Hot lights or strobes?

[Early Riser]

Clay an HMI is a voltage contolled daylight color temperature continuous light. They are very bright,do not flicker and allow the use of unfiltered, or minimally filtered color film. Due to their voltage control their color does not shift with changes in supplied current. They are popular with film crews and for photographers using scan backs. They are also very expensive.

A softbox, also referred to as a bank light, got it's name because it softens and evens out the light. The original idea was to make a light source similar to north light.

I have extensive lighting gear, multiple strobe systems, multiple continuous light systems. I own Dedolights and find them great for use with their focusing spotlights. They are pricey and are not great to use for lighting larger areas. You may want to look into lights made by Arriflex, their 600 or 2000 watt fresnels and their softlights.

You dont need softboxes to get a softbox effect, one of the nicest light sources, especially for reflective objects is to hang a diffuser, like a roll of Tough Lux, from a boom arm and shoot your light through it. This enables you to have a light source as wide as the roll, 48 or 60" and to gradate the light on the diffuser which will then give you a soft reflection on the subject. This is harder to do though if you wish to light your subject from directly over head, and that is where a softbox is more easily set up.

Diffusers and reflectors are key lighting tools, do not neglect to have them available. A great way to light a large area is to bounce your lights off a large white surface. I used to light room sized sets by bouncing lights off a folding and portable wall made of 5 4x8' white foamcores (make sure they're really white if you plan to shoot color). This gave me the effect of having an 8' tall by 20' wide light source, it made for even light and soft directional shadows. I could control the amount of shadow fill by the use of another wall of 4x8' foamcores on the other side of the set. It was a really easy way to work and provided a natural light.

 

[Helen B]

Just to add a little to Early Riser's excellent description, 'HMI' is an Osram trademark for a discharge lamp, not an incandescent. It is a mercury medium-length AC arc in iodine, which legend has it explains the name: 'H' for mercury being via Hg, from hydrargyrum (sp?). They achieve the usual 4x or so better light output per watt of electricity as incandescents, so a 125 W HMI is roughly equivalent to a 500 W tungsten.

Being a discharge lamp. an HMI requires a ballast (and some do flicker). There are two main types of ballast 'flicker-free' electronic; and magnetic. The magnetic ones are the cheapest and are fine for most still (film) photography. They produce flicker at the same frequency as the mains supply, so can cause problems with motion picture cameras. They are virtually silent. Electronic ballasts either work at a much higher frequency or produce a square-wave output, hence the 'flicker free' name, but they tend to hum a little.

HMIs do not have quite as pure a spectrum as incandescents, though their CRI (colour rendering index) is plenty high enough for most photographic purposes.

The dedo HMI heads are great. I love them. The k5600 ones are also superb, my favourite among those being the BlackJack 400, which is interchangeable with a tungsten-lamped head.

Best,
Helen

 

[Flotsam]

One more advantage to hot lights,
I'm out shooting in my garage studio on a nasty, wet, windy day. A couple of thousand watts of hot lights feels real nice.

 

[Dave Wooten]

what was that "big" light Hurrell (sp?) used?

 

[david b]

If it has not been mentioned, I would look at Tota or Lowel Lights. They are high powered, have barndoor and various other attachments, and they are CHEAP.

 

[Mark H]

I've been using a 1000w hot light (Lowell) for portraits and nudes (I recently posted some in the standard gallery), along with a good (Bogen) stand and umbrella. It was very inexpensive and a great way to learn about lighting. With the one light, I did have an assistant to hold a reflector (a sheet of white foamcore works well, but I borrowed an official reflector that has a white side and a silver side and that worked better). The hot lights are great for nude shots in cool weather!

 

[Nick Zentena]

If you had to put a guide number on that setup what would it be? Or at least what sort of exposures are you getting? F/stop shutter speed.

 

[George Losse]

Wow! so few people saying anything about strobes.

I've tried hot lights.... I hate them!

They're hot and they didn't give me enough light to shoot at the f-stops I wanted to shoot at with the large format cameras. With my strobes I shoot in the f32-45 range, when I tried with hot lights I was shooting in the F4-5.6 range.

as others say "your mileage my vary"

 

[bobfowler]

I can go both ways, both quartz and flash. Lately, a Photogenic fresnel head (for the S-200 Studiomaster pack(w/booster)) has become my most used key light for portraiture. I have a bunch of other S-200 studio units (8080 and 8083 heads) and a pile of packs, so I can just about anything I want with the right modifiers.

For location work, I have a bunch of White Lightning 10000 and 5000 "paint can" monolights. Once again, with the right modifiers, they can do just about anything I need them to.

 

[Papa Tango]

Although this is an old thread, I thought these two cents might be of interest. As we know, matching a film with a light source can add up to some very divergent outcomes. It is extremely difficult to get the 1940s hotlight look with a flash setup. But like everything else, it can be done.

In doing interior B/W architectural documentation work, I much prefer using quartz worklights. Two double head stands can fill a room with light, avoiding the reflective hotspots all to common with strobe. In cases where I have spent an entire box of polaroid balancing softboxes or reflectors, the quartz has given me the shot with just a few minutes of moving them around by eye. This method is very amenable to long exposures for greater dof. Things like barndoors, screeds, and snoots are easily made from common materials.

Something that has not been mentioned is older studio flash equipment. I have a Photogenic AA-01 setup from the early 1960s (recapped of course). The parabolic reflectors and diffusers give a lighting aesthetic not found with softboxes or bounce umbrellas. And the beauty is that with a speedring, they can emulate the most modern of studio heads.

 

[Christopher Nisperos]

And how come everyone offers a soft box, but no one offers a hard box?

Profoto does.

