Stage lighting for photography (thanks)

[cdtidy]

Hi folks,

 

I need a really powerful light for taking still life technical photographs indoors. I've had a look at some of the photographic lights available new (those at affordable prices) from places like Jessops. Frankly the quality of the photographic lights I've seen is disappointing. I've worked with stage lighting a few times in the past, and I recall the vastly superior quality of the gear. So I'm thinking about buying some used stage lighting equipment for the purpose.

 

I need fairly diffuse lighting, so I was thinking of building a stand to carry a spot lantern aimed at a silver umbrella reflector. I know that small white "tents" are available for creating diffuse lighting, but they're too small and restrictive for what I want to do. I have a welder and enjoy metalwork, so building a stand wouldn't be a problem. I guess I could use a flood lantern directly aimed at the subject instead, but I think using an umbrella will give more diffuse lighting as it effectively makes the light source larger. Or perhaps a Fresnel lantern would be a good compromise?

 

Has anyone here used stage lighting gear for photography before, and if so how satisfactory was it? Problems I can foresee are the size of the gear, and the somewhat yellow hue of the tungsten bulbs. At least I remember the hue of the lanterns I used being a little yellow, but they should have been less yellow than household tungsten lighting as I believe they used halogen bulbs. But recently I tried photography with a pair of 275 W "Photoflood" bulbs. The colour was fine; they just weren't bright enough. So I doubt the colour will be a major problem. And if it is, perhaps I could apply some correction using a lightly coloured reflector (although thinking about it, the colouring of the reflector would need to be pretty precise). I think the lanterns I used were the ubiquitous Strand Patt. 23s. I saw one in a skip a few years ago and I now wish I'd rescued it.

 

So I've been doing some research online and have found the following lanterns for sale at reasonable prices:

 

Strand Patt. 23 (500 W) - the classic

Strand Patt. 123 (500 W)

Strand Patt. 223 (1 kW)

Strand Patt. 774 (1 kW)

Strand Patt. 814 (1 kW)

Strand Century Leko (1 kW)

Furse (500 W) - looks like a copy of the Patt. 23

Furse (1 kW) - cube shaped

 

On the whole I'm tempted to go for 1 kW rather than 500 W. Too much light seems better than too little. The Strand Patt. 223 and Patt. 814 lanterns look most tempting, depending on whether I'm going for a Fresnel or spot lantern. My main criteria for selection are as follows:

 

* A good supply of bulbs and spare parts needs to be available, new or used, for the foreseeable future.

* The lantern needs to be of a satisfyingly heavy build.

* It needs to be suitable for mounting in any orientation (including the bracket).

* It needs to be fall short of being enormous.

 

Does anyone have opinions on quality of the lamps I have mentioned and their capabilities? Or simply advice in general? Or even lanterns for sale?

 

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

Best wishes,

 

Chris Tidy

 

EDIT: I just found the answer to one of my questions. It looks like the answer to the problem of yellow light is to use an 80A blue filter on the camera.

[pritch]

Firstly, you might be surprised at just how much light a 1KW fresnel (or even a 500W) puts out. I don't know what you were using with your photofloods, but the chances are whatever it was just had a fairly rudimentary reflector that sort of vaguely shoves the light in the direction where you need it, compared to stage lighting where you get more of a focused beam. Also bear in mind that as you go up in the wattage stakes, not only does the light output increase, but so does the heat!

 

As for being able to mount in various angles... you get a bit of flexibility with stage lighting, but the vast majority of lanterns like to be mounted so that they are vaguely upright, otherwise you may find problems with heat and lamps burning out sooner than you'd anticipated.

 

As for the yellowy light... are you using film or digital? If you're using digital, then surely the best answer is just to get hold of a neutral grey card, and white balance off it?

 

Oh, and talking about size, perhaps you could get yourself over to the Strand Archive (http://www.strandarchive.co.uk/lanterns/index.html) for a better idea there. I can't tell you about all of the lanterns in your list off the top of my head, but:

 

23: Not too big

123: Quite compact

223: Not exactly small; about the size of a large bread bin.

[ceecrb1]

<amateur photographer>

 

stage lighting will give you very very low colour temperatures...

if used on dimmers you'll DEFINATELY notice this with photography.

 

your FAR FAR better off getting your hands on some HMI's.. eg all strands can be set to "flicker free" and the white ballance you'll gain is infinetely superior! (look up, for example, "strand 400w hmi fresnel" in google)

Its why they are used in film/television....

 

Another option (again TV lighting) is a beg/borrrow/steal a set of DEDO Lights, expensive but sooo good!

http://www.dedolight.com/

My dad retired from his producion company, and has returned back to his original speciality of photography..

of ALL the kit we have in our house (full kit for conference / television production) now the only things he uses are his DSLR and the dedolights!

theyre small, light and have a very wide range of cleaver brackets etc so they can be put in stange places... eg one used to hang them from ceiling tile grids or another which is a rubber sucker (like glaziers use) with a lighting mount on it...

[Bryson]

Wouldn't you be better off with some Tv style lights - Redheads or Blondes? I suspect you'll be able to pick them up secondhand for a reasonable price.

 

While amazing in their day, the Patt 23 hardly gives a blinding white beam of crisp light.....

[Jivemaster]

You risk cooking the subject! I have seen things get too hot to touch!

 

Find the controls on the camera, find a studio stand, then use a longet time exposure than you are currently doing. 1/30 to 30 seconds is quite reasonable! Sort the aperture to set the depth of field required, move the front and rear standards to move the plane or focus, then meter the exposure.

