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Making video is a pleasure in a cooler studio but you can only do that with Cool Lights. This DVD video shows you how to make and use your own professional level fluorescent studio lighting for video, film and photography use. Start with simple, off-the-shelf solutions and progress to more complex, build-it-yourself ones that allow more control. Host Richard Andrewski dispels the conventional wisdom on using fluorescent lights for video and film use. New ballasts and corrected color temperature bulbs make fluorescent a pleasure to use once you change some of your lighting habits. Find most of what you need in a home improvement store! Learn how to convert a halogen work light to a fluorescent video light with barndoors. See a bulb that draws 200 watts and puts out an equivalent of 800 watts in a choice of tungsten or daylight type color temperatures. Create a versatile fixture with a slide-on soft light hood and barndoors so you can use it in any of three different configurations. See a 7-bulb fixture that fits in a standard softbox and speedmount ring setup and puts out an equivalent of 1200 watts of light for drawing only 300 watts! After you get comfortable with the ideas and techniques Richard is introducing, you can add your own variations.
(about 89 minutes)
This video was added to our catalog on November 14, 2006 in Film::Lighting and Arts & Crafts::Photography.
Product availability: available now, ships immediately!
Basic introduction to using soft, fluorescent lights and how to reduce spillover. He included a chapter on electrical and contruction safety, which is rare in an instructional video. Mostly, the video is about converting the higher wattage fixtures from hardware stores with Compact Fluorescent
Lights (CFLs). He shows how to make barndoors from sheetmetal and attach attach them.
He takes his creations and puts them through various tests, and even includes criticism of his own products and how to control the light spillage.
There exist better CFL's, as he recommended the cheapie bulbs with a low CRI that are widely available.
Overall, a good video that delivers on its promise: a tutorial on fluorescent lgith construction.
I have to disagree with the other review. I do not think that it lives up to its promise.
The idea of sticking a Flour bulb in a scoop light is not my idea of a $100 video.
Where the video really lacks is that it promises that if you go to the website that plans are available for the various lights he describes and sheet metal assys are available for purchase. The fact is there are no plans or sheet metal assys available and so this video is primarily a how to guide to assy light parts that are unavailable. In addition I think the lack of CRI discussion inexcusable for this subject. If the promised sheetmetal assys and plans were available, I would rate this video alot higher, but then the critism would be centered on the cost, since by the time you buy plans or have a sheet metal shop build the assy or buy from the assy from him, this is alot of dough so the question if you would save money by doing yourself is itself questionable. The quality of production on the video is good and the guy has good ideas, but at this point, you are buying an DIY assy video for products that do not exist and consider the commercial equivelent lights are available around $400 and by the time you buy the video and the currently non existant parts, you may have that in construction.
In this video he says that black wire are the common and the white is the hot wire. This is not right, I checked this with a licensed electrician and he said according to the national electrical code that black is the hot wire. This is a great idea, but you cannot build the light fixtures he describes as there are no plans and finding parts are difficult.
Extremely informative. If you don't have the ability, and the tools, I think you should get the parts pre-made.
