Best bang for buck lighting

[Parker]

Bigger, heavier duty fixtures are probably outside the budget you're willing to spend, but I'll just offer the devil's advocate view to the other posters here, that you can never, ever have too bright of a light. 

I generally use a Nanlux evoke 1200 as my keylight, usually shooting through a 4x4 frame of magic cloth, and I am frequently at 100% power and needing more output, sometimes ganging it with an additional 1200B, 600D, Prolycht 675, whatever I have available. 

Granted, I am usually trying to hold some exposure through windows and the like, and I prefer to light with big, soft, beautiful keys, but still. You'll never regret having more power at your disposal. That will just allow you to bounce more, diffuse more, shoot through more material... always an advantage!

Also worth mentioning, but bigger fixtures are more portable than you might think; until I recently upgraded to a full-size production van, for the past several years I've been able to easily carry a 1200d, Prolycht 675, 4' pavo tubes, in addition to a Nanlite forza 500, aputure 300d, spotlight attachment, 4 or 5 turtle-base c-stands, 4x4 frames and diffusion, various softboxes, not to mention all the accompanying bits and bobs of grip, power, dolly and of course, cameras, lenses, etc.... all within the confines of my beloved '09 Honda Civic. 

Now that I am finally in a bigger vehicle, I've got the Nanlux 2400b on my soon-to-purchase list as well. And I'm sure I'll very frequently still want more power. 

[kye]

On 4/29/2024 at 6:33 PM, gethin said:

Back in the day I did a few shoots with 5 and 10k hmi's that you could blast through a window and would compete with daylight.  I don't really use lighting much anymore and I'm very out of the loop.  I have a couple of cheap and cheerful godox 150w leds. Is there anything current that has higher output that is $1000 USD and below?  I've seen a few diy things that look absurdly bright but no idea what the output actually is.  They don't need to run for hours on end either.  

@Parker is right that having too much isn't a problem because you can just turn the lights down or put on more ND etc, but in order to not end up buying $20,000 worth of lights unnecessarily, maybe just do some tests with your own light?

Work out what the largest amount of light would be that you would need on a regular basis (you can always rent for the 5% of times that are an exception) and then test your own 150W one and just crank up the ISO to see how many stops brighter a light you would need for that situation.  

It's work, but in film-making you pay for everything one way or the other..  with money or with time or with experience etc.

[KnightsFan]

5 hours ago, Tim Sewell said:

The videos I've seen them in have all been from the last year or two - mainly Nanlites with a couple of Aputures and Godox in the mix. Of course, some of those videos have been in the 'gaffer testing stuff' genre made in guys' garages, but others have been, in the main, DPs on higher end shoots and some tutorials (I think quite a few of the notable working DP Tubers have been given freebies, so they reckon, 'why the hell not use it?'.

Oh, maybe I misunderstood "big old lights" to mean "big, old lights." High wattage LEDs from those companies are all fairly recent--even within the realm of LED lights themselves being fairly recent. Seems to me that quality LEDs have only become available at reasonable prices within the last 5 years or so.

[KnightsFan]

Oh sweet, a double post

[KnightsFan]

Why did it triple post?

[Tim Sewell]

6 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

Oh, maybe I misunderstood "big old lights" to mean "big, old lights."

Sorry. UK idiom. 'Old' in that context doesn't mean old. My bad.

[kye]

11 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

Why did it triple post?

Maybe the forum has been taken over by AI and it's become sentient and agreed with your comments so much it wanted everyone to read them several times!!

[PPNS]

renting tends to be the most affordable option

[eatstoomuchjam]

That depends.  If you use your lights daily, renting is far less affordable.  If you'll use them only once every 5 years, renting is far more affordable.  Somewhere in-between those two things is an inflection point (which shifts around depending on sales).  My Amaran 300C was $455 for Black Friday last year and it came with a free medium-quality light stand.  At lensrentals.com, the Amaran 300C goes for $87 for 7 days.  So after I've used the light on 6 shoots, I will have saved money vs renting.  Since it arrived in December, I've used it for 2.  After the shoots ended, I didn't have to put it back in a box and drive it to the post office so it's also saving me some time.  If I don't want it in a few years, I'll probably be able to sell it for $100-150.

