Recently our good friend Jim Arthurs did this interview shot using a Sony EX1 and two Cool Lights CL-SFT1 kits (5600K) and a CL-MF0150 CDM 150 fresnel (5400K). The softbox kits were fill and key and the CDM 150 was used as a rim light from back and behind on the right. The subject matter was an inventor who is promoting a new and innovative kind of tires for cars. You can see the full interview here (640 x 360), or Quicktime here and finally in 720p here.

This video demonstrates the new Cool Lights CL-MF0150 CDM 150 Fresnel.

Click below on “more…” to see the video.

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Here’s our a video showing one of our new portable versions–the CL-255P (non-dimmable version) and the CL-255PMD (dimmable version).

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We’re back with a new entry on the setup of the new CL-SFT1 Kit in honor of its release.  This kit includes the CL-SFT1 fixture, baby stand adapter, your choice of a CL-20032 or CL-20056 (200w 8U bulb) and 24″ x 24″ softbox.

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We’re initiating a Gallery on the site to use as a home for customer pictures of our products in action. A place where we can all learn from each other’s methods.

Our customer Doug Urquhart (www.upthink.tv, Atlanta GA) has two studio model CL-655s. As you may guess, the CL-655 is quite a light monster for output, but they aren’t being used for lighting the screen you see below. Here’s a great panoramic shot of his studio. You can see our CL-655s on stands at the sides of the screen. Click on the picture for a larger view.

Just like I always tell potential customers when they write to me: light in two layers 1). screen with inexpensive fixtures and 2). subject with other kinds of soft or hard lighting. In fact, you don’t need a high CRI fluorescent tube for lighting your screen so you don’t need expensive models of tube, nor do you need expensive fixtures.

Doug’s project cost about $2500 and uses simple, Home Improvement store, 2 tube, shop light type fixtures for the cyclorama lighting layer. Just make sure the ballasts are electronic, flicker free and of course silent. You can buy one that you’ve verified is electronic to test out and if you don’t like the results, take it back and try another fixture until you do have the right one. For his green screen, he went the hard, built-in cyc route. Many use large sheet linoleum to create such a cyc and paint it with the appropriate shade of green or blue.

Back to the lighting issues around a screen like this. What you use for the subject lighting layer depends entirely upon how well the lighting needs to integrate with the background plate which will be substituted for the green screen in final process and what effects are necessary to get it to look natural. Doug is using the CL-655s for blanket soft lighting the subjects in the foreground.

Another variation on this would be to use the 8U 200w bulb hung upside down either bare, with no diffusion or in a lantern type setup. I call these poor person’s spacelights. Spacelights (high wattage lanterns) are used in green screen and other cyc settings when there may be more than one camera angle involved and the lighting needs to be flat and even over the whole screen area.

One thing you may know is that a green screen needs to be as evenly and flatly lit as possible to get a clean key without much work. Another indispensable accessory to get for your shoplights is a set of “cracked ice” or “prismatic” styrene diffusion panels to put over them (or just buy them that way when you’re getting your fixtures). Many fixtures do include these as part of the deal. These type panels don’t cut so much light as they just smooth out the output. We even recommend them to our customers that need that extra bit of smoothing on our studio models but not cutting any light. Just cut the panel to sizes to fit into our slide-in adapter right behind the barndoors.

I posted the last and final part of the Metal Halide Fresnel series in the Articles section of the blog.  In Part IV, I discuss the Cool Lights Bulb choices for our coming Hardlight series.

I got into this “Cool Lights” business of mine because I thought prices were outrageous on pro level fluorescent fixtures. You can see all over this site the manifestation of what I decided to do about it; starting with the Cool Lights video and ending with low cost fluorescent fixtures. Well, I’ve gotten the same feeling again on another lighting technology: HMI. I was searching for an energy efficient hard or point light source to complement our fluorescent Cool Lights Softlight Series product line and was learning about HMI as the natural solution. Crazy prices though and no good reason at this point to have them so high.

