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IN-HOUSE LIGHT KIT - $5K BUDGET

Nick Morrison

Nick Morrison

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Hey guys, I would love your communal advice on what lights to get for $5k. These are to be our in-house package, to cover interviews, small narrative scenes, and quick spec shoots.

I have several thoughts, but would love your sage advice:

1) TUNGSTEN:

Arri Softbank Kit. (650, 300, 150, 150, Chimera) Approx $2,400. <Plus a 2K?>


2) DAYLIGHT: too many options...

A) Kino Interview Kit (Two 4x2s) - $2,360 <leaning towards this, love their versatility. I'd get it with Daylight and Tungsten bulbs>
B) Riffa Triple Soft Kit (Rifa 88, 66, 55) - $2,059 <with Daylight/Tungsten bulbs>
C) Litepanels LED Flypak (1 Spot, 1 Flood LED) - $3,500 <expensive...>
D) LED's by Coolights - $2,000 (for 1200, 600, 256) <realiable?>
E) A joker of some kind...


I'm basically looking for a mixture of hard/soft light, and daylight/tungsten. But you guys are in the field much more than I am. Waddya think?
 
I have used all these, and have a few of them

get the Arri softbank kit first! It is a very versatile kit, that you can get $100-$175/day in rental on it.

don't get a 2k... rent as needed.. they are very hot, as well
for your other kit purchase..

think about the Rosco Gaffer Kit litepanels kit..

or a Diva 400 2 light kit. You can get $200/day in rent out of it..

don't bother with the Diva 200 kino.. you'll always wish you had the other 2 bulbs.. and rental demand will be low...

I own the Cool Lights LEDs , and like them for myself.. but they are not tough enough to rent out.
 
My current small doc, interview, travel kit as follows.

(2) Coollights CDM-150 daylight
(1) Coolights softbox for CDM150
(2) Coolights LED600 wide daylight
(5) Lowel Uni stands (I use one to mount a boom mic for interviews).

Several years of steady use and constant mending.

I have access to a full grip and light inventory, trucks, Kinos, HMI, big tungsten, distro, genies and still go out with above for doc / travel jobs. One complaint with Coolights is all the thumbscrews are flimsy plastic glued to metal. The plastic breaks off after a few "rental" jobs. I travel with pliers to deal with the broken hardware.
 
I've used all these, and have a lot of them. My go-too's for tungsten are always the arrilite 750 plus (pretty powerful little guy) the 300 fresnel, the 150 kickers, and a nook light of some sort. They are all just easy and you can take them anywhere and still use the typical wall outlets. I usually carry a few mini litepannels which are great for hiding behind plants, bars, dashboards, etc. For the HMI's I love the jokers, but they're super pricey like all daylights. I have a few Kino's but they pretty much collect dust unless im shooting interviews or greenscreening...they're just so friggin big, I tend to just leave them. keep in mind too the kino's have practically no throw. if you can afford it, I'd dich the kinos and get a couple jokers with a chimera. just my 2 cents good luck,
trey
 
I would buy the Kino Celebs at this point in time. they travel soooo much better than other kino fixtures due to tubes breaking. I always have to delamp my Diva 400 when I travel. Correct advice to pass on the diva 200's
 
Interesting about the Kino Celebs, they look amazing. If I were togo on a budget, how about the Cool Lights 600 Leds? At $450 a pop they seem pretty hard to beat, for an in-house kit that won't be rented.

For a small, portable kit that we can shoot in-house in our small studio or travel around NYC with, I was thinking of this:

Cool Lights LED 600 - Spot w/ Softbox - $450
Cool Lights LED 600 - Flood - $450
Cool Lights LED 250 - Spot - $250

And then I could expand that out with an extra 600 flood and 250 spot, and eventually a 1200 bi-color panel. For a total package that looks like this:

Cool Lights LED 600 - Spot w/ Softbox - $450
Cool Lights LED 600 - Flood - $450
Cool Lights LED 600 - Flood - $450
Cool Lights LED 250 - Spot - $250
Cool Lights LED 250 - Spot - $250
Cool Lights LED 1200 Bi-Color - $1,200

All combined for about the price of one Kino Celeb.

Thoughts? Am I putting too much faith in LED and Cool Lights? Or am I onto something? We have a small Arri Kit already, so to me portability, low heat, and creative options are most important.

