Fixed lights versus strobes

[atomic_079]

What a great reply Ed. Only a couple of things I'd like to add.
With constant illumination you also have the ability to play with motion and motion blur.

And don't forget at the high end of available types of constant light, HMI (Hydrargyrum Medium-Arc Iodide) is a type of light which uses an arc lamp instead of an incandescent bulb to produce light.
HMI lights are high-quality and correspondingly expensive. They are popular with film and television production companies but their price puts them out of reach of those with modest budgets.
HMI lights require a ballast, an electronic (or magnetic) device which provides the ignition pulse and regulates the arc.

Advantages of HMI lights include:
* Efficiency: 2 to 5 times as efficient as incandescents. This means they use less power and run cooler.
* Colour temperature: HMIs run at around 5600K, daylight temperature. This makes daylight shooting easier, as well as eliminating loss of light from gels (which are necessary with incandescents).
* Light Quality: Directors of photography speak highly of the light produced by HMIs

[Ed Shapiro]

Hi 079

Yes! The HMI lights are great. A lot of equipment that is used in cinamatography is very applicable to still photography. Problem is, however, this stuff can be disproportinatly expensive. Sometimes I wonder if some of the manufacturers price their equipment based on the enormus budgets that are allocated to feature film making rather than the actual value of the gear.

As an aside- If photographers want to learn a great deal about lighting and lighting tools the should subscribe to the American Cinematographer Magazine and get their hands on a copy of the ASC manual. Just about all the techniques can be applied to still and commercial photography and portraiture.

Thanks for you kind comments and for bringing up the HMI information.

Ed

Ed

[Brooks]

I do a good bit of still photography on motion picture film and video sets. In those situations my job is to shoot stills for print ads using the lighting that the DOP has created. On outdoor shoots large HMI fresnels might be used as fill or key lights.

I was at one outdoor shoot where a large 40K fresnel HMI was used as a fill light from a distance of 30-40 ft. When I went up to the principal to take an incident reading I could feel the heat from that light on the back of my neck. HMI's are not as hot as tungsten lights but they certainly are not cool by any stretch of the imagination.

These large HMIs take so much power that they are usually run from generator trucks. Smaller HMI lights used inside on location are powered right from the circuit breaker panel, bypassing any household wiring.

In indoor shoots, on location or in the studio, the use of HMI lighting is not as common as it was a few years ago. If we're on location in a home a large 20K HMI fresnel might be used from the outside, shining through a window to simulate daylight. That's usually the only HMI on the set.

Almost all of the lighting on people in the studio or on an inside location, say for a talking head shot, is done with Kino-Flos using tungsten balanced tubes. When daylight HMIs are used as described above, they are usually gelled to a tungsten or warmer color balance.

Usually a large 4 tube Kino-FLo will be placed a couple of feet behind a hanging sheet of diffusion material or large silk and that will be the key light. Then tungsten fixtures, either different sizes of fresnel spots, parabolic reflectors shot through cukes, or hot light softboxes, will be used to light the background or rest of the room and for any hair or separation light on the subject.

Even with all of this light from HMI's or Kino-Flo's, exposure levels are really low. Last shoot using a setup like the one above in a house, my exposure at 160 ISO was 1/30 sec at f2.8. If I want or need more depth of field I have to re-light the set with my own strobes.

Another point concerning the use of HMIs, and Kino-Flos for that matter, is that as Ed mentioned the cost is prohibitive. Many people here on this website balk at paying even $600 for a set of entry-level strobes such as Alien Bees.

The cheapest 2 tube Kino-Flo light fixture without stand or modifiers is $1400. The cheapest HMI light is $3,000 with the most usable size selling for $5,000.

This is equipment that is usually rented and used with larger budgets.

The best bang for your buck with the most usable power for the dollar spent is electronic flash, pack and head or monolights systems.

[Ed Shapiro]

Brooks! Here's an article I clipped from a film makers magazine as I was think of using theses lights for portraiture:
SUN VALLEY, CALIF. The revolution in motion picture and television production lighting that began 17 years ago with the birth of a new company called Kino Flo continues to influence the creative output of the industry every day.

Kino Flo, Inc. based here in Sun Valley, designs portable, durable and versatile fluorescent lighting systems for use in motion picture and television production. The company was launched by a pair of set electricians on the tailgate of a grip truck in the early 1980’s, back in the days when cinematographers ran from fluorescent lighting like extras in a Frankenstein movie.