In the last part of this article series, we’ll take a look at the Cool Lights bulb choices for the various fixtures using Osram as the standard and then coming back and looking at other equivalents. You’ll see we chose to work with industry standards so you won’t be locked into using Cool Lights bulbs for sure. Read the rest of this entry »

As you know, I just shot an independent short where I used the Coollights CL-455 and it was a great asset.  I’ve come to realize that a strong artificial daylight source is very useful when taking advantage of natural sunlight.  It is much more efficient to work with the sun instead of fight against it.  I hate wasteful tungsten fixtures that heat up the set and risk blowing circuit breakers so I have been experimenting with daylight fluorescents.  I knew I wouldn’t have time to play with lights on this shoot so we ordered the CL-455.  It arrived over on Maui in just a few days.  As I hoped, it was bright enough to fill in an area that is side or partially back lit by the sun which everyone knows is often a challenge.  I liked that it is cool enough to pick up and move any time.  It’s design also made it easy to get light where I wanted it which was critical as I also needed to operate the camera.

For those who don’t know, the CL-455 uses bright 55W daylight-balanced PL55 tubes in either 3200K or daylight color.  The ballast is flicker-free and silent.  There was some confusion about installing the bulbs so be careful with them as it is easy to get excited when a new “toy” arrives.  I recommend reading the manual if you haven’t used these type of lamps before.  The case is sturdy metal and the yoke keeps the light balanced on the stand and is easy to adjust.  I was skeptical about mirrored barn doors, but I found them to be very useful.  The doors can be positioned to act as a reflector to bring up the light when a bright window is causing a back lit situation.  In other shots, I bounced the direct light off a wall or the ceiling and I used one of the barn doors to reflect some light straight at the talent.  This made the CL-455 effectively into two lights at the same time.  When needed the barn doors still perform their classic job of keeping light off certain areas.  At the end of the shoot, the barn doors close to protect the lamps and the already cool light can be put away immediately.

A single fixture like the CL-455 that is economical, fast to set up and re-locate, cool to the touch, energy efficient, and can allow me to take advantage of natural sunlight is a real time saver and a pleasure to use.  I can’t imagine wrestling all the hot tungsten it would require to fight the sun as I needed to spend most of my time behind the camera.  Instead, in most shots I worked with the sun and used the lights to fill in and add accents where necessary.  In other shots, I faked the look of the mixed sunlight shots by using the CL-455 as the key.

I would also like to thank you for your quick shipping and prompt customer service.  This shoot was much easier due to the timely arrival your light.

Aloha,

Marcus Marchesseault

Camera Operator, Gaffer

Kula, HI

I recently purchased a CL-455 and CL-255 fluorescent light fixtures for use in location filming. I have used two tungsten kits on location up to now. A Sachtler 650 reporter kit and an Arri light 650 kit. Matching with daylight has always been the major problem with these kits and using filters cuts down considerably on the amount of light available. Added to this I’ve always been a fan of diffuse light and have used umbrellas and other diffusion materials to create the look I’m after. The fluorescent kits are fantastic in that they allow the full wattage to be used to light the subject making interviews with window backgrounds much more possible. So no light loss through a filter and no light loss through a diffuser.

I have found the CL-455 and CL-255 to be a good match, using one as a key light and the other as a fill; and the fact that you can turn off one bank of lights on the CL-455 means that you can make an even spread more easily. They also been good used to light a blue chromakey background where the daylight matched fluorescent tubes can really punch out a lot of blue.

My main concerns were about the robustness of the light fixtures and the quality of the light that they produce and both counts they have exceeded my expectations.

The fixtures are both extremely well built and very robust. You should note though that they are no lightweights and taking them on location is a commitment.

If your looking for a new lighting kit these come highly recommended.

Duncan Say
Directions Films Ltd
United Kingdom

I just posted the part III of the Build Your Own Metal Halide (Low Cost HMI) Fresnel in the articles section of the blog. In this part, I talk about what we’ve been up to behind the scenes to leverage all this information to create what we call the Hard Light Series which will be the perfect complement to our already existing and soon to expand Soft Light Series. Part IV will be posted shortly where I talk about the standard Osram bulb choices in the Hard Light series and the equivalent replacements that can be had for lower cost.