I decided to explore an under $100 lighting solution first. I was a bit skeptical as a people shooter that I would find anything I felt comfortable with in this price range. After doing a fair amount of searching, I settled on a couple of $42USD, Adorama, Flashpoint brand umbrella-style soft boxes and cool fluorescent bulbs. In fact, I added $30 to the budget and bought three “Kits.”
Basically a “Kit” consists of a 20 x27’ soft box built around a light bulb: Take the bulb out, remove the cord, collapse the unit and you are ready to go. Now let me “be perfectly frank;” for $42 you shouldn’t expect and don’t get premium brand construction or finish: The plastic base plate assembly is not the most elegant solution in terms of opening for mounting to a stand and/or tightening it when mounted, and I found myself struggling a bit to get the baffle evenly attached to the box as well. What you do get for $42 however, once you get the light attached to the stand and the baffle on snugly, is a light that works overtime and the comfort of knowing that if you damage the bulb or break the box, replacing either won’t set you back a king’s ransom. And most importantly, you get a light which can be used for video or still work and does not generate the kind of heat that can make a set uncomfortable. If there are drawbacks, the biggest is that the light is not dimmable. One solution might be to buy a few bulbs of different wattages for flexibility or place additional diffusion material on the front. Another drawback is that even with the baffle, there is a “hot spot” in the center of the box resulting from the bulb: You may see it in the catch-lights. The biggest downside is that the 85 watt “spiral” bulb is huge! If you buy these lights, feel free to discard the box the entire assembly ships in as the soft box, cord, baffle and adjustment lever come in a nice black canvas case, but you will want to keep the box and form the bulb comes in. Drawbacks not withstanding, yes indeed, I love these lights!
According to Adorama, the 85 watt bulb included in the kit I purchased roughly puts out the equivalent of a 480 watt tungsten bulb. My conclusion—it is indeed close to that. Adorama also says the temperature of the bulb is 5500K. That may indeed be the temperature of the bulb, but my unscientific eyeball test felt that the light in the silver box with baffle mounted was cooler than 5500k, so you may want to custom white balance for the best result.
The kit currently on the Adorama site comes with a 70 watt bulb and sells for $39.95. The only difference between the “Kits” I purchased for $42 and the one currently listed is the bulb. The 70 watt bulb according to Adorama, puts out the equivalent of a 350 watt incandescent light.
I feel this is a wonderful product worthy of consideration for those seeking to light for motion and still work at a most compelling price.
- ^ Stills captured during a video shoot using a single Flashpoint “umbrella-style” Soft Box Kit.
I want to make a few general comments in closing: First, for those of you who own flash lighting equipment already, if you try using those modifiers with continuous lights, make sure they are properly ventilated and heat rated as a lot of light modifiers which are routinely used for flash applications are not made to be used with continuous lighting and particularly those that generate a lot of heat. Going forward, if you are going to be shooting with flash and continuous lights and want to use the same modifiers, you may want to make sure that you buy modifiers that are appropriately rated. The second point I want to make is that even though some lighting is considered “cool” the term cool may be relative: Be careful handling fixtures and bulbs, especially immediately after turning them off. If you are shooting with fixtures that require installation and removal of bulbs, store and transport them with care.
Glossary:
H(d)SLR stands for “hybrid digital” or “high definition” single lens reflex cameras -you decide which. This is what I call cameras such as the Canon 5dMarkII and 7D, the Nikon D90, and the D300s, and other DSLRs that are video capable.
