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Advice on Lighting purchase.

T

Thomas Buchan

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Looking at a lighting purchase for some upcoming projects.

I've narrowed it down to a few contenders. If anyone has other suggestions that I should look at first please let me know!

Would either of these act as a replacement for a 4K tungsten?:

Mole Senior LED: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...son_9341_900w_seniorled_tungsten_fresnel.html
Punch Plus: http://aadyntech.com/products/the-punch-plus/

Would this replace a Joker 800?:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1136641-REG/fiilex_flxk154_k154_lighting_kit.html
 
A thing to keep in mind is the difference in power draw versus brightness for various types of light fixtures. A typical HMI puts out around four times as much light as a tungsten does for the same amount of power. IE an 800 watt HMI fresnel is comparable to a 3200 watt tungsten fresnel (but obviously a different color temperature). LEDs tend to be even more efficient, though you can't generally give a specific number that's applicable for all LEDs like you can with HMI units. When making these purchases, you need to consider a few things:

Light quality. A PAR has a different quality of light than a fresnel or an open face. You can't get LED PARs so no LED is really going to replace an HMI PAR. LED fresnels can be very similar, if not identical, to tungsten and HMI fresnels when it comes to light quality. But, they tend to be very expensive and may come with some other issues, such as...

Color temperature. These lights are available in various types. Some are bi-color (they change color with a knob), some are either daylight (5600k) or tungsten (3200k) balanced but do not have the ability to switch. Furthermore, many LED fixtures may also have a green or magenta tint issue. This is common on cheaper models and would likely not be an issue on the higher end units you listed. In any case, you need to decide which color temperature yo find the most useful for the work you do. The very brightest LED units only come in fixed temperature and are not variable. I personally prefer daylight balanced fixtures.

Another problem with LED fixtures is that whilst many of them have a high CRI (color rendering index), they don't have a soul. That's obviously hard to quantify, but you will notice that some of the fixtures just put out a weird light that doesn't render colors and skintone as nicely as a solid HMI or tungsten unit. Again, that's likely not an issue on the higher end units you've listed, but the problem is they're so high end and expensive that it's hard to get reviews on them.


Finally, it all comes down to what you need and use the most. One way you can most easily compare brightness is to lookup the footcandles and/or lumens output of fixtures you do use and see how they compare to these LED units, since wattages lie. Often times manufacturers will also give a tungsten or HMI equivalent in their descriptions of the fixtures as well. IE, if they say a light is comparable to a 2500 watt HMI fresnel, then it is also comparable to a 10,000 watt tungsten fresnel.

Also, to answer your question, based on the info the manufacturer gives, the Fiilex would not replace a Joker 800 in terms of output. That light will give you around 3200 watts tungsten equivalent, whereas the Fiilex will give you 1500-2000 watts tungsten equivalent.
 
Tommy Kraft said:
A thing to keep in mind is the difference in power draw versus brightness for various types of light fixtures. A typical HMI puts out around four times as much light as a tungsten does for the same amount of power. IE an 800 watt HMI fresnel is comparable to a 3200 watt tungsten fresnel (but obviously a different color temperature)...

Finally, it all comes down to what you need and use the most. One way you can most easily compare brightness is to lookup the footcandles and/or lumens output of fixtures you do use and see how they compare to these LED units, since wattages lie. Often times manufacturers will also give a tungsten or HMI equivalent in their descriptions of the fixtures as well. IE, if they say a light is comparable to a 2500 watt HMI fresnel, then it is also comparable to a 10,000 watt tungsten fresnel.
Click to expand...

This is incorrect. I used to have the same understanding of tungsten output relative to HMIs, but actually the lumen efficacy of HMIs (in comparison to tungsten) shrinks considerably the higher up in wattage you go. So a 10k tungsten fresnel has significantly more output than a 2.5k HMI.
 
Last time I used an AAdynTech, I was on a shoot somewhere in the south a few years ago. I had ordered (2) 1200 HMI's, and the guy showed up with these saying it was the same output as a 1200 hmi. I didnt take issue with the output it seemed bright but the color was seriously bad. The lamp came with 3-4 hard gels densities of magenta to try and off-set the horrid green color the lamp generated, but even with the gel it was a pukie color. Never again. Cant believe that lamp ever made it off a test bench and onto a set.
 
Cant go wrong with the Joker lights, best skin tones we've ever found. Traveling with them weekly has been a bummer, we break a few bulbs a year during travel which are not cheap. Taking the bulbs in and out is easy enough but can be a pain. Also Ive found it doesn't pay to use the cheap bulbs. All that being said those Joker HMIs look best. Always searching for an LED replacement since we travel so much, hoping LED tech keeps evolving.
 
