Tungsten vs Flourescent vs LED, what should be my first light kit?
 

Could anyone tip me on to what would be the best lighting kit for me to get as my first purchase? What are the pros/cons of these different lighting types?

The answer to any "what is the best kind of _____ for me to get?" is always, "depends." On your application, your skill, your budget, your needs, your priorities.

You can learn about all kinds of lights if you search the Photon Management threads here.

Happy reading,

What type of production are you doing?
What subjects are you lighting?
In which sorts of environments?
Interiors, exteriors mainly?
Will you be shooting cars?
In the jungle or wilderness?
What is your budget?
What quality level is expected of your productions?
Will you have a real lighting crew or is this one man band?
Will you be shooting film or video?
What kind of camera and how fast or slow is it?
Do you own grip equipment already?
What is your knowledge level about film and video production?

The four main types of lighting instruments on the market now are tungsten, HMI, fluorescent and LED. Within those four categories are hundreds of choices in each. You need to post with a huge laundry list of answers if you want advice that is worth anything.

The list can go on and on... ;-)

Dan

While this doesn't answer exactly the type of lighting instruments one should buy for a first light kit I would certainly look at gear which has bulbs capable of both Tungsten and Daylight color temperature.

There's no such thing as the perfect type of light for all things.

Do you shoot mainly interviews in controlled situations? Then a set of 3 LEDs or fluorescents might be good. Do you industrial work where you need long throws and lots of light? Big open fact tungsten lights might be the ticket. Do you shoot big areas with lots of daylight to match? Then HMIs might be needed. Do you do mostly product photography, or small studio setups? Then maybe a mixture of fresnels and softboxes. Low key dramatic lighting in tight places? Fresnels, probably.


It's not appropriate to use the word versus, or vs., between different types of lights, in my opinion. No one light is better than any other--just depends on the need of the shoot. Some may have properties that in certain situations may be better. Fluorescents and LEDs, for instance, don't pull much power. That's good if you are in an office and have one outlet available and don't know what else is plugged into it. But if you're lighting a big set, they don't have much throw and are too broad and soft for many things.

Starting from scratch, the best thing you could buy would be Russ Lowel's book, I think. It's available on the Lowel site.

Of course, eventually it gets down to how much money you want to spend. A case could be made, for example, that a set of 4 Arri HMIs, a couple of 200s, a 575 and a 1200 would get you through most situations. But that set would cost you over $15,000.

well I'm doing mostly music videos and low budget commercials. I know that there isn't any one size fits all, I just want to know what's the most "versatile" kit to get starting off. I'm looking to invest about $2000 on my first kit.

I would think in terms of lighting a large or small area.

Small areas can afford higher priced instruments because you need less light and can buy better quality.

Large areas need more light so cheaper instruments would be needed to fit the bill & budget.

Cheap are tungsten instruments like Lowel Totas, Omnis etc...

Expensive are LEDs and HMIs

Flourescents seem to be in the middle.

If you can, try to get a mix of hard and soft light so you can have some diversity.

I'm trying to make a decision along the same lines as the OT.

My needs are specifically for lighting interviews - I currently work with a single Lowel Totalite with 500W bulb in a Photoflex Medium SilverDome NXT (24x32) as my main light source and a Lowel iLite with 250w bulb in a Photoflex XS SilverDome NXT softbox for fill as needed or alone.

I typically shoot on location indoors and my biggest gripes are the amount of heat these lights create and having to color balance them when window light can't be avoided. The second issue is straight forward, but the heat issue has become a problem. The advantage is how small the lights are when traveling.

My challenge is - the budget is minimal - I have all the other stands, litediscs, etc, it's just the lights I need to deal with and HMI is out of the question.

I've been considering a high wattage daylight balanced fluorescent that Photoflex has and wondered how this would work for not only indoors, but possibly outdoors on overcast days in the Medium Silverdome being run by a small Honda generator.

Any comments on this idea or should I stick with what I'm currently using for the time being? I'm needing to make a purchase decision soon as I have some projects coming up and want to test beforehand and need to determine the best option.

Hi Cliff:

If it is any help, I usually specify a 4k HMI to work in direct sunlight and a minimum of a 1200 watt PAR HMI for deep cloud cover or shade flooded with ambient daylight.

Fluorescents are pretty wimpy and will not do much for you on a bright cloudy day, the ambient light levels of the sun, even when filtered through clouds are still way too high for anything fluorescent. You need HMIs, you might get away with something as low powered as a 1200 watt PAR.

Dan

Dan - let's take the shooting outside from the equation - should I stick with the Lowel tungsten lights or is Fluorescent a better move given my needs?