Feedback deeply appreciated.

Thanks guys for all your comments so far. Been very helpful.
 
Light quality from a CDM150 with softbox is much nicer than the LCD600, for keying the typical interview. Weight is about the same. I think your best off with a mix of CDM150 and LED. I'm about to depart to Monterey and Alaska to shoot interviews with the coolights setup I listed above.
 
These are all good things. I would add say, 4 source four pars to the mix. They are dirt cheap, and Have tremendous punch. They do the job of a 1k par 64, but they aren't as hot, you don't need bulbs ( you change lenses instead of globes), they are smaller, and you can plug them into a dimmer. If you get a 6x6 with a silk, and 4 source 4 pars, you have a nice big source with a ton of punch. That's the one thing that's missing from the line up.

Nick

Edit - as far as daylight, if you are renting it out, get name brand, but if it's for you, get a bunch of the chinese light panel knock offs. A little minus green and they look fantastic, and you can get waaaaaay more bang for your buck.
 
Thanks guys. Dave, your Cool Lights setup sounds cool. If the CDM-150 is as good as you say, then it all makes sense. You have 2 spots, and 2 floods. Very portable.

Sam - that ARRI kit looks AMAZING! Wow. 11lbs? All in a pelican case? SOLD.
 
I highly recommend Kino Flos. Buy both 3200 and 5500 tubes and you are all set. (4) 4x4s or (4) 2x4s or any combination of those would be ideal plus add some C Stands and Stingers. I would stay away from all and any tungsten lights- tungsten globes throughout the U.S. will go out of production in the year 2014 and our film lights will now have a huge markup as they will be considered a specialty item. Don't get stuck having to pay a specialty markup for a BO 300 watt globe. Fluor, plasma and LED are the way to go.
 
Yeah we used Kino's extensively on our latest pilot, and I loved them. Our Dp Alex Baev would remove individual bulbs from the fixture and tape them to tables and walls, and the results were AWESOME. So versatile...we def are going to get a set of Kino's for sure.

But for small portable interview lights, the Cool Lights LED's and Daylight Fresnels look very appealing, too.
 
Bernard Evans said:
tungsten globes throughout the U.S. will go out of production in the year 2014 and our film lights will now have a huge markup as they will be considered a specialty item. Don't get stuck having to pay a specialty markup for a BO 300 watt globe. Fluor, plasma and LED are the way to go.
Click to expand...

It's been years since any globe I've purchased for any of my tungsten lights has been "made in the U.S.A." - they went out of production here years ago… They are made in Hungary, Taiwan, Mexico, China, and will continue to be made until the demand completely dries up, long after we're all dead. (Your assertion that Tungsten bulbs will no longer be made / available after 2014 in North America is somewhat misguided, I'm sorry to say).

Kino's are great, but if you want to do a lighting set-up you will occasionally need a hard light; LED's aren't quite there yet (CRI, throw, even spread, intensity), Plasma is cool but waaaaaay out of your stated budget. A tungsten fresnel is great to have in your kit even if you need to gel (and lose a stop or two) to bring it to daylight - even a 150 Dedo is great to give an edge to an interview lifting set-up or a product shot.

G.
 
Hey Glen, let me clarify for you- readily available SALES production in the US will end in 2014. This is being mandated by the US federal government as part of some energy bill. Of course, globes aren't made in the US, I never said that. Also, my original sentence never stated that they won't be available, I said they will be at a specialty price. ICG Local 600, Local 80 and Local 728 have all had extensive classes on this bill, on the use of plasma and LED lights for use in the future (2014) and on preparation for when tungsten globes will be inflated. (For example, Home Depot and others had to stop selling 100 watt globes by the end of last year and 75 watt globes by the end of this year- one of many small, but very big, changes to our industry). Please PM me or email me at bernardevansdp at gmail if you would like to further discuss/debate to not clog the OP. :)
 
For interviews I do like a good source four, I will put in a gobo pattern and hit the wall and add some blue or green just to make the back wall do something else. Hard edge , and with a hand dimmer makes this a tough to beat fixture for the low bucks. I have no personal time spent using the cool fixtures your looking at, however staying with one brand is not bad thing. At lease all your repair parts will be the same in the drawer.. Everything breaks. I've got Arri, Mole, Lowel, Kino etc,,, parts all over my garage. I would check out the replacement parts costs on some of the fixtures, such as cables or gel frames, knobs or yokes. LED dimmers and power supplies are what get you on those fixtures.
 
