John DeFiora wrote:
I've never shot with hotlights till last week, they are absolutely amazing! What I want to know, is how many of you photographers use them - do you use them solely? Is there an alien bee version of hotlights... Would also love to see examples of your shots with them.

All I ever shhot is with hot lights...I don't have the patience to figure out lighting without seeing it first hand.  And all mine are Home Depot shop lights with daylight bulbs. 

Examples are in my port as I can't post them here because of the bewbies.  =P

John DeFiora wrote:
I've never shot with hotlights till last week, they are absolutely amazing! What I want to know, is how many of you photographers use them - do you use them solely? Is there an alien bee version of hotlights... Would also love to see examples of your shots with them.

Alien Bees have modeling lamps built in. They let you get a read on where the shadows fall and how they interact. Basically you see the same thing you see when you're moving your hot lights around (only maybe not as bright).

Talan M wrote:
If you shoot hot models, you should have hot lights. lol

this is true! my friend let me use his, westcotts i believe - they were awesome, i needa get a cheapy pair!

Black Ricco wrote:
I luvs me my hot lights!

It would be fun to have the old guys tell us about what they see in each of these lights and how they are to be used. Nice collection of tools.

Tim Summa wrote:

It would be fun to have the old guys tell us about what they see in each of these lights and how they are to be used. Nice collection of tools.

my thoughts exactly. it was my firs ttime using em, i think i was at iso 400, not bad, and the pix were sharp... it was fun seeing where the shadows laid upon the face. i felt it sped up my flow

Tim Summa wrote:
It would be fun to have the old guys tell us about what they see in each of these lights and how they are to be used. Nice collection of tools.

Well, I'm not an old guy, but I can tell you what they are. That's a nice collection of Mole-Richardson lights. They're pretty much the workhorse of the film industry. He's got a lot of Fresnels, both Babies (1000w) and some 2K's, and a couple of big softlights. They're all very capable, heavy duty, rugged lights. A lot of Mole-Richardson's in production today were probably produced decades ago, though they're still making new gear - it just rarely breaks.

Nick McCarthy wrote:

Well, I'm not an old guy, but I can tell you what they are. That's a nice collection of Mole-Richardson lights. They're pretty much the workhorse of the film industry. He's got a lot of Fresnels, both Babies (1000w) and some 2K's, and a couple of big softlights. They're all very capable, heavy duty, rugged lights. A lot of Mole-Richardson's in production today were probably produced decades ago, though they're still making new gear - it just rarely breaks.

Yup, you called it right. Those little lights are these. They are the handiest little things.

Corwin Prescott wrote:
I used to shoot exclusively with hot lights,  I really really really don't care for them.  They were great for learning how to light things since you can see what the light is doing, but I love freedom from tripod and extremely slow shutter speeds that strobes has given me.

I had two 500w hot lights. These let me shoot at 2.8 and about 60-100th of a second with iso 500.
My first strobes were just a/c strobes (I have bigger lights now) and with just those two lights I could shoot at f.9 at 200th with a 100 iso. I do not understand why people use hot lights. They use so much more power, they make models sweat and nothing is sharp.

What are the good reasons for using hot lights?

Images By Jonathan wrote:

I had two 500w hot lights. These let me shoot at 2.8 and about 60-100th of a second with iso 500.
My first strobes were just a/c strobes (I have bigger lights now) and with just those two lights I could shoot at f.9 at 200th with a 100 iso. I do not understand why people use hot lights. They use so much more power, they make models sweat and nothing is sharp.

What are the good reasons for using hot lights?

lol, I used to ask the same question.

Now I know better.

For fashion people, the advantage is insane. We can shoot as fast as our cameras allow, so if we have models moving quickly to move clothes around to catch movement, no issues. We can also shoot the entire shoot on an HD camera and then just cut a scene from the video to use as a photograph.

Of course, you have to understand that primarily what amateurs are going to have access or funds to get hot lights with are going to be limited, and you aren't going to get the good stuff.  At most you might be able to get a 750watt light set or something.

If you have access to HMI lights, or flourescent banks, etc, and can drop more than $1000 just on RENTING the lights for day, its a huge advantage. The majority of images I've shot are all done on mixed source hot lights.