Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

$2,000 Lighting Budget for Scarlet-W setup

M

Michael Wahba

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 16, 2017
Messages
387
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Orlando, FL
Hello.

You are given a RED scarlet-W, and $2,000 to purchase a kit of lights that is flexible and versatile.

What lights would you go with for shooting:

Interviews
Product ads
Spec ads
General talking head stuff

I am trying to get a well-rounded kit of lights, but I understand the budget might be tough to work with so curious to hear what you guys think!
 
For the most versatility, LED’s would be the way to go, but for $2,000 that wouldn’t get you much in the world of good LED’s (like Lightpanel Astras and Hive 100-C’s). For something decent, there are the Dracast bicolor softboxes, a local TV station I help out with uses them as fill during events.

For getting the most lights out of $2,000 that are reliable, I’d recommend buying used ARRI Fresnels. You could get a whole kit to start out with, that if you budget out for all the additional accessories, should cover most situations. Then later on if you decide to, you could purchase some LED’s as well.

Or you could split what you purchase and get some cheaper LED’s and used tungsten fixtures. If you go that route though make sure you get either BiColor LED’s.

Hope that helps.

Edit: If you do go the used fresnel route, compare the prices of ones already in a kit and ones by themselves, generally I’ve found buying all single units is cheaper than buying them all in one package.
 
I found a deal on the following lights:

BBS Area 48 Phospher LED Fixture
v-lock battery plate
snapgrid
bracket
baby pin receiver
120v power supply

Cineo MatchboxPhospher LED lamphead
barndoors
f-mount battery plate .
bracket
120v Power Supply


Cineo Maverick Phosphor LED lamphead


Cineo Matchstix 6" Kit Phospher LED lamp
5600, 4300 panels
120v power supply
Carry bag


Cineo Matchstix 3" Kit Phospher LED lamp
5600, 4300 panels
mounting bracket
carry bag

The above package second hand for $2,000. Covers most needs I think...jump on it?
 
$2k isn't a lot of money particularly when you consider you need stands, stingers, etc.

for general purpose lighting you need several things -

1 - a large soft source for a key, and one for fill
2 - something easy to shape and harder for an edge
3 - easy to shape directional light for specials on BG pieces, hit a specific thing etc.
4 - this aint in your budget, but generally you would want 1 bigish unit to poke through a window for sloppy sunlight.

In that price range, I would highly recommend the Falcon eyes 18x24 daylight led matts. The color temp and cri are excellent, the price is right, and the output is plenty for a key light for an interview. they have punch.
https://www.amazon.com/Falcon-Eyes-...F8&qid=1525027855&sr=8-6&keywords=falcon+eyes

These are Dedo knock offs. If you can get past the knock off thing, they are a huge value for the money. Color temp and cri are totally great in real world applications.
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/pr...436.html?spm=2114.12010612.0.0.68af5150lxsvZN

Get 2 of the falcon eyes and 2 or three of the dedo knock offs and spend the rest on stands, flags and stingers. For $2k, I don't know how you could do better.

Nick
 
People seem to love these, and B&H had them on sale a couple weeks back for $800, so they might go on sale again. Color variable. This would fit the bill for a lovely large key.

Intellytech LiteCloth LC-160 2 x 2' Foldable LED Mat Kit (V-Mount)

These are on sale at B&H for just $350. Looks like a nice fresal color varialble light, small and comes with two batteries.
 
another question is are you lighting by yourself? or with a small crew?
professional jobs i obviously have a crew and rent, but for myself i wanted the lightest easiest to carry set up, so i went with litemats, 2 S1 models all shoved in one canvas bag, great for the quick interview, but i also have an old 4 light arri kit, but i tend not to touch it or even bring it when im doing my own thing.
the S1's were about 1700 then get some used stands, extension cords, and a few sandbags.
 
Nick Gardner said:
$2k isn't a lot of money particularly when you consider you need stands, stingers, etc.

for general purpose lighting you need several things -

1 - a large soft source for a key, and one for fill
2 - something easy to shape and harder for an edge
3 - easy to shape directional light for specials on BG pieces, hit a specific thing etc.
4 - this aint in your budget, but generally you would want 1 bigish unit to poke through a window for sloppy sunlight.

In that price range, I would highly recommend the Falcon eyes 18x24 daylight led matts. The color temp and cri are excellent, the price is right, and the output is plenty for a key light for an interview. they have punch.
https://www.amazon.com/Falcon-Eyes-...F8&qid=1525027855&sr=8-6&keywords=falcon+eyes

These are Dedo knock offs. If you can get past the knock off thing, they are a huge value for the money. Color temp and cri are totally great in real world applications.
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/pr...436.html?spm=2114.12010612.0.0.68af5150lxsvZN

Get 2 of the falcon eyes and 2 or three of the dedo knock offs and spend the rest on stands, flags and stingers. For $2k, I don't know how you could do better.

