Daylight balanced Fresnels?

[Brandon Fraley]

I'd like to buy an arri fresnel kit, but ideally I'd like something natively daylight balanced. Is something like this available, or am I destined to gel everylight, everytime?

THANKS! :)

[Stephen Williams]

HMI's

[Manfred Lopez]

HMI's are natively balanced to daylight and they come in fresnel lens configurations. Here's what's available by Arri:

LINK (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=search&A=search&Q=&sb=bs%2Cupper%28ds%29&sq=asc&sortDrop=Brand%3A+A+to+Z&ac=&bsi=&bhs=t&shs=&ci=2248&at=Brand_Arri&at=Type_Fresnel&basicSubmit=Submit)


I hope that this is what you were asking for.

[Brandon Fraley]

yeah, i understand that, but I don't need that much light, and ofcourse HMI's are much more expensive.

I just want a 350w, 650w, 1000w fresnels, but daylight.

[Stephen Williams]

yeah, i understand that, but I don't need that much light, and ofcourse HMI's are much more expensive.

I just want a 350w, 650w, 1000w fresnels, but daylight.

Hi,

HMI's give out about 4 x the light so you get smaller units. As converting tungsten looses 2 stops you actually get 16 times the light in daylight per watt. However tungsten looks better than HMI

Stephen

[Manfred Lopez]

yeah, i understand that, but I don't need that much light, and ofcourse HMI's are much more expensive.

I just want a 350w, 650w, 1000w fresnels, but daylight.


Okay, let me understand this. You want daylight balanced light, but you don't want soft light, right? Because otherwise kinoflo's would solve that since a 4bank puts out the equivalent of about 1k watts with all four lamps lit. B&H basically only lists these four categories for professional lighting:

Tungsten Lighting
HMI, CDM & HID Lighting
Fluorescent Lighting
LED Lighting


Out of these, only HMI's are 5400K and hard light. Am I missing something from what you are asking?



EDIT:

Ha! Stephen and I are answering at the same time twice. :)

[Brandon Fraley]

Okay, let me understand this. You want daylight balanced light, but you don't want soft light, right? Because otherwise kinoflo's would solve that since a 4bank puts out the equivalent of about 1k watts with all four lamps lit. B&H basically only lists these four categories for professional lighting:

Tungsten Lighting
HMI, CDM & HID Lighting
Fluorescent Lighting
LED Lighting


Out of these, only HMI's are 5400K and hard light. Am I missing something from what you are asking?



EDIT:

Ha! Stephen and I are answering at the same time twice. :)

yes, thank you, thats what I'm asking. Although, the real reason I'm looking for fresnels over kinoflos isn't hard vs soft, it's a size/weight/convenience issue.

So is the answer no, there are no non-HMI, daylight fresnels? :(

[Manfred Lopez]

I find that there is nothing more convenient than KinoFlo's. They draw very little current. They look great when they are close to the subjects. They are cool. They instantly switch from tungsten to daylight. They can be dimmed. They almost don't weigh anything (you can even tape them to the wall). And they are not that expensive for what they are. I'm a great fan. Oh, and they are continuos-spectrum lighting which is very important for the digital age where each color chanel is not created equal.

[Charles Angus]

I find that there is nothing more convenient than KinoFlo's. They draw very little current. They look great when they are close to the subjects. They are cool. They instantly switch from tungsten to daylight. They can be dimmed. They almost don't weigh anything (you can even tape them to the wall). And they are not that expensive for what they are. I'm a great fan. Oh, and they are continuos-spectrum lighting which is very important for the digital age where each color chanel is not created equal.

I believe they emulate continuous spectrum, as do HMI's and all fluorescent fixtures. Continuous spectrum implies blackbody radiation type output.

[Charles Angus]

yes, thank you, thats what I'm asking. Although, the real reason I'm looking for fresnels over kinoflos isn't hard vs soft, it's a size/weight/convenience issue.

So is the answer no, there are no non-HMI, daylight fresnels? :(

No, there are no non-HMI, daylight fresnels. At least I've never seen one.

[Meryem Ersoz]

what about litepanels 1 x 1s? these are a great size/weight/output value. they're pricey, but most daylight balanced light is on the pricey side...they're not fresnels, but they come with spot or flood options...

