studio lighting help
 

has anybody used lights such as these (see link below) for video work and what implements/shortcomings do you think it would have technically? I have heard rumors of humming on the audio track and flickering with some cameras.

EzShot Soft Box Studio Lighting Portrait Photogrpahy UK on eBay, also, Studio Equipment Lighting, Photography (end time 01-Mar-09 19:57:21 GMT)

To give an idea of the work i am doing, it will be mainly for use on short films and music promos with an indoor setting where i usualy have a lot of control. The camera i will be using is the sony ex1 which uses CMOS chips so I'm not sure how this will affect the situation.

The reason I am curious about these lights is because they are dirt cheap and i've been looking for a cheap soft light source for a while but i'm trying to see if the shortcomings are things i can get away with for my type of work.

Hope someone has the info, thanks :)

This fixture seems to use a standard compact fluorescent lamp (CFL).

The CFL has an integrated electronic ballast, which will mean no flickering.

Hums are possible, depending on the particular lamp, but not likely. It is inexpensive to change out the lamp.

However. Take a look at Perrone Ford's post on going CFL in his Lowel Rifa 88 softbox. He now seems to be happy with 6 lamps in the box.

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

Thank you seth for taking the time to help me, this has lead me towards buying the lights. What i find insteresting from the post you lead me to is the '2-1' adapters that are mentioned, would i be right in thinking this is some sort of adapter that screws into the bulb fixture enabling 2 bulbs to run from the same source? and if so wouldnt it burn out or overload the circuitry of the light? Thank you

That fixture uses a very large 125W CFL that is not very common. It should last quite a while so I wouldn't worry about replacing it very often but it isn't as simple as going to the hardware store. The good news is that it should be fairly bright, about as bright as about 4 or 5 regular household CFLs. I can't give you great recommendations as to what is available outside the U.S. but that does seem like a viable inexpensive soft source. At only 20"x28" it is not the largest soft source in the world but it should be fine used fairly close to the subject. With the EX1 it should be more than bright enough. This is not a recommendation for online auctions but at least the stats on that light look sufficient.

I just noticed your second post and you won't be able to put two of those big lamps in one softbox. They don't use a whole lot of electricity but they are physically too large.

Thanks Marcus, thats a shame about not being able to use more than one bulb at a time, but at that price i wouldnt mind dishing out for additional units providing they give good results.