Nick
Click to expand...

Get the bicolor falconeyes, they are much brighter. I have the rx-18td and rx-29tdx. You can get the rx-29tdx for <$300 and it's basically a litemat the size and output of a 4x4bank kino but bicolor and packs up small and remote controlable.

You might want to look at aputure, they are pretty popular in the price range.

My personal kit is in that price range and includes some very inexpensive 575w HMIs, and a bunch of Travor and falconeyes led mats.
 
I think that all the advice here is good. I also think that it's ultimately going to be experience that lets you know what works for you. Partially for that reason, I don't know if you even want to try to get a set of lights that "do it all" for $2k-- or even for $10k. You may want to spend part of that money to buy a unit or two, and use some of the rest to experiment with rentals. (Renting a kino flo or an HMI for a weekend could be like a cheap lighting class.)

I'm also putting together a small kit and, for me, the Aputure C300D LED wound up being a great fit-- it's very versatile, very powerful, and it can sometimes replace a pricey rental light. (I don't know if it equals or bests a 575W HMI in output, but it will do a lot of the things that you'd use one for.) You need to budget for some modifiers, though-- the Aputure will raise the light levels in a room like nothing else that costs only $1100, but you're going to probably want at least the softbox (interview key, general soft light), and the fresnel attachment (sorta focused, intensified beam of light). I haven't yet tried the "space light" attachment, but that also looks like a no brainer for the cost. Nick Gardner's list above of purposes is a really good one, and this can tick at least a couple of the boxes. (And it can even sort of fake sunlight through a window, if your ambient light levels are pretty low.)

Perhaps just an importantly, I think you're going to want to spend some of your lighting budget on flags (and the necessary stands and grip heads), to keep the light from spilling all over-- nothing ruins a shot like light in the wrong place. I was also gonna recommend a 4x4 frame, as they're useful for all the types of set-ups you're interested in-- I might squeeze one into a $2k budget myself, but I think most people wouldn't bother. For under $100, though, you could probably get a large "5 in 1" collapsible reflector kit + reflector holder that serves a similar purpose-- put light through it for diffusion, or add coverings to bounce or block light.

I haven't used any of the LED panels recommended above, such as the Falcon Eyes, but they look like excellent ideas. The only thing I'd add is that you could keep an eye out for specials at B&H and Adorama on Litepanels Astra 1x1 panels-- they've recently had several deals for brand new units at around $1k (both the Astra Soft and the 6x. I'm guessing that maybe Litepanels is trying to sell these off as they move towards 1x1 versions of the RGBW Gemini...).
 
Michael Wahba said:
I found a deal on the following lights:

BBS Area 48 Phospher LED Fixture
v-lock battery plate
snapgrid
bracket
baby pin receiver
120v power supply

Cineo MatchboxPhospher LED lamphead
barndoors
f-mount battery plate .
bracket
120v Power Supply


Cineo Maverick Phosphor LED lamphead


Cineo Matchstix 6" Kit Phospher LED lamp
5600, 4300 panels
120v power supply
Carry bag


Cineo Matchstix 3" Kit Phospher LED lamp
5600, 4300 panels
mounting bracket
carry bag

The above package second hand for $2,000. Covers most needs I think...jump on it?
Click to expand...

Update for the thread... picked up this kit for $2,000. From a reduser here and all the gear checks out! Score! Now time to budget for stands and flags.
 
Definitely would love to see footage samples, too -- I need to pick up some lighting gear this spring.

Please also leave a review at B&H if you bought it there!
 
Ty Hunt said:
Cool. Can you post footage samples of the light quality when you get them?
Click to expand...

Absolutely!

Unfortunately, the lights won't arrive until Tuesday because we can't ship batteries overnight anymore? (not sure how long that's been a thing) but that is frustrating.
 
Lithium Ion batteries can't go in the cargo hold of airplanes anymore -- not so easily. They have to be shipped ground, for all intents.

I usually look for batteries locally even if it costs a little more -- that 2-4 day ship time is aggravating!
 
Adam Brian Dada said:
Lithium Ion batteries can't go in the cargo hold of airplanes anymore -- not so easily. They have to be shipped ground, for all intents.

I usually look for batteries locally even if it costs a little more -- that 2-4 day ship time is aggravating!
Click to expand...


Problem is they don't offer the kit or lights WITHOUT the batteries :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top