Vincent Guglielmina said:
Cant go wrong with the Joker lights, best skin tones we've ever found. Traveling with them weekly has been a bummer, we break a few bulbs a year during travel which are not cheap. Taking the bulbs in and out is easy enough but can be a pain. Also Ive found it doesn't pay to use the cheap bulbs. All that being said those Joker HMIs look best. Always searching for an LED replacement since we travel so much, hoping LED tech keeps evolving.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Joker 800 and 400 look amazing on skin, and are fantastic small shoot/interview sources. We love them. The "quality" of the light it SUPERB.
 
Thomas Buchan said:
Looking at a lighting purchase for some upcoming projects.

I've narrowed it down to a few contenders. If anyone has other suggestions that I should look at first please let me know!

Would either of these act as a replacement for a 4K tungsten?:


-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mole Senior LED: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...son_9341_900w_seniorled_tungsten_fresnel.html
Punch Plus: http://aadyntech.com/products/the-punch-plus/

Would this replace a Joker 800?:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1136641-REG/fiilex_flxk154_k154_lighting_kit.html
Click to expand...


I think it actually does replacing the HMI.

If you wanted to own the light, I strongly suggest you to own LED rather than HMI.

We must think about the cost of maintaining as a owner.

HMI bulbs are extremely expensive. Yes, you rent the light, and if you broke the bulbs, you are fucked, and it costs you 3-5 days rental cost for that small bulbs.

So far, during these three years, I've used number of HMI arri 1.2k or Joker 800, and the bulbs were broken about three - four times. It doesn't always happen to you, but again, only the bulbs cost me 800$

And I am very not happy with that when I rethink of that.

In adorama, you can rent Joker 800 for 40$ (It's dirt cheap rental price) however, if you broke the bulbs, it will cost you another $200 to fix.

There will be always an opportunity cost of spending that possible depreciation cost

Now, on the other hand, LED lights are strong, almost impossible to break. Mole richardson assured us to shooting 20 years for that. if it's broken, send back to more, they will replace the bulbs or the light itself, and all you need to consider is spending time to send them.

Some people are arguing about the skin tone of the quality of the light from LED and green, or magenta cast due to low cri.

Well...

I think it's about the time to rethink of that... CRI95 is great. even my kino diva don't hit 95. but it works for me. plus, if I really consider the best possible quality, and I had so much resources.

I would rather use tungsten over HMI, because tungsten is the best light quality that you can find any way.

For an indie filmmaker or cinematographer, I think these two 5k LED and 10k LED are really amazing options when you try to use 15amp house hold outlets.

Plus, I will not use these two lights as Key or skin tone purposes any way, I will use it as Kick or window lights.

I am so thankful to Mole.

P.S: I originally was going to buy the 5k LED, but I am saving some funds to get 10k. I can't wait. to try man....
 
Minu, if you constantly break HMI bulbs please be careful, these bulbs contain mercury which can be extremely dangerous for your health. I like HMIs very much, like others already pointed out, they are very versatile and if you need a strong point source or a PAR lens beam it´s hard to replace with LEDs. I agree on tungsten light quality but obviously this has its specific downsides, too.

Cheers
Ulf
 
Can we revive this thread a bit? Did you end up going with the mole LED? What did you get how is it working out?
 
William Ciani said:
Can we revive this thread a bit? Did you end up going with the mole LED? What did you get how is it working out?
Click to expand...

I haven't gotten the mole Richardson due to lack of funding in 2016. It's just constantly spending... such as waiting on Epic-W and, Ez-Zoom, and last time drone crashing lol...

Only the other hand, I actually, got something very interesting lights that everyone might interested.

I got four of Aputure 120Ts. This light will give you 120 Degree similar power of 750 watt Lowel's Tota without fresnel and output of only 100w. I also purchased 10-50 degree fresnel, and the light becomes almost similar power to T1ish (Aputure says 1500w, and I actually haven't check this yet. I am just lazy to do, but I can see it's about 1200-1300watt equivalent.

CRI is about 97-98, and TLCI is about 98 and up.

The quality of the light is by far very similar level to Astro level color accuracy (very very clean, no green, magenta issue what's so over) Just check this Link
13417662_10206005562369446_8745482691249268311_n.jpg


Link of the video review (Curtis Judd)


I have just used these 4 lights with 260wh V mount batteries for out door music video entire night.
It's just can't beat the price with that quality.

FIY, I am still waiting any of company will give similar color quality that aputure made, and output of 1400-1800watt and gives me about 8-10K light with price range of 8000$, I think I would go for it.
Also, currently, I am no longer renting Jokers, because my two Aputure lightings can do similar jobs.

Also, I actually started to rent aputure lights more and more. I rent these 4 lights for 180$ in the city, and it's been 3-4 times that my friends rented it (Of course when I rent them I gave them enough V mount batteries as well. 6-8 Fully charged 150-260wh batteries) All of my friends satisfied with the result and surprised the fact that this strong light doesn't need generator but only 12v batteries.

If you lived in the New York City and wanna check this light, just let me know, we could grab a coffee and play with my lights :)

I found this lighting investment as best 2400$ I've ever spent during these years....
 
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