 

[Charles Webb]

Clay,

Most likely this comment or question was made in jest, but "hard" boxes are what we started out with. The earliest like the ones Peter Gowland built were of plywood, (foam core had not been born yet!) with fiber glass diffusion screens, or kitchen or shower curtains. If you suspended one of them above the camera (lens axis) you were constantly banging you head or shoulders on them. We put anything in them we could find for a light source.
I had a six foot bank with four Photocenics in it that put out a whole 100 wt. sec. of useful light, not much for all of the work put into it, wrestling it around was another pleasant task. Then thank the almighty, Larson came to our rescue! They built em light and in a lot of different shapes and sizes with best of all a unaversal mounting system that allowed us to use any brand strobe oe even mix them for that matter. Then everybody in manufacturing jumped on the band wagon building soft boxes reflectors and much of the stuff still used today.

So in reply to the question, yes there were a lot of "hard boxes" used just a few short years ago!

Charlie...................

 

[Sean Tang]

Not this kind of hard box, Charles. The Profoto hardbox is a point light source to simulate light on a clear cloudless day. The hardbox is blackened internally to enhance this effect.

 

[neutron]

strobes- why i find them superior

my fellow posters have made good points but consider;

using a 300 watt second interfit strobe (300ws is not all that powerful).

the modeling lamp allows you to see where the light/shadow is falling
you can adjust the flash and the modeling lamp five stops which further aids you in seeing where the light fall off is. however, you will get some spill when the strobe fires so you do need practice.

it may just be a personal thing but working under continuos lighting would be very uncomfortable for me. as for the model, the eyes can become red from the light/heat and distract from a comfortable setting. this can be a problem.

bulbs do, not often, but do "pop". carrry insurance.

one poster pointed out that
it is easier to see where your light is going with continuos lighting. he is certainly correct! it takes more time to judge the light falloff,ect. a good flashmeter is a must. cost of that 300 ws interfit is 289.00 american and they have proved very durable. also, you need or should have an eight foot ceiling-ten is better. maybe this is true of the other lighting source.

neutron copernicus

 

[Claire Senft]

I shoot mainly still lifes, I have 4 Photogenic strobes. I am considering getting some hot lights. My reason for doing so would be to save time. I have a 12 sec recycle time with my strobes. With hot lights I will be able to us 5 frames a second.

 

[Charles Webb]

Wow,
My photogenics @ 400ws, recycle quicker than I can replace a slide and change the holder and pull the slide. I can't imagine needing or using a motor drive for still life! But then I also push the fact, that there is a place for both types of lighting. The exact same effects can be achieved with either one if the operator knows how! There is no way in my mind to learn "lighting"
without first learning to see light and how it works! All the lighting diagrams in the world are worthless unless you can "see" what is happening when you use them. Window light and reflectors have made wonderful still life photographs since the beginning of picture making. It in my estimation is still one of the quickest and best ways to learn how to control light available.

Lighting is not rocket science, but more like figuring out a two cushion shot at the local pool room. Drop a super ball straight down, where does it bounce?

Charlie...........................

 

[JBrunner]

I started in studios with hot lights, up to 10k. It was truly a great way to learn lighting, and I am very blessed for the experience. I still find it easier to get what I'm after using hot lights, but they are not universally practical for many situations outside a studio, for reasons already mentioned in this thread. Curiously, I found one of the best uses for the DSLR my occupation forces me to own, was as a preview camera for flash work. Once I determined how it related to different emulsions in regard to tonality and ratio, the DSLR became a great accessory for my film cameras. I don't do this so much anymore, but at the time it was a great tool for my "flash" education. Funny though, a $8000 digigizmo doing duty as a ratio/light meter for a wood and brass camera. Still makes me snicker.

 

[Charles Webb]

Not this kind of hard box, Charles. The Profoto hardbox is a point light source to simulate light on a clear cloudless day. The hardbox is blackened internally to enhance this effect.

Sean,
I am totally confused by your post. What are you talking about in saying "not this kind of hard box" ?

My quote, "We put anything in them we could find for a light source."

For some reason do you think we failed to try "Point Source" lights in those early "hard" boxes? Every printing operation I knew of a back then were using point source lighting in their stripping areas and/or arc for plate burning! I really do need clarifacation of what you mean by what you posted!
The simple fact is, the point source techinology if you want to call it that was readily available. But gained us nothing by using it!

Charlie...................

 

[Claire Senft]

Charles the strobes that I use are made by Photogenic. They are the models sold by Photography Warehouse. Some of the still lifes involve a flowing liquid...this is where a motor drive is handy.

 

[Charles Webb]

Ms Anne,
Makes perfect sense to me! My photogenics were purchased in the early fifties, but continue to answer the call when I need them. I now have several power packs and a couple of dozen heads, they work for me!

Charlie.................................

 

[Claire Senft]

Charlie you sweetheart. You can call me Mr Claire if you wish..Just Claire works good also,

 

[Ed_Davor]

When I first considered using lighting, my first thought was using hotlights.
The idea was that I want light, but don't want to get involved in anything I didn't know before. In other words, I didn't want to think about apertures, watseconds, sync etc. and I wanted to see my light before I shoot.

The habit sort of stayed, but now I'd like to use daylight films, without the use of anything in front of my lens, and I'm more and more attracted about the mobility of a flash system with a power pack, plus the efficiency of power use (you only burn the bulb when taking an exposure), lack of heat etc.

So I'm considering getting a starters kit with maybe two compact strobes.

But only after I switch to medium format.
And I'm really serious about that, I've already bought some film for the freezer:
(5 rolls of Ektachrome 100 plus, 3 rolls of 64T and 5 rolls of 64 is a good start)