 

Domestic lamps are 2800K studio 3200K and daylight 5600K. If you are digi then use a grey card to set colour balance on the camera. Or chose the right film - tungsten ot daylight. Full CTB is in most gel catalogues! Soft in photo means bounced off a big white thing -a 8 x 4 Polystyrene board is normal!

 

Look at studio flash, bright daylight colour and fast, studio flash has a modelling light so you can see the effect before you press the shutter

[paulears]

I can't see the real problems here. Out of the list, one jumps out as very suitable. The 223 - even using the original tungsten lamps it's fine - not over bright, but it's a 1K Theatre class after all. It has a biggish lense - and the light is quite soft. The beam spread range is huge and spotted down the brightness soon perks up - opened up it's capable of a decent flood. If you can get the barn doors, they are pretty large too, and you could simply bulldog clip some diffuser to them, as in red head style lamps.

 

Colour temperature is low, but depending on the other light sources, you can CT orange them up, or CT blue the 223.

 

Not sure what your ceiling is made of, but if it's white, then bounce light the 223s aimed at the ceiling for a really softer source.

 

Some of the things you mention are profiles (like the 23 and the 774) so not an awful lot of use. The 800 series, I didn't rate at all. 123's are ok too, but at the lower power, maybe not bright enough for you.

 

 

If the idea is lighting on the cheap - then my vote is firmly for the 223's - a truly useful bit of kit. Somewhere alese is a topic about replacing the lampholders to take newer halogen lamps - but that is another story.

[cdtidy]

Thanks for all the helpful replies. To clarify a few things:

 

* I'm shooting film, not digital.

* I do have a white ceiling.

* Having done some research, I think I can get around the colour problem by using a filter. I don't know where to buy tungsten film.

* I'd rather not use long exposures if I can avoid it. It's simpler to stick within the range of my camera's light meter.

 

It looks like the 223 is a good bet. I've remembered that I have several survey tripods for theodolites. An hour or two's work and I could make an adaptor to mount a 223 on top.

 

The room I'm working in is about 14 feet square. Do you think one 223 pointed at the ceiling will be enough, or do I need two?

 

Many thanks for the help.

 

Best wishes,

 

Chris

[Jamtastic3]

I'd emphasise the idea of (depending how low the ceiling is) bouncing the light from the white ceiling so that the light produced is very soft. The problem with this is the obvious steep angle of the light produced since it will be coming from the ceiling. If you have white walls however...

[gareth]

FWIW, I can second the recommendation for Dedolights. I've used them on video shoots in the past, and they're ace. Not particularly cheap, but if you can get your hands on a second-hand kit (with two or three heads, a couple of stands, and some other bits and bobs) it'll see you through all sorts of situations.

[Shez]

I presume you've already discounted the use of flash?

 

I've done some photography both with the Dedolights mentioned above (I'm more involved with video than still photography) and with decent studio flashguns. The Dedos, particularly when diffused a bit struggled to give me as much light as I wanted. With flash, it's never been a problem.

 

As my lighting background is primarily in theatre, I was initially keen to be able to see the full effect of the lighting, which continuous sources will let you do. It's a bit of a leap of faith when using flash as you can't really tell how it will look until the photos are developed. DSLRs are obviously great in that respect but I still prefer the look of film.

[cdtidy]

I've tried flash. Sometimes it works. The problem is that with flash, you can't see the exact details of the lighting (the shadows and highlights) until you get the film developed. I want to see those details before I take the picture, so that I can get them right.

 

I think I'm going to go for a Strand Patt. 223 or 743. I hope 1 kW will be enough to light up the room by bouncing light off the ceiling. Anyone think I need 2 kW? I could look out for a Patt. 243, although they don't seem to be as common.

 

Best wishes,

 

Chris

[paulears]

One critical thing to consider - HEAT. It will get very, very hot. 243's are lovely but huge and always (well to my eyes) not quite as even as they ought to be.

[p.k.roberts]

I think I'm going to go for a Strand Patt. 223 or 743. I hope 1 kW will be enough to light up the room by bouncing light off the ceiling. Anyone think I need 2 kW? I could look out for a Patt. 243, although they don't seem to be as common.

 

If you are only going to use the lamp as a source to bounce, then I would forget using a theatrical lamp - it's far more elaborate and expensive than the situation requires. Why not just use a 'builders lamp'? You should be able to pick one ip for about 25 quid (including a stand), will give you loads of light and replacement bubbles are as cheap as .... I would, though invest in something like a 'C' stand and knuckle and a bounce board (white one side, textured silver the other) or a white/silver Lastolite and holder. Either of these would still give you the soft light source you are after, but you will be able to add a bit of direction to it as well.

I'm a huge fan of Dedos, but I really don't think they're what you need for this job - a source for bouncing really doesn't need good quality optics.

[cdtidy]

Actually, I borrowed my father's builder's lamp to try out today. It has a single cheap tungsten halogen fitting, which I think is 500 W. Bouncing light off the white ceiling actually produced a fairly lame effect. The bounced light wasn't anything like as bright as I'd like it to be. I tried bouncing the light off a sheet of white card and it was a little better, but still not great. It makes me think that I probably need a 2 kW light rather than a 1 kW. Although I imagine that the reflectors in stage lights are considerably better, so that you get a more useful output per watt, so to speak.

 

I also just like the solid build quality and versatility of theatre lights. They're much more satisfying to own.

 

I'm going to see if I can find any Strand 243BP units for sale.

 

Best wishes,

 

Chris

[p.k.roberts]

One question I probably should have asked Chris, roughly how large are the objects you are photographing?