Cliff.... if you are shooting indoor interviews, a flo softbox (I have a 200 watt Cool lights model [higher tungsten equiv, like 500/600 watts lumen output] with a grid on it), a reflector fill and a prolight rim/hairlight are the basics for an excellent lighting setup. Add another prolight or equivalent for a backlight/cookie light and I think you are good to go. It's also easy on the circuit breakers and the talent.

I certainly will defer to Dan's expertise but that combo has worked well for me.

You might want to look at the video: "How to Setup, Light and Shoot Great looking Interviews". It is well worth the investment prior to buying anything. I subbed the Flo softbox for the suggest Lowel Tota in the photoflex.(I have some Totas but like the lower heat and lower electricity of the Flo in this situation... for interviews only though.... flo's lack punch and need to be used closeup, in like an interview lighting setup. Here is a link to the video at B&H

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...eo_How_to.html

I can tell you that by buying used where you can their suggested investment price can be cut in half.

Balancing daylight is always a problem and it usually involves larger lights. Most fluorescent units don't throw out enough light to balance an in shot daylight like a window, although a Wall O lite does a good job.

Tungsten lights are the most versatile for the money and have been used for many years shooting interviews. It has also been argued by many DPs that they give better skin tones. Some make up normally sorts out any heat problems.

You could try NDing the windows, but that is pretty time consuming.

Cliff, if you just need to balance with daylight on your interviews and not overcome it (ie., like a person sitting in front of a big window with bright sun outside), then daylight fluorescents or LEDs are great. No heat, little power consumption. Also, all the video cameras I've used seem to look better when using daylight. All those fluorescent softboxes out there are great and cheap but a pain to set up. I generally use three LEDs from flolight.com for interviews. I also have a softbox from skaeser.com that uses six of the big 85 watt daylight bulbs. Also coollights.biz has a nice softbox that uses a single big fluorescent bulb, around 200 watts, I think.

Before getting the LEDs I co-owned a set of three Lowel Caselight fluorescents. Two were the 2 bulb units, one a 4 bulb. They were great too but a bit pricey compared to all the Chinese knockoffs now available (although the way the Lowels all fold up into a case, including the stands, is unbeatable).

is LED lighting useless as far as non-night time outdoor shooting? I'm really thinking about going LED because of the low power consumption, battery capabilities and low heat.

Hi Cliff:

All of the others here have given pretty good advice. If getting away from heat generation and owning daylight balanced instruments are your goals, assuming you cannot afford HMIs, fluoros or LED are all that are left.

I like the fluoros, I built two dual 55 watt Biax fixtures that are similar in size, weight and performance to the Kino Diva 200s. I keep daylight Kino tubes in them and use them a lot lately. I calculated that they cost me $250.00 ea. to build from scratch. If I was doing it again today, I would buy the Coolights dual 55 watt Biax fixture. I don't need dimming on a fluoro, it is easy to diffuse them or move them so the models without dimming are only $273.00, a pretty killer deal. Personally I don't feel that you need the bigger model fluoros for shooting single talking heads but if you do doubles or need full body length shots, yes, then I would suggest the larger fluoros.

I have experience with the Flolight 500s, a client of mine has two of them and they are decent. I just received and am testing the new Coolights LED 600s Coollights LED - Page 8 - DVXuser.com -- The online community for filmmaking and I am a bit more impressed with them over the Flolights instruments. The Coolights have 600 5mm LEDs vs. 500 5mm LEDs on the Flolights and the Coolights cost $100.00 less.

The problem that you will run into with having all fluoros is that they are only a soft, blobby source of light. They are harder to control than tungsten light and you can't get a hard light from them so there is still a place for tungsten lights in your interview kit for BGs, hairlights, etc. But if you are keying and filling with the fluoros, you can just use a couple of smaller tungsten instruments with gels for hairlight, background patterns, etc. and you are at least reducing the heat in the room by using smaller and fewer tungstens.

LEDs are kind of different from either fluoros or tungsten, they are harder that fluoros but softer than tungsten. The falloff of the LEDs is pretty quick, just as it is with fluoros so I am still trying to workout how to use the LEDs in my setups. They are great, but I don't know if I could survive with just LEDs for interviews. Same issues, they are not as good for BG patterns and tight beams as would be a nice little ProLight or Arri 300.

HTH

Dan

Hi Doug:

Pretty much useless, waaay too little output to compete with the sun. To keep up with even fill when in daylight outdoors, you need large HMIs and generators. I am testing the new Coolights LED600s and in my house, near a window with diffused sunlight on a cloudy day, as it is today, from 3' away from subject, I am barely registering any throw on the sunlit subject. And that is indoors. Outdoors, nada.

If you are shooting at night or in cars, they can be useful but in the light of day, HMIs.