[Florian Stadler]

Mikey and Mighty Mole Kits (1 K/2K open face) used to have Dichroic filters (like a lens) come with them that converted Tungsten to daylight. Don't know if they still do.

Mole Richardson still sells dichroic filters:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/264494-REG/Mole_Richardson_4097_Dichroic_Daylight_Conversion_ Filter.html

Hope this helps

[David Mullen ASC]

yeah, i understand that, but I don't need that much light, and ofcourse HMI's are much more expensive.

I just want a 350w, 650w, 1000w fresnels, but daylight.

They are called HMI's...

They make small HMI's with fresnel lenses, though they are usually drop-in lenses, not built-in fresnel lenses, like for a K5600 Joker 400. See:

http://www.k5600.com/products/index.html

Dedolight also makes some small HMI's:
http://www.dedolight.com/www/dedolight/default.php?la=0&pg=000004010400&id=Series_200_Introduction&section=0

It's the HMI globe that makes it a daylight source, as opposed to a tungsten globe. Other daylight sources are LED's and fluorescents but there are no fresnel-type units that use these sources, though some sharper, brighter LED's and compact flos coming onto the market.

Once you get into the really small lamp sizes, it's simpler to just gel a tungsten lamp with blue than deal with HMI's.

[Sean]

you'd think you could just buy the glass/lens with a blue tint on it and your fresnels would be daylight balanced without gels. i'm not sure if such a thing is available or not. but i'd like some for my lowels. I've been gelling everything for Red.

[David Mullen ASC]

They are called dichroics...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichroic_color_filter

Dichronic filters on tungsten PAR's were popular in the 1970's before HMI's came along, such as in FAY's. For example, you can read about the use of FAY's here for "Patton":

http://www.in70mm.com/news/2003/patton/index.htm

You still lose light output while putting out a lot of heat, as is typical with bright tungsten globes. HMI's, LED's, and fluorescents are a lot more energy efficient compared to tungstens, whether using blue gels or dichroics.

Remember, tungstens and HMI's, etc. are full spectrum sources, just that tungstens are biased towards the red wavelengths and HMI's towards the blue. Filters, dichroics, etc. can't create wavelengths that don't exist in the source, they can only subtract wavelengths and thus light output. So to make a tungsten light daylight balanced, you have to subtract the excess red wavelengths. Filters and gels do not add color, they only subtract the opposite color.

[Brandon Fraley]

They are called dichroics...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichroic_color_filter

Dichronic filters on tungsten PAR's were popular in the 1970's before HMI's came along, such as in FAY's. For example, you can read about the use of FAY's here for "Patton":

http://www.in70mm.com/news/2003/patton/index.htm

You still lose light output while putting out a lot of heat, as is typical with bright tungsten globes. HMI's, LED's, and fluorescents are a lot more energy efficient compared to tungstens, whether using blue gels or dichroics.

Remember, tungstens and HMI's, etc. are full spectrum sources, just that tungstens are biased towards the red wavelengths and HMI's towards the blue. Filters, dichroics, etc. can't create wavelengths that don't exist in the source, they can only subtract wavelengths and thus light output. So to make a tungsten light daylight balanced, you have to subtract the excess red wavelengths. Filters and gels do not add color, they only subtract the opposite color.

thank you, oh wise one. :) I guess I need to play with more HMIs and Kinos and figure out want I like.

I obviously an looking for good stuff, but I really want to own my own small kit and I'm trying hard to keep the price down.

If I'm really hard up on this daylight thing, what would be the cheapest HMI and kino kits you guys would recommend?

THANKS! :)

[Evin Grant]

You can get pretty far by using 1/4 and 1/2 CTB (Blue) over your tungsten lights. Just 1000 degrees makes a huge difference in the blue channel of the Red. I would start looking into Lowel Tota, Omni and DP lights to start. They are cheap, rugged and very light weight for travel. They did make a Fren-L light for a while which is one of my favorite hard sources (I have 2) but they have been discontinued. One very cool thing about the Totas is you can gang three up into a medium quartz bank Chimera and get a 3K soft light that can be used on household outlets.

