Theater Lights

[Steve Smith]

I would be very surprised if a gel on a light reduced the output by 25%. I would also be surprised if an 80A filter did the same thing. Are you sure about that?

EDIT: I just checked. It is 2 stops. And I am suitably surprised!


Steve.

[Worker 11811]

Gels are basically "cut" filters. They do not "boost".
They can only cut out parts of the light spectrum that you don't want to see.

If you had a bowl of mixed red and green "M&M" candy and you took out all the green ones, you'd only have half as many M&Ms as you started with.

The solution would be to start with a bigger bowl of M&Ms or else learn to like the green ones.
That means you would need more and brighter lights to start with or else you'll have to use film that responds to tungsten's color spectrum the way you want it.

This is one reason why stages, movie sets and TV studios have so many lights.

[olleorama]

Funny thing, rosco r3202 has a 1.5 stop reduction, and Lee 201 has 1 2/3. So I'm better of with gels than lens filters if I'm gonna go through with this.

[btaylor]

I guess gels on the light would have the same effect, by lowering the effective light intensity?

Yes, you end up with the same light loss: you either have to pump up the amount of light to use the 80A filter, or pump up the amount of light to compensate for the light robbing qualities of the conversion gels. The ASA 25 conversion figure you get is the result either way.

Have you thought about simply shooting tungsten balanced film? That would be the easiest solution as long as you are not mixing it with daylight. Another option: if you are indoors with a daylight light source you can gel the daylight (like a window) to 3200 tungsten and use the lamps unfiltered.

[Bob-D659]

If you want to be really creative, convert the old fresnel lamps to flash heads and include a 250 watt modelling lamp. Now you have the best of both worlds.

[olleorama]

Yes, you end up with the same light loss: you either have to pump up the amount of light to use the 80A filter, or pump up the amount of light to compensate for the light robbing qualities of the conversion gels. The ASA 25 conversion figure you get is the result either way.

Have you thought about simply shooting tungsten balanced film? That would be the easiest solution as long as you are not mixing it with daylight. Another option: if you are indoors with a daylight light source you can gel the daylight (like a window) to 3200 tungsten and use the lamps unfiltered.

I can't find any tungsten films anymore. Only expired, and who knows what color casts that would give. I think I will abandon this idea. Strobes (which I use now) seems a lot more convinient. I would still like to have the "wysiwyg" thing you get with tungsten.

I saw a few pics on flickr shot with profoto acute strobes with some fresnel thing on them, that looked really like what I was after. Thinking of buying this and do something like it.

[resummerfield]

If you want to be really creative, convert the old fresnel lamps to flash heads and include a 250 watt modelling lamp. Now you have the best of both worlds.

That's exactly what I did with an Altman elipsoidal zoom. It makes a wonderful hard-edge light.

[2F/2F]

They should work great if your home is wired to handle them. You will probably need stands too.

To work around the low effective film speeds, move them closer to your subjects, and cycle them on and off as needed to save power and keep your subjects from baking/going blind.

There is a reason they call them hot lamps, and a reason why they have been largely replaced by flash. They consume relatively large amounts of power to produce a relatively low amount of light, and are relatively large and heavy.

When it comes to shooting people, my preference is to have at least 2,000W per head, if they are being bounced (a la M-R Softlites). 1,000W is OK for spots. My home hot lamps are Smith Victors with a 500W bulb in each housing. They are perfectly fine for stuff, but not that good for people. I usually get '8 to '30 at f/5.6 with them, using bounce umbrellas and Tri-X 320, at a pretty comfortable (but still hot, requiring cycling on and off) distance from the subject.

Just remember to get the lamps close; do not be shy with them. This is another reason why longer-than-normal lenses and lens hoods are great (almost "must haves," IMHO) for studio shooting. They let you move the lights nice and close.