Plus I have that extra light stand going for me.  That's pretty nice.  😄

[PPNS]

fantastic. the problem is that its just 1 light, and that its not particularly strong enough to be a keylight unless you’re in a studio environment or you can block out as much ambient light as possible. For 455 euros you can also rent an aputure 1200d, some 6x6 butterflies, bounces, negs, stands and even more for 1 day. 
 

the other issue is that those amarans are built kind of shittily. Every time ive used one of those i was afraid i was going to break it.

[eatstoomuchjam]

Congratulations on completely missing the point.  That was really impressive and you should be proud.

The pricing I listed for the 300D was representative of all of the lights that I have.  For example, I also got a 600X during their BF sale last year.  It was $1,691 and included barndoors + fresnel (and a free MT Pro).  Looking at lensrentals.com, it would be $193 for a 7-day rental (light only) and an addition $28 for the fresnel/$24 for the barn doors.  I've also used it on 2 shoots since I received it in December.  If I use the light on 8-9 shoots over the course of owning it, I will have paid less than renting it, even if I never had a need for barndoors or fresnel.  And again, in a few years, I'll also be able to sell it and recoup some of the investment.  If I didn't wait for a sale to buy the light, it doesn't really change much - just the number of shoots that are needed before "own" beats "rent."

Beyond that, in your example, for the two shoots I've done with the 300D, I'd have spent twice as much as I did and had more light than the shoots needed (if a 300C was enough, I didn't need a 1200D) (also, at least one of the shoots used RGB mode on the 300C which would have made the 1200D a stupid choice for that shoot).

So the point, once  again, is that if you actually use the gear on any sort of regular basis, it costs less to own it than to rent it - even before you factor in the cost of your time to keep driving to and from the post office or rental house.

[kye]

1 hour ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

So the point, once  again, is that if you actually use the gear on any sort of regular basis, it costs less to own it than to rent it - even before you factor in the cost of your time to keep driving to and from the post office or rental house.

Absolutely.

Another consideration for some is availability.

When I was hanging around reduser.com it became pretty apparent that a common thing was to own a RED (obviously!) and also a set of vintage primes, but to rent modern lenses.  The rationale was that often these cinematographers were doing personal projects and having the vintage primes made it so that they had a set on hand for whenever the personal project was able to be scheduled.

Quite a few were filming one (or more!) documentaries too, and are essentially on-call so that if something suddenly happens they can grab the camera and go.  It was common for these guys to store the camera in a go-bag, often rigged up and sitting next to the front door.  Good luck shooting that if you got the call and then had to rent equipment in the middle of the night!!

Film-making varies much more person-to-person than most people expect, and logistical factors or aesthetic preferences can easily flip a decision between two different people and their circumstances.

[KnightsFan]

12 hours ago, PPNS said:

renting tends to be the most affordable option

My rule of thumb is that if I use an item on 5 or more shoots, buying (and reselling at the end) is cheaper than renting. That's probably fairly conservative too: I usually buy used, so when I sell I get 60-80% of the cost back. I've even sold cameras at a profit after 1-2 years.

[gethin]

On 4/30/2024 at 12:25 AM, Tim Sewell said:

With reflectors on it's definitely around 2-3 stops brighter than my Godox SL200.

thats great!

[gethin]

On 5/1/2024 at 4:50 AM, QuickHitRecord said:

I personally think that these are hard to beat. I own four of them. I came from running two 575w HMIs but these are brighter, quieter, and more affordable. There's no ballast or extra cabling, which for me is a plus. They also have a dedicated remote control available so you don't have to rely on an app. The only "drawback" is that they can't be powered by v-mounts, but I have other lights that can be.

I'm very intrigued by the design of the new Molus G300 because I think I could fit two or maybe even three into a single case. But there are several ways in which the Nanlites still beat them.

they are pretty cheap too. Since writing I've been poking around and the cheapest I can find are a the nicefoto 600w for A$1400 or the smallrig 450 for $1600.  Both a bit more than I was hoping to spend but is anything ever under budget lol 

 

[gethin]

15 hours ago, PPNS said:

renting tends to be the most affordable option

Not an option for me. I mostly shoot real estate or low budget stuff in rural australia. It's generally not possible to rent, or it makes no financial sense to.  But yeah of course if I was doing long form anything, or anything with any sort of budget I'd be renting. I used to live in london. Lee lighting would let you try things, they were fantastic with students. (despite loaning out some dodgy AF gear now and then.  Cigarrette foil and the fuse - that kind of stuff 😆