Decent inexpensive softlights for filming

[Jivemaster]

The first economy soft light has to be a lantern that you have being reflected off a full or part sheet of foam polystyrene. To this end Manfrotto (dot com) certainly did supply long sharp forks specially for impaling foam poly and holding it to a stand.

 

If you look through the Manfrotto catalogue on line you will find all sorts of options.

[Stuart91]

Isn't a hot light pointing a polystyrene a bit of a fire risk?

 

(Fresh in my mind because that's apparently how the first Glasgow Art School fire started, although that was expanding foam out of a can)

 

I suppose distance is your friend here but I'm still a little wary, given it's being left in the hands of novices.

 

Found the forks, though (143F is the code) - it's definitely something to keep in mind for the future, I'm sure they'll come in handy for something.

[alistermorton]

LED fresnel on polyastyrene would be a better bet - less heat.

[Jivemaster]

It's a risk, but not insurmountable. in the years I worked in a photo studio doing product stills we simply never had an issue. Lots of the "reflections in bottles etc" are put there by a discretely placed reflector cut from card or broken out of a piece of poly.

[Dave m]

Redheads or Blondes are's that hot when bouncing off an 8x4 poly sheet. Distance aids cooling.

The Glasgow fire was fumes that were released by foam in a can, being used to fill gaps in poly sheet.The projector provided the ignition

[Jivemaster]

Several aerosols use propane/butane as propellant more environmentally friendly than freons BUT....

[ed_ld]

If you're nifty with a soldering iron, you can make some surprisingly effective panels with lots of strips of LED tape stuck to a sheet of Corex and then wired back to an LED driver (DMX or nice simple twiddly knobs) very similar to the Litegear Litepanels.

 

24v bicolour works well so you can roughly adjust colour temperature. RGBW if you want to branch out to music videos ?

 

Meanwell PSUs are reliably flicker free for filming. You can then use diffusion gel or grid cloth to soften further...stood off from the panel as stated earlier.

[jamieshurlock]

I have a load of lanterns from a studio install...

2k, 1k 650w fresnels galore

One soft light 2.5k -4 circuits switchable on light

6x iris 1’s

6 arri floods with barndoors - good for bounce or gel with frost

Pm if interested...