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Tungsten "hot" lights or Home Depot lights?
Well I primarily shoot outdoors, but with the colder weather upon us, I have decided I should pick up some lights. I would love some Alien Bees of course, but they are a bit too pricey for me since I wont be using them much at all. I was looking at some tungsten hotlights with stands and umbrellas online and they were a good price, but another photographer said I may as well just go get some of those Home Depot floodlights that are on adjustable stands. They are cheaper and pretty much the same thing. Just wondering what others thoughts on this were. How are tungsten hotlights? Are they worth buying? Dec 08 05 05:56 pm Link The 2 big differences between those Home Depot shop lights and regular hot lights made for photography: Home Depot lights can't be used with soft boxes, or other light modifiers. Home Depot lights are no where near as bright. My hot lights are 1,000 watts each. I would save up and get some strobes. You can eventually get a battery pack and use them anywhere outdoors as well. Bill Dec 08 05 06:00 pm Link MichaelBell wrote: WHOA! Totally not the same thing. Hot lights have a completely different color temperature than floodlights or work lights. That being said, in high school I used to do excellent portrait work by moving around home lighting and using 400 ASA film. Work/floodlights aren't necessary in that case though...just use gooseneck clamp lights or drafter's desk lamps...they're the same color temp, and can be moved much closer to the subject without discomfort. Dec 08 05 06:02 pm Link Worklights are fine for B&W photography (any old light source is). Their biggest drawback is that you have to use flags and otherwise improvise light controls. Not really a big deal - get some gaffer tape and foamcore and go from there. Hotlights designed for photography are better for color as the color temperature is fixed, and they accept barndoors, snoots, grids and other light modifiers. Softboxes can be simulated easily and cheaply by bouncing either light off an appropriately sized piece of white foamcore or even a wall. The only real benefit of soft boxes is that they prevent light from straying outside the panel - important to prevent lens flare if flagging the lens isn't done. I'm flying to Canada for a shoot and am taking only one hotlight with barndoors and a Bogen Superclamp setup for mounting it. Don't go overboard with lights unless you can make them pay for themselves. When going for photo lights of any sort, shop for used, as tons of folks who bought them are off-loading them as they either upgrade or find they don't need them. -Don Dec 08 05 06:19 pm Link The infamous Ivan Nagy uses only genuine Home Depot worklights for all of his video work. For print he uses Hensel monolights. I have heard a dozen lectures from him on why worklights are better than just going out and buying hotlights. He normally hangs a piece of old parachute cloth in front of them as a silk. Putting aside his notoriety, he did direct 22 films for NBC, won a Grammy award for his BB King album cover and is one of the few guys out there who has shot centfolds for Playboy (as well as the cover of Vogue). That all having been said, he would never use hot lights for stills. Rather than buying hot lights, why not get a set of Briteks or JTL's? The last time I looked, the JTL 160 coud be had for about $99 each, new. I admit that neither one of these are particularly good lights, but they are certainly better than using tungsten hot lights. Just my thoughts. Dec 08 05 06:22 pm Link Just keep in mind you will have 2 conflicting color temperatures if you are shooting in daylight with them........it can work to your advantage if you white balance right.....I do not have hot lights so to speak but on occasion have used Home Depot "tree lamps" that take 3 bulbs, and I use GE 90W flood bulbs........I use it to warm or mix the color temperature or when I am shooting for shadow. For what you'd spend on continuous lights and stands, you could have bought a JTL mobilight or maybe even an Alien Bee Vagabond. V150 is fine. Plus you have to buy a lot more wattage to illuminate the same as a lower wattage strobe would..... Dec 08 05 06:27 pm Link Home Depot flood lights are great for creating dramatic shadows, darkening backgrounds and exposing dark areas, but nothing else.. except home improvements at night  You have very little control on the amount of light since it's flat and almost no control over direction. Strobes cost a few bucks, but they are 100% controllable, 100% variable and 100% configurable to go with varying shoots. Dec 08 05 06:27 pm Link my avatar was shot with a home depot twin halogen, 1400watt set behind a calumet 4'x6' difussion screen, all the shots of lilli, and victoria, and julia, were shot with hot lights, i have never been happy with my sv set, but the rps set is great, plus it holds a 600watt bulb, not that i have ever found one, i blow too mant fuses as it is. robert Dec 08 05 07:09 pm Link now that i look at it my whole port was shoot with hot lights Dec 08 05 07:13 pm Link for what its worth i think thats hot lights are awesome due to the constant what you see is what you get aspect. but if you're shooting models they will quickly understand why they're called HOT lights. unless you go for one of the expensive florescent lights(westcott spiderlites) you'll have to deal with tremendous amounts of heat. this makes shooting more tiring and causes the models to sweat which in turn leads to more makeup breaks and whatnot. in the end its a matter of what you feel comfortable with. for me personally hot lights where the way to go when i started doing studio work due to my motion film background. i still use them when i need to shoot wide open apertures, ie my avatar. but for most stuff i now prefer flash. no heat, and MUCH more light output. if just a matter of getting comfortable with the gear. flash is intimidating because its not there all the time for you to see. Nate Dec 08 05 07:25 pm Link if you're shooting out doors and it's really cold, go ahead and use hot lights, a TON of them. just be advised that you'll probably be using maybe 3kws worth of power. that can get pricey. white balance is not a concern with cooling filters or CWB. Dec 08 05 11:31 pm Link MichaelBell wrote: I have owned several sets of studio strobes since 1962, plus I have build two custom softboxes with both hot hotlights and strobes. Dec 09 05 12:02 am Link |
