ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

2 years, 9 months ago - Alwyne Kennedy

To confuse you even more, have you seen Apurture's Amaran 200x Bi-Colour LED? Apparently as bright as their 300X but a third of the price.

See review video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4-c6Y74gDs&t=200s

2 years, 9 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Or since we use the lights for a few minutes at a time anyway, how about secondhand tungsten redheads? I mean I looked on ebay just now and find complete sets for £50-odd https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275500839281 or https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/134270418018. Tungsten has fabulous CRI too, of course, something cheaper LED sets can fail on.

2 years, 9 months ago - Richard Lipman

Here is another gear video comparison review - sorry. The Aputure Amaran 200X wins as it is quieter. In the long run I always opt for quality. There is a saying that goes 'I am too poor to buy cheap.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9JnLEUXnPc

2 years, 9 months ago - Richard Lipman

Also , never buy new lights from eBay as it may affect the warranty. Get it from an authorised dealer...

2 years, 9 months ago - Richard Lipman

You may wish to test the lights by renting them as well - try fat lama or an rental house but you may require insurance

2 years, 9 months ago - Alwyne Kennedy

In a rare instance of anyone having to disagree with Paddy, I would steer clear of tungsten lights. Yes, redheads are available dirt cheap, but, I mean, do you really want each light to be throwing out 800W of heat, and consuming that much power? Do you really want to have to wear scorch-proof gloves to move your light heads? Do you really want to have to wait for the bulbs to cool down before you can move units? Do you really want to be replacing bulbs when they blow?

The LED lights you drew our attention to are much more convenient, safer and versatile than tungsten lights, and their quoted CRIs are high enough for good colour rendition (same goes for the Amaran that I mentioned). For instance, both of them can be run off batteries, which you could never practically do with tungsten. Yes, they cost more than those cheap redheads, but they offer so much more.

Also, those redheads available cheap on eBay cheap may well be poorly wired - I'm pretty sure they are the same ones that China flooded the market with them a while back. I bought one around 10 years back and discovered that its metal casing wasn't earthed and the wiring within the head was shoddy and flimsy. I replaced the wiring at once and ensured the casing was earthed before I used it.

On the subject of lights to avoid on eBay, avoid the (relatively) cheap HMI lights available there that are made to look like Arri lights (but without the Arri logo). I also bought one of those around 10 years back. When it arrived I plugged it in and flicked the switch on the casing and discovered it didn't work. I unplugged it and investigated the wiring and discovered that a clown (or murderous psychopath) had wired it up. Not only was the wiring incorrect in the plug, it was also incorrect within the casing. In fact, it was so incorrect that the casing was live! Yes, the live wire had been connected to the casing instead of the earth, and the only reason I hadn't received a mains shock was that I had only touched the plastic switch on the panel, not the metal casing. Further investigation of the unit revealed that its panel lights and mode switches were a sham! It was supposed to offer, via a panel mode dial, the options of 50Hz / 60Hz / Flicker Free but in reality the only thing the mode dial did was shunt current through one of three LEDs when turned, to fool people into thinking the mode had actually changed. Similarly, the temperature warning light and another warning light were also shams – they were not even wired up inside! And as for the cooling fans, they sounded almost as loud as hairdryers. I rewired where necessary and replaced the cooling fans with quieter ones and ended up with a basic working unit (although I had to change the supplied bulb for a branded bulb that didn't do weird things).

Unbelievably, those cheap HMI's are still available on eBay. I can only think that the one I bought was unique in being lethally wired - I'm sure we would have heard reports of people dying after buying them. But I'm guessing that the fake panel lights are still a thing with them.

Going back to Paddy's suggestion of cheap redheads, if you actually want some, I can give you two for free if you can make your way to Hither Green Station one morning for a handover. One has barn doors, the other doesn't.