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Lights for high fps portrait shooting - flicker free suggestions ?

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Daniel Crooks

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hi people.

I'm looking at getting a couple of small to medium sized lights for a little studio project I have coming up.

I'm going to be shooting at high frame rates so they need to be flicker free at 100+ fps.

It's something of a portrait project so ideally I'm looking for something soft, or easily diffused, but again due to high fps needs to be fairly bright.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
 
I had been thinking LED could be the way to go. But the bigger panels are pretty expensive.

what are the other flicker free options ?
 
Hi Daniel,
This is my first post...:-)
I shoot a lot of high Speed & the way to go is:
If you are shooting in a space with 3 Phase power then you can use any sized Tungsten source but you must have '3 of them..one on each phase' = NO FLICKER!
in the scenario above you can use one, two or all three of them on your shot & the rest pointing at a black drape or out a window..they just need to be 'on' & spread across the 3 phases..so three 2K blondes on each phase is fine one on your set, two at the Agency, or two on set one pointed at the floor ..etc etc!

if you are limited to single phase in this studio or future shoots then 400hz HMI ballasts are very good & almost guaranteed 100% Flicker free up to 300fps, a great small source is the 1.2 Briese SOLA DOWNLIGHT PAR's..tiny & 13 amp fed so you can use them in a house with no genie!..I've used these at 2000fps & had zero flicker http://www.solalights.com/light/light-contin/briese/downlight ...don't be put off by the '1.2' size, when used with the lamp in 'spot' mode..it's brighter than the sun!

Have a great shoot & I hope this helps you, Stu.
 
thanks for the info people, especially Stuart, thanks so much for that detailed info. Really appreciate it !!! great tip with the 3 phase, and will definitely check out the Briese Downlights (but I'm assuming they ain't cheap)
for anyone who is interested, these guys make beautiful soft LED lights, rated to 250,000fps - http://www.outsight.com.au/products/creamsource/index.php.
 
Many new technologies being offered.

One that I was exposed to last fall was plasma lighting - no flicker up to millions of FPS at any shutter angle. More energy efficient than HMI's or tungsten.

http://www.hivelighting.com/products/

Have not had a project that would help me kickstart a purchase yet, but the quality of the build was impressive. Only downside was that they cannot be dimmed - so you are back to intensive lighting control.

The PRG light that William pointed you to is excellent - nice fill light that is also weatherproof.
PRG makes another fixture (TruColor HS) that would be wonderful for portraits. The fixture looks a bit closer to a normal soft light but uses "Remote Phosphor Technology" to produce the light. The front surface becomes the source of light when excited by blue led's inside. Unlike the Hive plasma lights, these are able to be dimmed manually (or DMX) with zero color temp shift. Just like the Hive, no flicker at any speed. And damn, they can be bright enough to blind you - if you lift the phosphor panel up slightly, it is hard to believe that those small blue led's have the power to excite the panel so much. Really amazing.

I'm still using my HMI's for the majority of shooting. Like the ability to control the shape that standard LED fixtures just haven't caught up to (might change my mind when I have a chance to field test the L7C fresnels). Have been moving away from tungstens more and more - just too many great new fixtures coming to market.
 
wow, the PRG TruColor stuff looks pretty interesting. That HS looks amazing

Rob, what flavour of Joker Bug have you used at 1000? what is the frequency of the ballast ?
 
BTW Rob, your PM mailbox is full :) I tried to send you a PM about the Joker-Bugs as well.
 
The Hive plasma lights and the PRG TruColor lights (both the HS and the Foton) are all excellent fixtures and as noted, completely flicker free.

There is some other info in this thread that is incorrect.

LED lights at full power do not flicker. Dimmed they might depending on the technology used. For instance all new LitePanels units do not flicker but older ones do (even the same models as they have changed the driver design).

Using tungsten lights with DC power means no flicker. Using AC power they will dim with the cycling of the alternating current. If the units are below 2000w then the filaments are small enough that this dimming may become visible. Spreading lights across three phases may mask the effect but it will not eliminate it and it cannot be trusted. The dimming is based on heat loss and happens at a different time/energy curve to that of the power phasing. At 2000w and above the bulbs are so hot that they do not get a chance to dim before the power cycles back.

HMI lights can suffer from a phenomenon called Arc Wander, which can appear as a shimmering effect rather than a flicker. This is completely unpredictable as it is caused by a mix of various factors.

Additional information on high speed lighting can be found in the Resources section of the AbelCine website.
 
Daniel Crooks said:
hi people.

I'm looking at getting a couple of small to medium sized lights for a little studio project I have coming up.

I'm going to be shooting at high frame rates so they need to be flicker free at 100+ fps.

It's something of a portrait project so ideally I'm looking for something soft, or easily diffused, but again due to high fps needs to be fairly bright.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

Hi

I have done a lot of this... couple of thoughts

3 phase spreads with 'large' filaments Tungsten lights (5k+)... PRO cheap, wide spectrum light and it works CON Hot, tricky to set up in a really useable way, and often too Tunsten...

Briese Lights with 400hz ballast PRO works for many frame rates, really easy to use, usefull beuaty light CON a little pricy to buy

Any old HMI head with a chimera or frame PRO Ok on cost and 'may' be flicker for some 100+ rates CON many ballests are really only 75hz or 100hz and can flicker at many 100+ rates.. the newer 300hz, 400hz and Arri 1000hz ballests are rare and costly... AND the 300hz and 400hz do cause pulsing at high frame rates...

I would also recommend looking at a Vista beam 600 which is cheap, flicker free and really easy to use. I have only shot high speed with them twice and there are some limitiations but i really liked them.

Good luck

PS I like the look of the new remote phospher PRC lights (but have no real experience) and maybe a few strapped together might work
 
I have shot high speed with Joker 400s and 800s. No problems. Their frequency, I think, is 1500 pulses per second. I have filmed up 400 fps but they claim 1000 would be OK.

They have new 1600 heads coming out.

k5600.com

Please tell Bryan in L.A. office I say hello.
 
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Rob Ruffo said:
I have shot high speed with Joker 400s and 800s. No problems. Their frequency, I think, is 1500 pulses per second. I have filmed up 400 fps but they claim 1000 would be OK.

They have new 1600 heads coming out.

k5600.com

Please tell Bryan in L.A. office I say hello.
Click to expand...

I believe the only k5600 currently with an above 300 Hz ballest as standard is the new 1600.. Pretty interesting light (I would imagine very interesting in the US)...
 
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