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  • 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 :)

4th graders, RED and Coollights

Martin Weiss

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As a community service, we shot a little commercial for our Waldorf school today. Great opportunity to test out a few new things, Build 30 in 4.5k, and the Coollights 600 LED 5k flood with soft box. I ran the latter off a small V-lock battery that lasted for a good hour. No cables for the kids to stumble over, and quicker light adjustments. All the other lights stayed in the car. Shot with the Birger dumb mount, the following frame grabs are on a Contax Zeiss 50mm on f1.4. Very basic grading with only the shadows crunched a bit.


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Looks like the KinoFlo will get less work in the future. Thanks Richard for making such a nice fixture. And thanks RED team for continually improving an already awesome camera.

Not exactly the first time that I filmed kids, but never before have I encountered such a lovely gang. They all had inner calm and were not at all intimidated by the gear. Very open and honest. I wish commercials could be 5 minutes long.
 
NIce... Thanks for sharing
Can't wait to Richard's upcoming biggest LED fixtures (1200 and 2400) in action.
 
Beautiful photos. It's interesting, I see from the Cool Lights website that their CL-LED600 panels have a CRI from 80 to 85 (where sunlight is CRI=100). I always thought that for good skintones you want a higher CRI lightsource, but apparently I'm wrong!
 
could be my monitor but it looks like there is a slight green hue, especially visible in the shadows and blonde hair...
 
Martin just wasn't using the included minus green filter. When you use that the effective CRI goes up and there is no issue.

Indeed. The LED ships with 4 filters included, a 1/4 minus green, a 1/2 minus green, a full CTO and a diffusion filter. In the above frame grabs I did not use any filtration.

Thanks for sharing Martin! Looks great. How much daylight coming into the room did you have to fight, if any?

No fighting the light at all, I could use the dimmer on the 600 LED to adjust the fill to match the background.
 
I am thinking of ordering a LED600 and I'm undecided between the spot or the flood.
I was thinking the spot version could be used with diffusion so I could get best of both worlds. Why did you order the flood instead of the spot? (or did you order both)
 
I personally got two spots with the softboxes and one flood, which I use bare.


I am probably going to pick up a few more and try to fabricate a 4x grid for them.
 
I prefer soft light (and have a couple of hard fixtures from before), and was looking for something more portable and transport-sturdy than the KinoFlos (each time I take them on a plane, half the tubes burst; and they are not so easy to get by in remote places).

I'll definitely will get some spot LEDs from Richard in the future.
 
Thanks Matt and Martin! As you might guess I'm putting together a little daylight kit to complement my tungsten kit!

Looks like I might go for a LED256 and a dimmable 2bank flo - but I'm still gathering information.

Martin - your story about the flo's bursting has me wondering how easy they are to move around from shoot to shoot (locally so with cars, not flying)!
 
J.

Transporting the Flos in a car should not be a problem - has never been one for me. It's only on planes, when they throw the cases around. Funnily enough it seems that the shorter the flight, the rougher treatment the gear gets.

Hans,

Thanks. Had the camera on a jib and did slow tracks in and out. Helps that I have a past as focus puller. And Græme's focus modus is a huge, huge helper.
 
As a community service, we shot a little commercial for our Waldorf school today. Great opportunity to test out a few new things, Build 30 in 4.5k, and the Coollights 600 LED 5k flood with soft box. I ran the latter off a small V-lock battery that lasted for a good hour. No cables for the kids to stumble over, and quicker light adjustments. All the other lights stayed in the car. Shot with the Birger dumb mount, the following frame grabs are on a Contax Zeiss 50mm on f1.4. Very basic grading with only the shadows crunched a bit.




Looks like the KinoFlo will get less work in the future. Thanks Richard for making such a nice fixture. And thanks RED team for continually improving an already awesome camera.

Not exactly the first time that I filmed kids, but never before have I encountered such a lovely gang. They all had inner calm and were not at all intimidated by the gear. Very open and honest. I wish commercials could be 5 minutes long.

Now all you have to do is work with animals and... :-)

Seriously though, it is very hard to get real life out of kids in front of a camera like this - I feel almost as though it is a trusted uncle gazing on them, not a camera at all. Awesome.
 
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J.

Transporting the Flos in a car should not be a problem - has never been one for me. It's only on planes, when they throw the cases around. Funnily enough it seems that the shorter the flight, the rougher treatment the gear gets.

Hans,

Thanks. Had the camera on a jib and did slow tracks in and out. Helps that I have a past as focus puller. And Græme's focus modus is a huge, huge helper.

We bought a big suitcase, and stuffed it with loads of foam, and then tied out lights to this foam with bungies, so they stay tight without jiggle, but super-cushioned too. Our Coolights are still going strong after 5 countries so far...
 
We bought a big suitcase, and stuffed it with loads of foam, and then tied out lights to this foam with bungies, so they stay tight without jiggle, but super-cushioned too. Our Coolights are still going strong after 5 countries so far...

I most likely will use suitcase and foam at some stage of my career but if I'm showing up at a paid gig, could you perhaps recommend some 'pro' looking packing solutions for 4 bank and 2 bank flo's ?
 
I most likely will use suitcase and foam at some stage of my career but if I'm showing up at a paid gig, could you perhaps recommend some 'pro' looking packing solutions for 4 bank and 2 bank flo's ?

Cool Lights sells some for carrying locally, that are great, but not for the airplane. but... The pro flight cases are not airplane friendly as they are massively heavy. They will cost thousands of $ to check as baggage.
That's why we built the light but safe suitcase - it looks a bit stupid, but it's black and sleek - not that stupid.
 
Cool Lights sells some for carrying locally, that are great, but not for the airplane. but... The pro flight cases are not airplane friendly as they are massively heavy. They will cost thousands of $ to check as baggage.
That's why we built the light but safe suitcase - it looks a bit stupid, but it's black and sleek - not that stupid.

Thanks Rob! when I get a minute I'll click around on the coollights site and fine them
 
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