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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 :)

K5600 HMI GROUP BUY

Olivier Madar said:
Hi,

I bought several joker 400 but no 200 because of the too small difference in weight and price between the 200 and the 400. It is always easy to use a scrim or ND if you want less light but often you want more.
The differnece between the 400 and 800 and the 1600 are more important, so they are for different use.
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aww great, thx for the info man!

thats what i kinda had in mind i also feel there is always a way to get the 200 "level" via scrims and such. So would you agree that a 2x400 and 1x800 (so 3 lights) would be a very versatile basic set that solves 80% of most situations?

alo anyone who can compare these babes to lets say dedolights? From what I heared, dedos are super quality but done come cheap either.
 
Ulf, their email is on the blog.. I think you might have better luck if you ask them yourself. There could be a lot of factors. Go ahead and throw it at them, and email me with the results.. I'll be curious.

A little more info: The type and size of your order might have an impact on their answer. So to ask in GENERAL might get a "no" but your specific order might get a different answer.
Jay
 
Registered Info-Tech's website, the Group Buy category didn't exist on my system. A simple email to Jay Kelley <dwmainoffice@gmail.com> requesting for price got me a response within minutes with the 411 needed. Thanks Jay.
 
i'm very interested in joker1600. i understand that they don't offer discount on that yet and barely keep them in stock, but perhaps we get enough users here interested in this model?
i don't care if i have to wait for it too.
 
Just FYI everyone: This group buy will end in 8 working days. Do not delay on your orders. Once this pricing is gone, it's GONE.. And you will be paying more money for the exact same stuff later on.. And that sucks!

Jay
 
Guys, I'm a pretty honest bloke, so I'm going to tell you upfront that this group buy was pretty much a failure. over 100 of you checked the pricing on the lights and according to k5600 less than 10 lights were sold.

So I want a positive outcome here: I would be grateful if those of you who are in the market for these lights would share with me why you did not pull the trigger. for some, they are too expensive, and you may have been looking for a 50% discount.. That's not my concern. Some of you already have these lights and wanted more, but ended up doing nothing. I'm happy to run group buys in the future, but I need to know what went wrong here.

Jay
 
Jay A. Kelley said:
I need to know what went wrong here.
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One reason could be that for Californians it comes out to about wash between getting this deal and paying state tax on it compared to buying from B&H without paying state taxes.

I'm also one of those that were hoping for a deeper discount; certainly not 50% but more than 10%.
 
Jonas Klittmark said:
One reason could be that for Californians it comes out to about wash between getting this deal and paying state tax on it compared to buying from B&H without paying state taxes.

I'm also one of those that were hoping for a deeper discount; certainly not 50% but more than 10%.
Click to expand...

Absolutely agreed. Jonas and I talked about this privately, but I didn't want to post something here because I didn't want to 'give up' information on the pricing. But yes, this particularly bothered me... After taxes, being as K5600 ships from CA, the group buy pricing ended up being about $100 less than it would have been had I purchased from B&H. Honestly, this did not motivate me to purchase... I can buy from B&H any time.

I really sincerely appreciate you taking the time to set this up, and I so badly wanted to purchase a Joker 800 to augment my kit, but it just wasn't justifiable at this price point.

If only I lived in Oregon...
 
I had the same experience as Zak - it would have meant rushing around to allocate the funding for something I've had my eyes on for a while. If you are working, it is hard to get sidetracked into a GB unless there is a high degree of motivation.

Already have a number of ARRI HMI's in house - wonderful fixtures BTW, but always wanted to add some Joker Bugs to the toolkit (the 400 and 800 kits).
Almost pulled the trigger on a 400 kit a couple of months ago - but another purchase moved to the front of the line due to production requirements.

So, I guess I was one of the other 90 that looked at the price as soon as I became aware of the GB, intriguing? Worthy of consideration? Yes - absolutely.
Like others have implied, it was a close call, but not enough to make it a "Must shift priorities NOW" situation.

The margin was a consideration - had it been 15%, I would have been more motivated to reallocate funds.
Had it been 20%, I would have made it a focused mission not to let the opportunity slip away.

These are great lights and a worthwhile investment. I might add that the timing may have had something to do with the purchase response rate. Many that frequent this site are looking at Scarlet to EPIC upgrades, Dragon sensors and a whole bunch of new tools shown off recently. Consider that a lot of wallets become drained in the months just after NAB and adjacent to CineGear...
 
It's hard to convince people on Jokers if they have never used them. Photographers understand and accept the philosophy behind the "bug" concept much easier than video guys as the light shaping tools are similar. Also, it's a big pill to swallow when most are upgrading their camera to Epic or Dragon, or have just gone through several of the other group buys like the wireless FF, steadicams, LED's... It just might be timing. Looking for used sets of Jokers are rare, but they do pop up and you can save thousands vs hundreds.
 
Thanks

Thanks

Jay,

First, I want to say thanks and it is disappointing that this wasn't a success from your or K5600's perspective.

I too am one of the people who was interested in the group buy, and my story is essentially identical to the others posted here.

You know as well as anyone Jay that running production company is a tough business. Feast or famine, and major capital expenditures have to be well planned.

For me to rework my budget, there has to be a compelling reason. While I'm not going to go into detail to ensure we keep the data private, I too live in California and I too own several Arri HMI's, but want another tool with some punch.

After evaluating the relative value of the offer I compared it to adding an M 18 head and a power gems 575/1.2/1.8 pfc ballast. The latter gave me a new head with the punch I am looking for, and given that my 1.2 par is older and only has a magnetic ballast, adding the Arri instrument and a flexible ballast makes more sense for my business, and there were no time constraints.

I've used the Jokers, and they are a great tool, but there just wasn't a compelling enough offer to push me in that direction.

I know it's cold comfort Jay, but I do appreciate the effort.

All the best,

Steve
 
Personally, it was absolutely a combination of:

1. Discount not that huge

2. CA sales tax

3. Lack of warning considering the size of the purchase necessary

4. I recently went in for another lighting group buy so have limited funds

5. The K5600 crossover kit and 2-light pack weren't on the menu (I like the crossover kit for its ability to work with Profoto parabolic fixtures etc)

6. I feel that prices on small HMI fixtures have to drop in the future anyway (both new and used prices) due to LED / plasma maturing and competing - especially now that huge amounts of mainstream consumer lighting dollars are being poured into LED technology. Something's got to give.

7. I already own 1.2K and 200W HMIs (a used Arri and a smaller one). Both electronic ballasts need repair. This motivated me to buy a few LEDs and rent rather than buying more HMIs in the future. Especially since I travel a lot.

So yeah... I basically looked at the prices, hoping that K5600 would have offered something really aggressive to counter the LED onslaught... and they hadn't.

Don't get me wrong: I love the versatility and awesomeness of Joker Bugs and understand their many, many benefits over LED. But it just seems like K5600's pricing seems to just be pretending that the LED threat isn't there, which is silly and makes me scared to invest in their products because I feel the company is in for trouble down the line with that attitude.

That's my most honest 2c.

Sorry I couldn't take you up on that group buy, Jay. You're a great guy and have offered other really good group buys in the past.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
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