Should I buy these?
 

I'm looking at buying two of these:
800W Continuous Red Head Halogen Light (220V)

I mainly shoot weddings and currently use 500W work lights, I'm sure this will be a step up? I need barn doors to better control light, am I wasting my money? Thx

what do you think?
What is the cost of a brand name substitute?
I would not waste my money on this if I where you, cause your hospital bill because of handeling these lights will be much higher then the cost of original Ianaro's otr Arri's

Problem is one ARRI will set me back around $350, sadly that's out of my budget.

I use 500w worklights for my shoots. I made barn doors for very cheap, so if you're just looking for barn doors, go that route and save toward a collection of good lights. Compared to the lights you're using now, these lights are a step up. They have barn doors to control the spill of light; they also have adjustable focus, which is a big step up from worklights.

Also consider that building a lighting kit a piece or two at a time will be just as beneficial (if not moreso) than purchasing a complete kit. You can find cheap single lights, sometimes with stands, on certain auction sites. You can also find c-stands cheap sometimes. Who's to say you can't get a good 650w arri fresnel and use it alongside those worklights until you've phased the worklights out?

All that said, if I had the money I would have a tough time with whether or not to replace my lights with these...

I've got Ianiro Redhead AND some that look exactly the same as these. For $40 they are a huge improvement on work lights. You can clip diffuser to the barndoors to soften them, and they have adustable beam width.

er.... based on what exactly. I have no problem using these. There are some big differences in quality level, but I broke the beam adjuster off one of my Ianiros when the stand fell over.

These Chinese/Hong Kong lights are made from pressed steel. The finish is a little rough, and the focus mechanism is a little lightweight. The only problem is that they are supplied with 2 core cable, and here in the UK with our 240V power, the rules require that metal parts are grounded - these, as supplied don't meet that rule - but took about an hour to sort out.

I have some of those worklights too, and by comparison to these psueud-redheads, they are simply dreadful.

Get some of these and they will work well for you.
Paul

Thanks for everyone's comments, I placed an order for two lights today motivated by this discussion, $173 shipping to South Africa included, bargain if you ask me. I'm sure that I'll be able to afford decent lights soon enough however these will help me get there. I'll report on service/product/delivery quality when they arrive.

Like you said not grounded for instance. Just a minor detail.
And offcourse they will produce light, and lots of it.
The same goes for the chineese landwind car.
It looks like a Landrover and it will even get you from A to B at much lower costs.
But it doesn't pass a EuroNCAP test.

Received my LINKdelight 800W Redheads today, shipping took 13 days from HK to South Africa. I'm very impressed with the quality of these "$40" lights, they feel sturdy, all metal edges are harmlessly rounded and the adjustable focus ring at the back is silky smooth. The plastic on/off switch feels rather fragile though and theses lights get extremely hot! very quickly. I'm sure they would break if subjected to a stressful environment however they don't feel breakable. I'd recommend these to anyone looking for affordable lighting, they are definitely an upgrade from work lights in almost every regard, for this price range they are well worth it.

I have two of those too and have been very happy with them, I got mine re-wired to add an earth to the metal chassis and they passed PAT testing no problems.

Good value and ideal as a starter set.

I think they must have taken note of customer comments about their products because my lights are grounded to the metal chassis, no re-wiring needed.

Can the RedHead support umbrella or softbox ?