Dan

so right now I'm leaning towards getting an LED setup and just renting HMI's if the shoot requires it, until I can afford to buy some. What's the best price I could get on some decent HMI lights?

Richard's company, www.coollights.biz

Yes, I agree. Nobody is going to touch Richard's prices on HMIs, he is way lower. The ideal kit would be a 1200 and couple of 575s. Mmm...someday when I sell that series, I may go all HMI, love them.

Dan

Hehe, something in the works Dan?

wow, those HMI's are really costly. Anybody got any sample video of HMI's being used in daylight?

Most of the lighting videos that I've studied have only dealt with the use of reflectors outside during daylight.

If you are looking at Richard's HMIs, those are inexpensive. If you want to see expensive HMIs, take a look at Arris or K5600. Those are expensive. I used to own a K5600 1200 watt HMI PAR, it was a great light. But I didn't use it very often and I sold it. Man did I get a good deal, bought it lightly used from my camera rental house for $2,500.00, used it four for years and sold it for $3,500.00.

HMIs are one the few pieces of gear in our industry that actually holds its value well. As long as you don't abuse them, you will always get your money back on them.

As far as samples, basically look at anything professionally done outdoors that looks lit. Concerts, sports interview shows shot on the field, The Today Show, etc. Keep in mind that outdoor lighting is never going to look super stylized as it will on interiors, you are usually using the sun as a key (filtered through silks or diffusion) and the HMI as a fill source and sometimes as a hairlight or rim light. But if you see something that looks as if it was shot in broad daylight and it looks good, 8 out of 10 times it was lit with HMIs. Or if the DP doesn't have HMIs, a combination of butterfly, nets, reflectors and a lot of grip gear.

I directed a shoot on a beach in November in Northern California quite a few years ago. It was a seven camera shoot, four on Super 16 and three on DVCAM. We had a 40' jib over head and a Fisher dolly on a circular track, shooting timelapse of the event I was shooting. I lit that with three 18k HMIs with the big fat beach tires so that they could be rolled on sand. My generator truck got stuck in the sand driving out onto the beach and we had to go find an earth mover to get it out. Since it was November, it was cloudy and flat gray to basically I grouped all three 18ks together in a cluster to make a 54,000 watt "sun" source. The sand acted as a nice upward fill on the talent. The client (who was not at the shoot) kept on remarking at the telecine on how nice that it was that we had a sunny day. Good times.

Dan

Hey Dan,

Any chance you're planning on providing any feedback/review on those LED units soon (ie before 2/9/09 ship date)?

He already did, check it out here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/photon-ma...lights-10.html

Quite extensive and thorough I thought.

Yes, I am pretty happy about Richard's LEDs, they are very impressive if used within their limits. I am just getting a sense that many people want to use them in situations (outdoors, mixed light settings, or where major throw is needed) that LEDs are not yet suitable for.

We are lucky that Richard sells all kinds of lights because he admits that LEDs are not the be all, end all solution for video lighting yet. For instance, to light green screens, fluorescents work much better than LEDs. They are softer and with a much less focused output, perfect for evenly lighting green screens. Or for throwing a pattern on a wall, a small tungsten source is superior. Or in daylight, an HMI is much superior.

LEDs seem to be the ideal solution where low heat, high efficiency and light weight are needed and where low consumption DC power is needed, like in cars for car interiors, at night for a walk and talk or for controlled interviews, these LEDs are perfect. But they aren't really any more all purpose than any other type of light. Someday, LEDs may be the ultimate as the technology evolves, but for now, they seem to be best suited for specific uses.

Dan

I seriously doubt that we'll ever get totally to general purpose on any light now or in the future. A CDM, tungsten or HMI fresnel comes closer to that kind of flexibility because they are strong in throw and can be gotten in many different strengths, can be diffused or hard, a single point light source so good at shadows and pattern definition and projection. The larger wattages of HMI have the ability to be used outdoors, etc.

I think its going to be a long time before we really have a good LED fixture that can be used outdoors and can compete with a 4000K HMI. We may get close to a 1200w before too long though and that just might cut it in those indoor situations with a lot of windows.

Aha! And how did I miss this? Anyway, great review as always Dan; thanks!

I don't really plan on replacing anything with these LED's; I've already got some CDM's, Flos, Tungstens and small LED's. One 5600K spot and flood along with the requisite light controls are intended to provide various fill and accent lighting. I'm sure I'll find perfect uses for them where line power would be difficult to supply as well...

Leo:

You sound as if you have a lighting store going on there! ;-)

I am the same, I have everything except CDMs (going to get one from Richard eventually) and HMIs. Yes, they are like golf clubs, its nice to have options for different situations.

Dan