[Joel Kaye]

but I really want to own my own small kit and I'm trying hard to keep the price down.

Kino knock offs. Scour eBay for outrageously low prices. You can still buy kino tube to put in them.

Here's one source with decent pricing:
http://www.prompterpeople.com/flolight.php

[Richard Andrewski]

Actually there are other types besides HMI--not quite in that price range. Many people call things "HMI" that really aren't HMI's. Fixtures that use HMI bulbs are often referred to as HMI's but its really just an HID fixture that happens to use a bulb, ballast and ignitor suited for the HMI family and not other types of the larger high intensity discharge (HID) world. HMI is an Osram trademark actually for their bulb and nothing more than a sophisticated member of the metal halide/HID family. Philips, G.E. and others make an HMI clone bulb.

Most other metal halide or HID bulbs are unsuitable for use in film, video and photography because of color temperature or CRI issues. There are some though in the class of what I call "commercial metal halide" that are used in retail and architectural lighting which obtain a high CRI and have a suitable color temperature in the daylight range. There are stage and studio fixtures that use these bulbs and they aren't technically an HMI and are more often referred to as a ceramic discharge metalhalide (CDM) type fixture by those that make them. Cool Lights makes one called the "CDM 150":

http://www.coollights.biz/clmf0150-cool-lights-fresnel-p-63.html

Altman, Arri, Lupo, Dedolight and ETC make fixtures that use them as well. A 70w, 150w and 250w CDM are commonly found types. They do the work of a 300w, 600w or 1000w tungsten fresnel for drawing only 70w, 150w or 250w.

As I was saying earlier--many refer to these as HMI but they are not really. They do end up being more economical than real HMI bulbs and fixtures for a few reasons.

The main differences from the standpoint of an end user will be that the units are not hot restart so you wait 5 minutes typically before relighting after extinguishing (many don't find this to be an issue). As a reward for this shortcoming though you usually get a bulb life that's greater (anything from 2000 hours to 12000 hours vs 500 to 1000 hours for HMI). The bulbs are not as expensive as an Osram HMI or HMI clone bulb either. The main difference from the standpoint of the subject in front of the light is that the beam coming from the light is very cool due to the lack of infrared found in typical "hot lights". So, while the fixture gets a bit hot, the subject does not. These bulbs (as do HMI) emanate varying amounts of UV though so its up to each fixture manufacturer to build some UV protection into their lens.

All members of the HID family from commercial metal halide or the CDM types listed above to HMI types require a ballast to properly convert the line voltage you use to the voltage and current that each bulb requires. So, you do have a ballast you must attach to the fixture with all these types. But then you need a ballast for fluorescent too.

Hope this helps.

[Joel Kaye]

http://www.coollights.biz/clmf0150-cool-lights-fresnel-p-63.html

So this is like a 650w but is 5400K?

And it comes ready to go for $460? Sure seems like a neat light. I think you should set up a RedUser group buy price. :-)

[Richard Andrewski]

Yes like a 650w but daylight 5400K so you don't lose light from gelling. We have those in stock now but we have a bunch of stuff in production right now that will be hitting in November and we plan to have a promotion at that time (or just before the items hit stock). Other items coming back to stock: our portable fluorescents. New items: 600 LED panel, 70W cdm (in 300w size fixture and puts out about as much as 300w) and (I hope we can get them done in time) a 250w CDM and a 6 bank four foot T12 tube portable type fixture.

As noted in some other threads on Reduser, Cool Lights also sells real, HMI type fixtures as well but the only ones in stock right now and for a while are our 1200w HMI par.

[Matt Garrett]

You can often find used hmi lights for much cheaper than new ones.
Just check them out in person first and make sure people still make the bulbs.

Mag. ballasts will always be cheaper too.
This stuff will usually be much heavier than the new stuff too.

[Paul Hazlett]

yes, thank you, thats what I'm asking. Although, the real reason I'm looking for fresnels over kinoflos isn't hard vs soft, it's a size/weight/convenience issue.

So is the answer no, there are no non-HMI, daylight fresnels? :(

you might want to look at LED lighting from LEDz or prompterpeople or coolights.

Also Rosco has litepads