I'm sorry if this has been address before I'm feeling too lazy on a friday nite to use the search button.

Why are Video lights so much more expensive than flood light found at your local hardware store? Both use halogen bulbs so what justifies the 500% + markup?

Right now I do ads on the cheap and use clamp lamps with big soft bulbs. I know its crappy but when I shooting an ad in a busy restaraunt I can't set up extensive lighting equipment. I have an assistant hand hold the light in the desired position and shoot. I'm thinking about improving my technique so in the future I can do ads the right way and get paid more.

You can certainly argue that a light fixture is a light fixture, what’s the big deal? One difference is control. Worklights are hard to control because they have no barndoors and are not focusable. You could use them with flags and reflectors but there is just a lot of spill. The other difference is that video lights use bulbs that are the correct color temperature for video. Worklights are usually warmer in color tone. I guess you could correct them with a gel. Many people use worklights as an inexpensive alternative to video lights.

If you want to invest in a inexpensive set of lights Britek’s from Rostronics (http://www.rostronics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=dual600W3lightkit) are a good sensible solution.

~jr

I have used the worklights and you can actually correct the color a bit with white balance and not use a gel.

Thx, I just read the sticky thread and browsed similar threads. I need to get that lighting book someone recommended because I really don't know much about lighting (ie using barndoors etc.). When I'm ready to step up to better lighting that looks like a nice setup.