Light Output Tests and Choices Help

Here is my totally unscientific light test. Let me know what you think:


250w Photo flood 3200K @ 12" metering at 400 speed

• F8 at 1/250 sec.
• F11 at 1/125
• F16 at 1/60

26w Compact Florescent Spiral 5000K @ 12" metering at 400

• F8 at 1/125 sec.
• F11 at 1/60
• F16 at 1/30

These little spiral bulbs put out half the light, but only use about 26 watts. I was considering putting together a fixture with 3 or 4 of these for some portraits.

I'm having a hard time deciding whether to use continuous lighting or a strobe mono light. I really would like to stick to using one light and reflectors if possible. The more equipment I use the more frustrated I get. (KISS) I've read the posts about the merits and disadvantages of each. I like the fact that you can easily visualize how the lighting will look with the hot lights, but the strobes put out so much more light, with less heat.

I usually shoot with available light, but wanted to start doing more portraiture indoors. So all this studio lighting is new to me. I was also considering strapping my Metz 45 CL-4 to a stand and a 45" silver umbrella and using that.

Sorry about ranting on and on, and have read so much already here my head hurts. I want to make an educated choice and break the habit of buying equipment over and over again.

Marco

Compact fluorescent arrays were in abundance at PMA this year, but they don't put out a lot of light. I see them mainly as lighting for digital, because they put out soft light, are easy to use, and small sensor digital doesn't require a very small f:stop.

Sanders McNew uses a homemade panel that produces light a lot like a strip light.

Whether this will work for you depends on what f:stop you need, whether your subjects move, whether you shoot color, and how versatile a system you want. It's fairly easy to change reflectors or diffusers with a studio strobe system. It's not so easy with a homemade CF array. There are 5000K CF bulbs if you shoot color, but then it gets more expensive.

A good pack system should have adjustable modeling lights to give you a good sense of what the light will look like, but you should also meter to see what the real lighting ratio is, since the light will look different to the film than it does to the eye.

Try strapping that Metz to a stand with an umbrella bracket and setting up your Photoflood right next to it (maybe with a smaller bulb, so you can leave it on during the exposure--you want at least 4 stops between the modeling light and the strobe to avoid interference) with a small reflector aimed in the same direction as your strobe as a modeling light. If you've got them in hand, you might as well experiment.

You can always bounce a hot light off a reflector and get away from the direct heat on the sitter. In video of course it's all hot lights and to tell the truth I don't recall hearing too many complaints from the talent, (think 60 minutes as an example) probably because we always used soft light enclosures. With strobes the modeling lights are the way to go, but I never did like popping too many flashes in the face of a sitter; I keep thinking retinal burnout for some reason. But then of course you can get battery operated units that are nice outdoors. It's a hard pick, but hot lights are cheaper and can always be used in addition to strobes when filtered or with the correct bulb.

If I shoot B&W I would go for those flourescent lights. If you use enough of them it would be bright enough and they produce soft light. For color film I don't think you can ever correct the color sastifactory even if you use those so called 5000K light.

You can get some pretty big florescent bulbs. 105 watt I think is the biggest I've seen. But those numbers you posted are pretty good IMHO. Did you get those with any sort of modifier or just bare bulb?

Marco, I'm right in the middle of this question with you now. I found a couple of 650watt hot lights to work with a couple of weekends ago. With a gray card and about 4' 6" from a single light, I ended up with EV 11 as my exposure (or, unfortunately 1/60 @ f2.8 with efke 25 at asa 12). While this may be ok for 35mm shots, with the 4x5 camera something will have to go. Fortunately, with b&w film I don't have to worry as much about color temperature (except for the 3200k & efke 25).

I'm thinking I will have to change films when I get to 4x5 and end up with the lighting I need to use. This is an evolving process for me, as I've never tried this type of work with artifical light (available light only, in the past). I'm planning on working on the front porch of my darkroom (10' x 10') and have a couple of lengths of 1/2" - 10' emt for stands (1/2" conduit from Home Delay @$1.97). Fasten the emt at the top to the rafters and instant light stands. This setup should work well enough, so will take a picture once it is up and running.

Please let us know how your lighting evolves. best, tim

Nick Zentena said:

You can get some pretty big florescent bulbs. 105 watt I think is the biggest I've seen. But those numbers you posted are pretty good IMHO. Did you get those with any sort of modifier or just bare bulb?

Click to expand...

Nick,

Those were bare bulb. I'm thinking of putting together an array of these florescent spirals. They are affordable. I only shoot black and white so color temp should not be a problem. I've got some experimenting to do, I will let you know how it turns out. Thanks for the advice and taking the time to post so far.

Marco

I bought one of these:
http://www.speedgraphic.co.uk/prod.asp?i=13052&1=Interfit+Cool+Fluorescent+Head
recently, it is very handy for a color flower series I am doing. The light seems a good approximation of daylight, I usually shoot with an 81A filter. It is of course a big advantage for flowers that the light is cool. If I needed more power, the lights are cheap enough to buy two or three and stand them next to each other to make effectively one big softlight.

Regards,

David

I have an array of 16 30watt 5000k spiral florescents. In a 24x24 soft box. With the front scrim on the box it puts out as much light as my mole-richardson 1000watt fresnel. They work much better for wet plate than 2700K lights. And they are so much cooler (temp) With the bare bulbs I could probably pick up another stop but I just grab another 16 bulb light box instead. This is a great low cost alternative to the expensive Kino-flos. Light fixture and soft box for under 200.00 bucks shipping included. If anyone is interested pm me and I'll try to forward the info. The light also has two different array patterns you can use if you don't want full power. That is 8 bulbs on at a time in two different arrays or all 16 if you want. In other words it has two switches to control the array. The company claims the light emits the equivalent of a 1800 watt fresnel. I find that a little bit of a stretch though. But at the price, you can't beat it.

A 30 watt spiral florescent is equivalent to a 120 watt incandescent