I have been shooting with Lowell Tota (Halogen)...
Due to power consumption vs output and heat I am considering using cool lights or CFL.

I am looking into Interfit Photographic INT217 Super Cool Lite 9 Twin Head Kit, with Softboxes & 18 28 watt Fluorescent Lamps, 5200 K Color Temperature.

Any one has used it? Any opinions on such lights...This would give me 270 Watts consumption with 1000 watts output per light....It also has dimmer...

The hall I shoot frequently, is very very dark. They rely on videographer's lights...

I use a a different but similar fixture. I have 9 100 watt CFL's in my fixture. Instead of a dimmer I have a switching process that allows me to use either 4 bulbs or 5 bulbs or all 9.
I love the soft light (no need for diffusion) and daylight color. I have been using 2 fixtures for about a year and have no complaints. I must tell you that soft light (by its very nature) has "no throw". Dependning on ambient light, I get about 10 to 15 feet of usable light.
By the way the Fotodiox fixture I use costs about 90 dollars without the bulbs (which I get at Home Depot).
Gary

Can you tell me the model number? I have a co-worker (photographer) and he loves fotodiox....I would like to pick them up today...

Well, I just forgot that I can at least try to look for it..
I found two of them one with 16 and other with 9 bulbs...

I will check them out today.

Based on your experience can you tell me what bulbs (Company, watt, day/soft/..light)?
I would like to use something that I don't have to modify and matches the outdoor shooting.

You got it. There are in fact 2 versions a 9 and a 16. I have two of the 9 socket fixtures. At first I put Nvision daylight in 5 and 3500 kelvin in the other 4. Giving me the option of daylight or tungsten. I recently replaced all with the Nvision daylight and made a CTO filter if I ever need it.
The Bulbs are available at Home Depot. They are 23 watt (100 watt equivilent) with a pretty good CRI.
GAry

Gary,
Are you using the softbox?

No I've never had the need. The light is a nice balance of soft. They are bright though.
Gary

Gary,

Your thread on the home-made CFL light was great. I went to Home Depot and bought one N-Vision 23 watt (100 watt) daylight bulb to test out using a Nikon D2X, and the results were very good. With a pre-set white balance, even better.

It takes about five minutes for the bulb to "warm up", but then is really bright.

A question I have: Is there any chance of picking up any kind of "flickering" due to the bulb being of the flourescent nature and that US electric is 60Hrtz.

I don't have a video camera to test this but am curious as to whether shutter speed, frame rate or a combination of both has any unwanted surprises.

Are there any combinations that DON"T work.

Otherwise I am going to start looking into building something like this as my main light source for interviews, and mixing that with other lighting for hair and background lighting.

On another note, Home Depot also sells a 300/600 watt halogen "work light" for under fourty bucks. I can't tell what the color temperature of this unit, but it gave me food for thought!

Jonathan Levin

OOPS!

I was actually looking at this thread http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/photon-management/103161-d-i-y-900-watt-cf-lighting-units.html

Thanks Martin.

Jonathan

A question I have: Is there any chance of picking up any kind of "flickering" due to the bulb being of the flourescent nature and that US electric is 60Hrtz.

I don't have a video camera to test this but am curious as to whether shutter speed, frame rate or a combination of both has any unwanted surprises.

Are there any combinations that DON"T work.

Otherwise I am going to start looking into building something like this as my main light source for interviews, and mixing that with other lighting for hair and background lighting.

I've never seen flicker issues with the N:Vision bulbs. One guy reported an issue once with some though. Perhaps it was just one batch. He did mention that there was a big sale going on so it could have been a slightly different model than normal.


On another note, Home Depot also sells a 300/600 watt halogen "work light" for under fourty bucks. I can't tell what the color temperature of this unit, but it gave me food for thought!


Halogen worklights are about 2600 to 2800K so a more "warm" or reddish color temperature than your standard 3200K. If thats all your using or you're mixing with other 2800K type lights (N:Vision has a 2800K--or is it 3000K?) your camera white balance will take care of it and it will work fine. Otherwise, you can get color correct 3200K bulbs for that type of fixture but I don't remember the source. One thing to remember, the higher the color temperature in that halogen tungsten bulb the lower the life. Those 2800K versions may have a life in the range of 1000 to 2000 hours. Raise the color temperature to 3200K and it goes down to 100 to 200 hours.

So, thats one reason you'll find the worklights with the 2800K, people that buy worklights aren't primarily using them for film/video; they're using them for other uses and don't care about color temperature.

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the informative post! I want to make my own nine bulb light panel simular to Martin Catt's in his thread, but I'm have a hard time locating the appropriate light sockets. I'll keep poking around.

Thanks again.

Jonathan

The light sockets should be very easy to find. All you need as long as you are using a low wattage CFL (up to around 60w or less) would be the standard plastic E26 (Edison / Medium) base type sockets. If you can't find them at Home Depot then look at a place like this:

http://www.lightingparts.com/millerpdf/1-50.pdf

They have a ton of stuff there. The L9063 on Page 8 would be a good choice for instance. Phenolic plastic but rated to 660w / 250v so more than enough to handle these small N:Visions. Home Depot has a model just like that as well and its what I used when I first converted my worklights to run these N:Vision bulbs 3 years ago.

Jonathan
I bought my light sockets from Home Depot. The only problem with them is if you try to remove the screws that hold the wires it usually ruins the socket. I wanted to remove them so I could use the closed crimp on eyelets. After ruining 3 sockets I used the spade crimp ones. The spades will work but I would feel safer with the closed crimp on eyelets.

Also, a big thanks to Martin for his help when I built my fixture.

Norm

Richard and Norm.

Off to Home Depot I go.....

