New to lighting--need advice...

I would like to begin doing some simple (I hope) still-lifes and portraits/nudes that mimic natural light, but allow a little more control in terms of direction of light and also time of day/night. I am after a more shadowy look ala Bill Brandt or Andre Kertesz. I do not care to have highly illuminated magazine-style portraits. I shoot BW film and most often use a 35mm camera with a fairly fast lens. I may sometimes use a 645 as well. So, the question is will I be okay to start with two basic reflector type hot lights? What kind of wattage will I need for the bulbs? Thanks.

You sure can. Hot lights eliminate a certain amount of guesswork over flash when you are just starting out. The drawbacks are heat, power needed vs. output, and fire. You should also test your stocks sensitivity to the spectrum, as many black and white films respond slower to the lower spectrum. Practical hot lights for the small studio/home run from about 250w to about 1000w. You can run with everything from halogen floods from the big box, to dedicated cinema instruments. The cheap way to control them is with cut foam core flags and bounces. You can get core that is white on one side and black on the other. It's worth investing in a few Century type stands to hold them, as being able to control the light is far more important than the light its self. This way you can create soft( big) light but still give it a direction, and keep it where you want. The wattage you require depends on how much you are trying to light. For a pleasing bounced light you will probably be looking at 500 to 1000 watts, depending on your rating.

Thanks Jason. It sounds like I should be okay with something like this to start:
http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_prod.php?cat_id=2601&pid=5124

Those will work. Notice that they take Edison socket bulbs though. In higher wattages these have a fairly short lifespan. The ECT 500 for example cost about ten bucks (the cost will only go up as these bulbs become scarce) and averages 60hr. You might consider looking at something that takes halogen bulbs instead, but the ones you link to will get you started.

Some folks will howl in protest, but the Lowel Tota lights have served me very well for some thirty years. High output and pretty long lamp life. I do use them mostly for color work, so for BW you should be able to far exceed the rated life. They are also incredibly compact and pretty rugged.

(www.lowel.com)

C

CBG said:

Some folks will howl in protest, but the Lowel Tota lights have served me very well for some thirty years. High output and pretty long lamp life. I do use them mostly for color work, so for BW you should be able to far exceed the rated life. They are also incredibly compact and pretty rugged.

(www.lowel.com)

C

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Another vote for a tota light. The freestyle kit is pretty rinky dink and not very useful. Lightshaping tools are a necessity. A four by four open frame and a sheet of lee 215 or 251 diffusion is going to give you much more kick as a fill than a 500watt open face bounced into white bead board. You should really be thinking about a big soft source for fill or soft key and a more directional light like a 650 or 1000 watt fresnel for a key. If I were just getting into this again I'd find a tota off ebay (or even better yet a mole broad light), a fresnel (like a used desisti, mole, ianaro, ltm or colortran), a couple of inexpensive baby stand like an amnova or amvona or whatever that chinese import co. is called, a 4x4 open frame like the collapsible one chimera sells or the lastolite frame, some diffusion for the 4x4, and two c-stands (try pyramid films) with arms to grip the 4x4, oh, and some black wrap and neutral density gel. I know it seems like a lot of crap to carry around but it's actually a very paired down yet very flexible kit. You should be able to put this kit together for approx. $500 - 600.

Tota is ok, Arri is better, but costs more. (of course) There are tons of options. The best bang for the buck is a set of monolights. You didn't say why you want hot lights. Is there a particular reason?

JBrunner said:

Tota is ok, Arri is better, but costs more. (of course) There are tons of options. The best bang for the buck is a set of monolights. You didn't say why you want hot lights. Is there a particular reason?

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The tota light is an open face broad light. Arri makes pars, fresnels, and softlights. Two totally different kinds of lights - like comparing apples to oranges - one is not better than the other.

If light output is paramount (i.e. you're shooting without a tripod or you need to stop fast action) then yes, I too would go with the monolights. But unless you're shooting cats flying through the air or doing wedding formals on location, why bother with strobes? You have much better control over the quality and quantity of your lighting setup with continuous lighting for obvious reasons. And now with the demise of proofing materials the "wysiwyg" aspect of working with hot lights makes learning how to shape light a much easier thing to do than with strobes.

I know nothing about your budget. It might be worthwhile for you to go to Home Depot or similar store and look at tungsten or similar lights that may be supplied with a stand. These may represent some savings for you and be quite useful. It is a long time since I have done this so I do not know what is available these days at what cost.

frotog said:

The tota light is an open face broad light. Arri makes pars, fresnels, and softlights. Two totally different kinds of lights - like comparing apples to oranges - one is not better than the other.

If light output is paramount (i.e. you're shooting without a tripod or you need to stop fast action) then yes, I too would go with the monolights. But unless you're shooting cats flying through the air or doing wedding formals on location, why bother with strobes? You have much better control over the quality and quantity of your lighting setup with continuous lighting for obvious reasons. And now with the demise of proofing materials the "wysiwyg" aspect of working with hot lights makes learning how to shape light a much easier thing to do than with strobes.

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The Arrilite, or "bluehair" as we call it is an open face reflector light that even has a limited focusing ability. The tota is what we call a "nook" light. A different, and less versatile design for an open face light, but useful for certain things. The bluehair can do everything a tota can do, and more. The Arrilite runs cooler, has the same output, is more controllable, and has a much higher build quality than the tota. It is, as I said, more expensive, as a result. I do know what I am talking about. You get outside the school, TV station, or vidiot production world, you don't see much Lowell. That said, if someone wanted to give me a couple of totas, I'd certainly take them, and they are more useful than the Edison floods in the OP.

Also, you can do anything with a couple of monolights that you can do with openface tungsten, regarding control and characteristic, and have the benefit, of reduced power needs and no heat, and of loads more output if you need it. The reduced sensitivity of B&W film to the low spectrum of hot lights won't help matters. With TriX for example, a 600watt light is a 300, as far as the film is concerned. It's a lot easier to dim a monolight than to wish you had more output when you don't have enough. Flash isn't just for stopping action. The learning curve is however, steeper.

It's all compromises, and hopefully from this information that the OP can make an informed decision that fits his needs/budget.

Alien Bees has some decent units for good prices. Some of the accessories are a bit cheesy, but the heads are very good. I would advise the OP to consider a couple of monolights as one possible solution from among the many.
http://www.alienbees.com/packages.html

$ are the reason for hot lights. I need to keep it cheap.

jmal said:

$ are the reason for hot lights. I need to keep it cheap.

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If that is the case, I would go with Claire's suggestion, or your first idea, and make your own modifiers.

Another option are the new color-adjusted flourescents. They are continuous lights but are quite cool (room-temperature wise) and inexpensive. I like using them because I'm used to natural light and too lazy to learn strobes.

learn about them here:
http://www.studiolighting.net/continuous-portraits-with-britek-pro-5000-kit/

The only downside is that they are good for soft boxes and fill but not for any pin-point lighting.

Here are some nice flouro kits:

http://www.briteklighting.com/cool-fluorescent-lights.html

Those lights from Freestyle, if the stands are sturdy or well made, is a good start. I started with that style, evolved to quartz and better stands, and now use studio strobes. Prefer the later for stills although for movies or video, the quartz.

Just purchase a couple of mini spots (used) which are of course hot lights. Could not afford studio stobe spots.

The importance of good stands is you will want to use them if you change or add other light options.

You might want to also check Craigslist for a good deal on used.

Good Luck.