Are this Open Face Tungsten Lights Good ?

[Sergiu Pavel]

I saw on ebay.com this lights :

http://cgi.ebay.com/800w-110V-Contin...QQcmdZViewItem

.. and I would like to know if there is anyone that have some experience with this products . Are there worth the money ?

Hoping for an opinion or ( if I have luck ) a quick review :) !

[Matthew Rogers]

It looks like a rehoused worklight to me (the lamp gives it away.) It will probably be fine if you don't throw it around. Wiring may not be that great and undersized for the wattage it's pulling (I believe that was an issue with the blueline lights.) The lamp (bulb) also might not match the 3200k color temp you want for most indoor shooting.

Matthew

[Sergiu Pavel]

I don;t think that they use standard quartz bulb like those frome worklight . It similar ( in my eyes :D ) with this :

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...000W_220V.html

and the form of the light is similar with this :

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...cus_Flood.html

I understant that the standard bulb that came with the light is not so great .... but it;s something :)) .

[Matthew Rogers]

You are correct. I forgot that the open face Arri's used that kind of lamp. I never use them so I don't know much about them.

Matthew

[Richard Alvarez]

It looks to be a knock off of the Desiti light design for appx half the price. Lights like this and the blueline series are mostly manufactured in China, and the quality of build is inferior to the original design of course.

Is it worth 'half' the price as the original??? Well, I suppose it will work half as good and last half as long.

[Sergiu Pavel]

Thank you for your replay's guys but I would like to hear an opinion of someone that actualy work or have been in contact with this type of light .

[Richard Andrewski]

You can get good products in China as well as bad ones. It's slightly condescending or generalizing to say otherwise as one poster did. I think I know a couple of things about this since I live here and manufacture all my stuff here. Also you might be surprised at who is buying their parts here in China, and shipping to their own country for final assembly. ;-)

I checked the ebay link given here and the seller has a 99.9% feedback rating on over 16,000 transactions. That's quite a record so I doubt the light is all that bad.

All depends upon your QA and quality management process and how much of a role a company plays in watching over that. I've seen most of the clones manufactured here in China and I actually think some are better than the originals with true innovations in some cases. A chinese manufacturer is just like a tool which can be misused or not. But you don't blame the tool for bad work normally, we blame the user of the tool and thus, when a product is not as promised, don't blame the maker of the product; blame the one who ordered it, specified it and is selling it as the ultimate responsible for quality level...

[Jim Andrada]

I second Richard's comments. We make very high precision stuff in China and it's superb. My client in Japan moved a production line from Japan to China and we're geting quality that's every bit as good as it was in Japan and quite possibly better.

On the other hand we manage our Chinese partner very tightly. We have full time engineers from Japan at the factory (not far from Richard, by the way) and "anal" doesn't even begin to describe the level of detail in the management process and quality controls we apply. We also invest heavily in capital equipment for the production lines rather than just relying on cheap hand labor in order to minimize the investment.

If we took a hands off approach (like too many US companies I'm afraid) then I think we'd be open to the kind of quality fluctuations that plague a lot of stuff made in China.

[Richard Andrewski]

That's right. Don't blame the bluline quality on the bluline factory blame it on the dealer in the USA that ordered it for their inventory and were clueless that they should specify wiring and certain levels of quality.

In fact, Japan and Taiwan both have been moving most of their factories here and many of you would be surprised to find out all the things that say "Made in Japan" or "Made in Taiwan" are actually made in China.

[Jim Andrada]

One interesting sidelight on the "made in China" vs "made in Japan" story.

In a lot of products, particularly those of any complexity, a large part - in fact often more than half - the value is actually sourced from Japan. Precision parts, precision springs, bearings, etc are often imported from Japan and integrated into the "made in China" units - frequntly the China manufacturing process consists of assembling "made in Japan" parts.

[Matt Irwin]

Originally Posted by Sergiu Pavel

Thank you for your replay's guys but I would like to hear an opinion of someone that actualy work or have been in contact with this type of light .

Sergiu,

In regards to working with open-face lights, they can definitely come in handy. I own four 1k Arrilites and use them often.
They have a higher output-per-watt than a fresnel and are good for bouncing or diffusing through a 4x4 frame as a key, they work well as a backlight, kick/edge, or general "bash" light.

The pattern is not as clean as a fresnel, with a slight hot spot at the center at full flood. At full spot the hot spot is VERY bright (good for long throw). They tend to cast a softer shadow than a fresnel. For these two reasons, I personally would not use an open face as a hard key because I think the shadow it casts on a face looks too sloppy. (My opinion, others may disagree)
In a situation where an actor was walking through lights or for a consistent backlight across a lateral move, I would only use an open-face at full flood and/or with light diffusion. Larger fresnels, fluorescents, bounce, or frame diffusion (depending on situation) would be better for this.

Some advice on buying cheaper knock-offs:
If you're buying for professional use, don't skimp. It will come back to bite you, usually on a job and in front of the client, when a solder fails or the head blows bulb after bulb for some unknown reason (both have happened to me). The drawbacks with pattern and spread mentioned above will likely be more pronounced in a cheaper head. Spend a little extra-- it'll pay for itself in a job or two.

Hope this helps,

[Sergiu Pavel]

Thank you Richard , Matt and Jim for your replay's . I think the best for me is to buy one of these and to try it . If the light satisfy my needs and doesn't cause problems then It's worth the money .

I know that the bulb may be a problem , so for that I'm considering in buying one from Osram , Arry or Cosmolight to ensure a proper quality of light .

On local dealers I have to pay as much as 300$ for a Cosmolight similar to one that I want to buy . So i think is worth to give it a try !

If you have other suggestion please tell me !

thank you !