Jonathan

Actually, one other ?. Do you need to have a ground wire and three prong type plug for this project?

Jonathan

Yes, I used a ground wire and a three prong plug. The power cord I used is like the ones used on computers and is removable from my light fixture.

Norm

I would. Just ground it to the chassis. No place to attach a ground on the plastic type medium bases so the chassis is the only thing needing ground.

Nice to see the D.I.Y. CFL thread still has legs.

When I wired up the sockets in mine, I just stripped the insulation from the wires with a hobby knife and looped the bare patch beneath the screw terminals. Each leg was one long run of wire, with about 3/4" of insulation removed at the appropriate places. IIRC, I used 12 ga. stranded copper wire. I could have used solid, but stranded was easier to run around the chassis.

I'd have preferred porcelain sockets, but phenolic was all Home Depot had. No temperature issues with CFL (as yet), but I worry about breaking one of the sockets if the lamps get struck or knocked. For storage and transport, I use a large footlocker with foam dividers. It holds both lights, the stands, and an assortment of extension cords, power strips, and assorted clamps and clips for rigging. It's the kind of thing I can throw in the back of the truck (literally) and hit the road with everything I need, light-wise.

Yeah, you definitely want to ground the chassis. I used a ring crimp lug under one of the screws holding the switchbox to the rear pan. Everything's metal-to-metal contact in the assembly, so the connection is good throughout.

Martin

Yes, I used a ground wire and a three prong plug. The power cord I used is like the ones used on computers and is removable from my light fixture.

Norm

I thought about using that type of cord, but decided to use a fixed 20-foot cord on both my units. One less item to get lost or left behind.

Martin

Jonathan:

Flicker shouldn't be a problem in --MOST-- cases. CFL lamps actually have a high-frequency driver circuit built into the base (the better quality ones do -- not sure about the real cheapies) that I was told drives the lamps in the kilohertz range, NOT 60 hz. They went with this approach because they could make the electronics smaller (higher-frequencies can use much smaller transformers and inductors for the same amount of power), and the flicker you can sometimes see in regular 60hz florescents is no longer visible. They're also much more efficient, which is why you get more light for less consumed watts.

If you're not sure about a particular lamp, buy or borrow one, put it in a fixture, and shoot some video of it (when you finally get a camera, that is). Pick some shutter speed that isn't a mutlipe of 30 (like 1/100 of a second) and see if you get pulsing or flicker.

Martin

Martin, Richard and Norm,

I always seem to hang around with people that are smarter than I. Thanks for your help.
Right now I'm working some things out on paper.

Cheers.

Jonathan

Be careful and be consistent is the best advise when working with electricity and always have a healthy respect for it, never taking for granted any part of the process. When touching the chassis for the first time after building, first energizing and test, make sure to touch with the back of the hand only when testing and using switches. Otherwise, touching with the palm side of your hand, a muscle spasm caused by the electricity could actually cause you to grab onto the device and have a far worse electrocution than just a quick shock. I've always found DIY fun and interesting but that assembly process and first test should not be done at 3AM--if you know what I mean...

One of my friends many years ago was a supervisor at the electric company in Boston. He once told me about the "back of the hand" trick and said they used it to check whether the power had been cut before touching large electrical panels. He claimed that the reason was that the hairs on the back of your hand would straighten in the presence of a significant electrical field and act as a warning that electricity was present. He also said that it was standard practice to make the guy who had been assigned to cut the power be the first one to touch it and nobody would start work until he had checked it.

I use a a different but similar fixture. I have 9 100 watt CFL's in my fixture. Instead of a dimmer I have a switching process that allows me to use either 4 bulbs or 5 bulbs or all 9.
I love the soft light (no need for diffusion) and daylight color. I have been using 2 fixtures for about a year and have no complaints. I must tell you that soft light (by its very nature) has "no throw". Dependning on ambient light, I get about 10 to 15 feet of usable light.
By the way the Fotodiox fixture I use costs about 90 dollars without the bulbs (which I get at Home Depot).
Gary


Gary,

I just ordered the 16 light fotodiox fixture to use as a key light. I am curious if there is any way to attach barn doors to it to direct the light. I initially thought I would only use it with a softbox but the one fotodiox makes for it is only 24" x 24" which seems small for the amount of light hopefully this 16 bulb unit will put out.

I have seen a lot of posts talking about the Home Depot nvisoin dayllight CFL bulbs being 5500k but nothing to verify that.

I have looked at the packaging in the store and then found the nvision website. Under "color temperature" they give no kelvin, just a generic description of the difference between their three color temperatures.

If they really are 5500k that is wonderful and saves me a ton of money. Now if only their soft ones were 3100 or 3200k instead of 3500 as I have read.

I don't think it tells color temperature on the package. As I recall, the packaging is blue for the 5500K model and the color temperature is actually indicated on the base of the bulb.

I just finished two fourteen-hour shooting days, about half of which was lit primarily with my two 900-watt CFL fixtures. They performed like a champ, giving a fairly even, though directional light. The barn doors were even more effective than I'd hoped for controlling spill and problem shadows.

Most appreciated was their relative coolness when compared to halogen or CMI. We were jockeying the lamps around the room (sometimes while still lit) every five or ten minutes as we shot scenes inside a cramped hotel room. White-balancing with the daylight CFL tubes gave an almost exact rendition as noon outside.

No flicker or fading seen in the captured files. We were shooting 24P (something I don't usually do, but the director wanted "the film look"), so I was curious as to how well it would work.

I'm so happy I think I'll make a couple more, plus a couple four-or-five tube versions for fill. My advice is: forget the worklights, go CFL. Much better results, and a lot easier and safer to handle.

Martin