China Ball

[Brandon J.F.]

Any chance to reopen that group buy? Keeps popping up and is such a tease! I've been using and loving the LiteGear LED kit but damn it's expensive

There will be a second round once our controllers ship. PM me your email and I'll add you to the list.

 

[Peter Strietmann]

Painter's pole from Home Depot.

So I bought a painter pole and a paint brush adapter thing to hang the lantern lock from and I think it is going to work out well. Under 50 bucks. I modded the paint brush thing by drilling and tapping a 1/4" 20 hole in it so keep the lantern lock from sliding out. I also heated the pvc up a bit with a torch so it molded itself around the lantern lock.


http://www.filmtools.com/lanternlock-24-mogul-socket.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004YUPO?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004YUPE?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00

 

[Jamon Lewis]

So I bought a painter pole and a paint brush adapter thing to hang the lantern lock from and I think it is going to work out well. Under 50 bucks. I modded the paint brush thing by drilling and tapping a 1/4" 20 hole in it so keep the lantern lock from sliding out. I also heated the pvc up a bit with a torch so it molded itself around the lantern lock.


http://www.filmtools.com/lanternlock-24-mogul-socket.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004YUPO?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004YUPE?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00

That looks like a perfect solution... I still can't get my head around the idea of pay $100 for that lanternlock though ��.

 

[Bob Gundu]

That looks like a perfect solution... I still can't get my head around the idea of pay $100 for that lanternlock though ��.

Remember that anything in this industry under $500 is considered "free". :laugh:

 

[Jamon Lewis]

Remember that anything in this industry under $500 is considered "free". :laugh:

Does that include a 5lb sand bag...? No but seriously.. To your point, there are things who's price in this industry may be justified or may not have to justified because "anything in this industry under $500 is considered "free"...

That's said, God only knows the expensive things I've purchased. I associate price with value & most times I've been right. The most expensive camera that RED offers is an extremely GREAT value (relatively) some people would think a $70,000 camera is crazy.

Everyone has their preference & quirks & perspective. For me there are 2 things who's prices are nutts & that I can't seem to justify in my head.. $3,600 for a EasyRig (the ReadyRig @ $2,000 I think is completely reasonable & ordered) & that lantern lock! There's no amount of money I could have that I would pay almost $100 a light socket attached to a wire!

-Rant over- Whew... Thanks, I'm done, thanks for setting me up to get that off!

 

[Peter Strietmann]

I'm very curious. How do other people hang china balls from a boom? Typically, in the past they were almost exclusively used with AC power so the weight could be kept to a minimum and they could just hang from the AC wire that was fastened to the 120 or 220 socket. That always seemed pretty dangerous ( fire hazard) and kind of hack to me.

I have to admit I consider myself at times a hack so teetering on the fulcrum I can go various ways. Sometimes I just need to get the job done and sometimes I need the object to perform a task repeatedly without fail. So my criteria in building something usually has two elements. 1) how much does the material cost? 2) How long will it take me to fabricate it?

So if I can build it for less money and build a better product I will do it. I do find that this is rarely the case though and the lantern lock is one of those simple things that is hard to improve on but it is a good foundation (with a few tweaks) for implementing the new generation of LED technology.

 

[Note Suwanchote]

For a film I did last year, I rigged dual temp literibbon into a chimera pancake and put it on a norms two riser aluminum stand. Super flexible and great light with nice, soft wrap-around. Used it as both a key and a backlight at different times. Plus the pancake has the curtains to control spill.

Not a super cheap setup, but I think you could mimic it with a paper china ball and christmas lights, cfl's or even consumer LEDs that don't flicker / band at your shutter speed. You'd want to test, but green / magenta spike can be gel'd out with a sheet inside the ball. And as for CRI, people use HMI's all day long and they have horrible CRI. imho.

For rigging, I'm also a fan of the matthews 'mini mathh boom arm':
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...rG9mMkCFYmCfgodVncN0g&is=REG&m=Y&Q=&A=details

It'll hold a china ball or two and get you cantilevered out a reasonable way. Or rig a menace arm setup and kill a couple of people on set.

Is the photo on the lit with a setup similar to the right?