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Lighting recomendations

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Lighting recomendations

Postby peggig » Mon Mar 01, 2010 10:06 pm

This may be the wrong forum for this, but I was wondering if anybody has any recommendations for putting together a simple inexpensive light kit.

Ideally, I'd like to have three lights (a key light, a fill light, and a backlight) that I can use for both indoor video shoots and portrait photography. (I could get by with just two to begin with.)

They need to be lightweight, adjustable, easy to set up, with low enough power consumption that I can plug in all three on a household circuit and not flip the circuit breaker.

Can anybody recommend either an inexpensive light kit or decent quality, inexpensive stands, lights, etc. that I can assemble myself?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions/recommendations.
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Re: Lighting recomendations

Postby Chuck Engels » Mon Mar 01, 2010 11:10 pm

B&H is a good place to look around and see what is available.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/browse/Li ... 4294551176

Tungsten is good but expensive, Florescent is not the best but more reasonable in price.
LED is great if you can afford it, and HMI is the ultimate but prices are extremely high.
They offer many kits at a wide variety of prices.
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Re: Lighting recomendations

Postby peggig » Tue Mar 02, 2010 2:16 am

Everything they have is way out of my price range. :(

I was wondering if anybody had any ideas on makeshift alternatives...
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Re: Lighting recomendations

Postby Steve Grisetti » Tue Mar 02, 2010 8:28 am

For a quick-and-dirty light set, you may want to check out Home Depot or another major hardware store. You can get halogen work lights and basic floodlights for $25-50 each. They usually come with tripods.

You can also find clip-on 100-200 watt floodlights for under $20.

They're hot as the dickens, unfortunately. And you may have to bounce them off a sheet of white cardboard to soften them. But they put out good, bright white light.
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Re: Lighting recomendations

Postby Chuck Engels » Tue Mar 02, 2010 9:15 am

Just be careful, especially of halogen as they have a very yellow tint. Florescent will cast a blue tint that can sometimes look pretty bad if not used properly. What kind of price range are you thinking of? Ritz/Wolf Camera has some small light kits for around $100. I just posted the link to B&H because they have it all and you could get some ideas.

Here is one for $200
http://www.ritzcamera.com/product/302043575.htm

eBay also has some really good deals
http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid ... Categories
Just make sure that the person you deal with has a good rating, lots of transactions and good feedback.
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Re: Lighting recomendations

Postby Dave McElderry » Tue Mar 02, 2010 4:44 pm

Just be careful, especially of halogen as they have a very yellow tint. Florescent will cast a blue tint that can sometimes look pretty bad if not used properly.


Not to sidetrack you too much, but Chuck taught me the importance of using the camer's manual white balance control. Whatever you end up getting in the way of lighting, the WB can make the difference between poor video and good. (Thanks Chuck!)
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Re: Lighting recomendations

Postby Chuck Engels » Thu Mar 04, 2010 8:36 pm

Here are some lights that we use at my church
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/control ... decaSearch

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Nt ... Search=yes

Some of the kits are not very expensive and the lights are pretty nice.
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Re: Lighting recomendations

Postby peggig » Fri Mar 05, 2010 11:42 pm

Thanks, Chuck. The Lowell kits are outside my price range. (I'm trying to keep it under $200.) However, the Wesrcott uLite kit looks like a good possibility. I prefer softboxes to umbrellas, and it also looks like the uLite will take either tungsten or daylight fuorescent bulbs.

The fluorescents are a lot more expensive, but they last a lot longer (if the don't break), and don't get as hot. I was thinking of starting out with the tungstens that come with the kit and maybe switching to fluorescents when they burn out.

I thought about getting floods from the hardware store, but I'm not sure if or how you could attach a softbox to them (or an umbrella). Do you know if thats possible?

Also, can you recommend a good protective case to carry the lights, stands, etc. in that will keep them from banging around, that would be under $50?

Thanks again!
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Re: Lighting recomendations

Postby Chuck Engels » Sat Mar 06, 2010 3:55 pm

I'm not sure how you would hook up a softbox or umbrella to the flood lights from the hardware store. Might find some DIY stuff online, I'll check around.

Somebody here just made a camera case out of Foam Rubber and a inexpensive tool box. You could do the same with the lights, just find a big plastic tool box that you can work with.
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Re: Lighting recomendations

Postby Chuck Engels » Sat Mar 06, 2010 4:01 pm

Here are some DIY Lighting Projects :)

http://www.shuttertalk.com/articles/diylighting

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zARqGgHjNc[/youtube]

http://www.diylife.com/2008/01/10/perfe ... under-100/

That should be enough to keep you busy for awhile :)
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Re: Lighting recomendations

Postby Steve Grisetti » Sat Mar 06, 2010 6:06 pm

Very, very nice DIY project, Chuck!
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Re: Lighting recomendations

Postby FranciscoRogers » Thu Aug 29, 2013 2:36 am

peggig wrote:This may be the wrong forum for this, but I was wondering if anybody has any recommendations for putting together a simple inexpensive light kit.

Ideally, I'd like to have three lights (a key light, a fill light, and a backlight) that I can use for both indoor video shoots and portrait photography. (I could get by with just two to begin with.)

They need to be lightweight, adjustable, easy to set up, with low enough power consumption that I can plug in all three on a household circuit and not flip the circuit breaker.

Can anybody recommend either an inexpensive light kit or decent quality, inexpensive stands, lights, etc. that I can assemble myself?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions/recommendations.

hello friend I know thread is old but which lights have you used? Even I need similar light specifications so please help me with some suitable options..Looking forward for quick reply... Thanks:)
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Re: Lighting recomendations

Postby Chuck Engels » Thu Aug 29, 2013 4:25 pm

Hi Francisco,
I recommend starting a new topic and give us a little detail about what you are doing and what type of situations you need the lighting for.
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