Bernard Evans said:
Hey Glen, let me clarify for you- readily available SALES production in the US will end in 2014. This is being mandated by the US federal government as part of some energy bill. Of course, globes aren't made in the US, I never said that. Also, my original sentence never stated that they won't be available, I said they will be at a specialty price. ICG Local 600, Local 80 and Local 728 have all had extensive classes on this bill, on the use of plasma and LED lights for use in the future (2014) and on preparation for when tungsten globes will be inflated. (For example, Home Depot and others had to stop selling 100 watt globes by the end of last year and 75 watt globes by the end of this year- one of many small, but very big, changes to our industry). Please PM me or email me at bernardevansdp at gmail if you would like to further discuss/debate to not clog the OP. :)
Click to expand...

I guess my point is that the legislation is often misinterpreted - incandescent bulbs will be restricted if they can't reach a lumens per watt threshold, and the legislation exempts several classes of specialty lights, including appliance lamps, rough service bulbs, coloured lamps, stage lighting, and plant lights. Stage lighting is one of the key points - so while regular household incandescent bulbs may disappear from U.S. shelves (and good riddance I say) Film lights will continue long into the future. Even more so since the countries that surround the U.S. will continue to make / sell them for years to come. And aren't they already at a special price?
My second point is that the alternatives that we need aren't yet mature enough for everyday use - and certainly don't fit in the OP's budget. A single new Plasma light would burn through his budget, and one light doesn't make a kit.
So trying to steer him away from a tungsten fixture with a doomsday end of world scenario isn't all that helpful - even if the globes double or triple in cost over the next ten years, they'll still be a bargain compared to the alternatives. Plus they have proven track records of working in pro environments; when three manufacturers of LED lighting at N.A.B. admitted that their fixtures "Aren't good enough yet", well I'll stay away for now...
 
Hey guys thanks all for the feedback. Yeah, I currently have two Arri 300's and an Arri 150 and a Medium Rifa. At Astronaut we are debating what packages to get as a team. I think I am going to round out the Arri kit with a 650 and possibly a 1k or 2K. Then we'll get a Kino Coffin of some kind. And then for sure a set of those very intriguing Cool Lights.

That would give us a very flexible hard edge Tungsten package, a good set of Kinos, and a flexible/portable set of LED's as well.

I'm excited! Thanks all.

And...I need to look into that Source Four. Would I get similar punch/use from an Arri 1k?

Thanks again everybody.
 
+1 on minus green on LED lights... they mostly seem to have a green spike.
My Cool Lights ones came with a plastic filter that does the job nicely.. when I add a sheet of tracing paper diffusion to the light it is a great soft key that I can use with 12volt power.. and sometimes as a fill light in a daylight exterior interview setting...
though there are now some chinese ones with no brand name, but twice as much punch from 12v dc

while I have and use a mixture of Cool Lights USA LED panels, Kino FLo, Rosco and other CFL lights for the EPK work I do,
The go to kit that I can also rent to other people with a minimum of worry is the Arri Kit...
I find the LED panels to all be fragile enough that I have to hover over anyone using them at first.. and an irritation I have is that the threaded receivers for t-nuckles are so soft that they immediately cross threaded, and I still need to put helicoils in the thread to re-inforce it..
 
I need to look into that Source Four. Would I get similar punch/use from an Arri 1k?
Click to expand...

The source 4s punch above their weight. With no lens, the hotspot with a 750 globe is brighter than a 10k fresnel at equal distance. They are screaming punchy. If I had one light to light a whole movie with it would be source 4 pars. In fact, I did a whole movie where 90% of it was lit with source 4s hung from the ceiling, and then bounced into Celotex and bead board for return.

A fresnel has a different quality of light than a par, so they do different things. That being said, you can still do a nice venetian blind pattern and get a hard cut with a source 4. As far as frsnels go, It goes like this - Desisti best lens, then arri, and mole richardson suck in comparison. You can not beat the desitis for precision of focusing, even field illumination, and defined pattern.

Actually, if you are considering arri tungsten units, look at desistis. They are a little cheaper, better lenses as I said, and they are made of stainless steel. They are great lights.

Nick
 
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