, heavier and take damn expensive lamps. There are plenty of cheaper Chinese ones on the market - There are some 575W versions that meet your requirements - DTS VERFOLGER MOON 575 NEW - U.K. International Cyberstore is a typical example.

Thanks Paul, I don't know if I can afford a HMI spot on the other hand. Would you say that buying a MR16 spot would be a complete waste of money in terms of brightness and beam size? I would love to test it for myself however can't find one.

I'm afraid so. I'm a Lighting Designer who uses followspots quite often. There's no doubt they are bright(ish), but what you have is a design with very narrow beamwidth, so the thing looks bright compared with others of similar power output. The snag, as I see it is that they are just a cheap way of producing a followspot, so the compromises are many. never buy a followspot without seeing them work. If the place you use it has the depth, then the beam might be wide enough, but often you can't get them far enough away to get the circle big enough. The ETC source 4 profile uses a sub 1000W lamp, and they are pretty bright - certainly compared to a tungsten 1000W.

The thing I'm surprised by is that you want to use them at all? Video when lit direct from the front with a followspot usually looks washed out and very flat?

The wedding I filmed was at city hall, I rarely work at such big venues, used the HMI Spot mainly as a way to add a new element to the reception. Results wasn't bad which got me thinking it could be kinda cool to throw a follow spot into the mix during the speeches & first dance. Was a unique situation though, most of the venues I shoot at are rather small, getting depth at these venues won't be possible.

Appreciate the input, I don't want to waste money that I don't really have on a light that won't work for me, will wait till I can see one in action.