Before Kino Flo came along, fluorescent technology was stuck in a time warp. It hadn’t evolved much since the 1950’s when CBS experimented briefly with fluorescent studio lighting. For decades fluorescents had cast a greenish pall over every frame. Even correction gels, filters and white balancing couldn’t fix all the problems. Not only was the light quality poor, the light output was generally too low for film stocks and old style video. The ballasts that operated the lamps were heavy, magnetic,
noisy beasts that belonged in parking garages, not on film and tv production sets. The clunky metal fixtures never adapted well to the rigors of set work.

Nowdays, it’s hard to imagine making a block-buster movie, commercial, music video or a small independent feature without seeing Kino Flos on the lighting list. There are even Kino Flos on camera equipment lists!



I'm gonna see my local rental house and try one out for a few days- I really like the light quality.

As you alluded to- there is a lot of cinimatography gear that is nice but it is crazy expensive and very unweildly. Imagin covering a wedding where the clergy does not allow flash photography and pulling up to the church with a generator truck or asking the good reverend if it is OK to tap into the mains behnd the electrical panel in back of the altar. After all- 5K Keg Light ain't flash. How about a carben-ark unit on the back of a flatbed truck shining in through the stained glass windoes- it would probably melt the solder!

I love to see and work on stills on movie sets. Up here in Canada there are a few cities that are referred to as Hollywood north. Montreal, Toronto, and Van Couver are the notible ones. The crews are great, the locations grand and out cheap canadian dollar attracted many productions- I got to work on a few. Alas- our dollar is now on par with the US dollar so I don't know if this season will yield any stills work for me on those wonderful locations. In Montreal one of the rental outfits built on of the largest sound stages in North America. I hope the will still be doing business. The Quebec crews are famous for their creativity and great service.

Regards, Ed

[kgphoto]

I hope the OP did the smart thing and bought strobes. It would be stupid not to.

Do you think that is too strong a statement?

I don't.

People move, people get hot, by the time you get hot lights hot enough, you are really pulling some amps. By the strobe system you can grow with and with one head and reflectors made out of plexiglass mirrors and foamcore, you can do all the supplementary lighting (hair, fill) you need. Use a battery strobe for your background light until you can buy another studio strobe.

And remember, it is not just the lights! It is the stands, sand bags, booms, umbrellas and other light modifiers too.

[00silvergt]

Originally Posted by kgphoto

I hope the OP did the smart thing and bought strobes. It would be stupid not to.

Do you think that is too strong a statement?

I don't.

People move, people get hot, by the time you get hot lights hot enough, you are really pulling some amps. By the strobe system you can grow with and with one head and reflectors made out of plexiglass mirrors and foamcore, you can do all the supplementary lighting (hair, fill) you need. Use a battery strobe for your background light until you can buy another studio strobe.

And remember, it is not just the lights! It is the stands, sand bags, booms, umbrellas and other light modifiers too.

I agree with you. You are expressing an opinion. I don't think that was strong at all. But then again, I get accused of such things every now and then, I'm pretty obstinate about my opinions, though...ask Killjoy!

[kgphoto]

I notice we haven't heard from the OP for a while. Perhaps he/she is gone.

I speak a little too bluntly sometimes, but occasionally, I am really passionate and slam the point home. I stand by my comments. Glad you agreed with me.

[00silvergt]

Originally Posted by kgphoto

I notice we haven't heard from the OP for a while. Perhaps he is gone.

I speak a little too bluntly sometimes, but occasionally, I am really passionate and slam the point home. I stand by my comments. Glad you agreed with me.

I doubt Andrea is gone, I've seen her post in the other threads, I'm guessing she is either out shooting, where I wish I was, or she's enjoying her new strobes.

[Brooks]

Originally Posted by kgphoto

I hope the OP did the smart thing and bought strobes. It would be stupid not to.

Do you think that is too strong a statement?

The Truth is a cruel mistress !

[onrie]

No not gone. But I went ahead and bought the stuff from this guy not so much for the lights but for everything else that he was selling as well. I don't do that many in studio type shoots. Most of mine are outdoors so until I can afford strobes these will work. I have'nt even had a chance to use them yet. I have been to busy with my real job (frown) to be able to do much. With it being spring time I've been shooting more wildlife then people.

I want to thank everyone for there input it gave me a lot to think about and I will eventually end up getting a good set of stobe lights but for now I had to go what my pocket book was telling me.

Andrea