Joker Big Eye makes every backlight so much better

[Rob Ruffo]

As some of you know, we shoot fashion-y music video, ads, etc., and often the objective we aim for could be summarized as "lush".

I could not be more excited about the new Big Eye for Joker Bugs.

We just used it (with a joker 800) in a field at night, and it looked something like an alien moon used as an in-frame backlight. It also beautifully contoured the subject in a way that a tiny light source (like a small HMI) never could, and spread its light beautifully and evenly across the field. We back-lit about 2 acres with that thing

Yes, we could have used a 12K fresnel, but that would have been massively heavy, and we would never have been able to afford the generators to run that in a field, let alone the rental cost, and then the fact that we would have need a bigger truck, etc. etc. At 800 iso native, you don't need lights that strong on MX except to fight sunlight from far away.

You can't rent Big Eyes in Montreal yet, so we bought our own, but Kudos to K5600 for inventing something truly stellar.

We're starting a wee blog soon, and there will be pics of the shoot (and the video itself) if any of you are interested.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Look forward to seeing pics and video Rob.

 

[Florian Stadler]

I like the quality of light the plastic fresnel creates, soft but focused and hard. I think the time it takes to set it up and it's relative flymsiness speak against it.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

I like the quality of light the plastic fresnel creates, soft but focused and hard. I think the time it takes to set it up and it's relative flymsiness speak against it.

(?) Takes 5 minutes once you get the hang of it (I timed it with a chrono). It is delicate (it's a huge lens, after all) , but not flimsy - it's been on a number of trucks now loaded late at night and it looks the same as when we got it.

The light quality is insanely cool - a lot like sun or moonlight on an ever so slightly hazy day.

 

[Eric Jaspers]

I think the time it takes to set it up and it's relative flymsiness speak against it.

I gotta agree with Florian. I had a chance to play around with one of these at a recent lighting seminar and was not impressed. The plastic fresnel lens in front of the joker is no way near as sharp as a traditional HMI Fresnel. Also the rig is so big, but light weight, that I think it would get tossed around in the slightest wind. I was not impressed.

- Eric Jaspers

 

[Michael Panfeld]

any pics of either the setup or the shot?

 

[Michael Panfeld]

It would be interesting to see the results if one put a Profoto 1200 HMI inside, either mounted upright like the Joker, or with a Zoom reflector attached and pointing straight out (horiztontal to the horizon and perpendicular to the lens). Hopefully it wouldn't burn through the plastic lens or the neoprene fabric. If it doesn't, the light output would be very interesting to compare.

I am curious how an 800 watt HMI would replace the light output of a 12K?

 

[Christopher Barrett]

unrelated I got to play with a new Kino Tegra today.... Awesomeness. The built in dimmer is wicked cool. After playing with it I decided to rent it for the week. I metered it a stop brighter than a lowel omni coming through a full silk.