Hot Lights A Go Go

What is the appeal of the hot light? What? How can anybody love a lighting system that makes a studio hotter in January? That needs specially-ventilated light shapers to work. That makes the metal snoots so hot they smell like the grille at Alfred's Kitchen? What is the deal with hot lights?

Well it is June and the weather is getting colder, and if you are in a studio right now the constant light can be a bit of comfort. It is not as good as a reverse-cycle Fujitsu set to 27º but it goes a little way to heating the place. And the metal snoot? Well, you can heat that to welding temperature with the modelling light of at the average mono block anyway - learn to direct the head of the light by using the handle at the back instead of grabbing the light modifier at the front.

The real deal with the hot/constant light is that you can see what you get. If you are training students to see what their lighting is actually doing, or if you yourself find the leap of faith between a modelling light and the end result is a little too far to make, then the constant light is the answer. It pours out through whatever modifier you choose exactly as it is. You change your ISO and white balance to match the output - about 3200º to 4000º Kelvin - and your camera is happy.

There is the fact that other sources of illumination will also make themselves felt in the final exposure...much more so than with the fast impulse and brightness level of the electronic flash...and you may have to take them into account. Hot lights work best in a darkened studio.

But here is the delightful kicker - continuous lighting is perfect for videos. If you choose a set of lights that have no noise associated with them, you can film and record sound at the same time with no interference. Even with the lights that do have some sound - they may have a slight buzz from the internal transformers or whirr from cooling fans - it is generally kept down to such a low level that professional microphones can be positioned to ignore it.

Constant light sources can be large halogen lamps, incandescent lamps, fluorescent tubes, large LED panels, and banks of smaller LED lights. In some cases the housings are fitted with dimmers or rheostats that allow you to vary the brightness of the light without changing the basic white balance. Or there are arrangements in the multiple panels to turn on and off different portions of the bank.

Note that I may have inadvertently led you astray...and that is a pun...because the LED panels can run even cooler than strobe lights while maintaining a daylight balance. The nice thing about many LED panels and large single LED lights is that they are also operable upon battery power - the ubiquitous rechargeable lithium-ion batteries can be banked up to provide full constant lighting in the field.

Camera Electronic has always had some examples of these lights - whether they are Profoto, Elinchrom,  Jin-Bei, Metz, Lume-Cube or LEDGO, there is a variety to suit most purses and light outputs, from full studio high-intensity mono blocks shooting through dedicated soft boxes to tiny banks of LEDS that attach to cell phones.

It's cooler weather now - time to come in and experiment. Video students especially welcome.
www.cameraelectronic.com.au

Rainy Weekend

Either you are or you aren't. You'll know for certain and the people around you will have a pretty fair suspicion, but either way you'll need to come in and see us here at the shop to spend money.

Well, that's what we are here for, isn't it.

In this case you are either going to be a person who stands outside in the rain with a camera or a person who stands inside out of the rain with a camera.

For the former, we recommend that you get yourself a packet of Op/Tec Rainsleeves for your camera and lens before you go out. You can get drenched as much as you like but have a little pity on the expensive electronics. For $ 9.95 you get two sleeves and you can cope with the wet.

For the latter, we recommend a Datacolor SpyderCheckr 24 card and a set of LEDGO LED lights. Armed with the card you can balance out whatever light exists inside the home with the soft light of the LEDGO panels and do wonderful portraits and tabletop shots inside in the dry. Boil the tea kettle, break out the chocolate biscuits, and stand at the window laughing as the outdoor photographer trudges down the street.

Tiny Little Stadium Lighting With Cullmann And Ledgo

Those of you who follow the Subbuteo football league will have seen that their fixtures for the coming season include a number of night matches. Providing adequate lighting for the stadium during these games has always been problematical - the use of desk lamps means trailing electrical cords across the floor and sometimes these fall over and injure the players. Plus they are hot - summer matches can be hot and sweaty affairs at the best of times.

Cullmann, the innovative German tripod and camera support people and Ledgo, the Chinese LED light firm have an answer for this. The Cullmann Flexx Support System and the Cullmann Copter miniature tripod with the CB4 head and shoe mount provide easily-portable towers that will direct the Ledgo LG-B56 bank of lights down upon the playing field. Two of these arrays should be enough to illuminate the standard pitch and the spectators will be rewarded with an authentic look to the game. If four towers are used it should be as good as the MCG or Wembley Stadium.

On an odder note, some people may wish to adapt these lights and tabletop tripods for photographic purposes. Macro workers will find that it illuminates tiny objects perfectly.
The lights are quite bright enough to conduct interrogations. Videographers will benefit from the portability and the adjustable output.

Light Up My Life With LEDGO

As you can see in the picture of the Shinkansen pulling into Yamagata station last week, even the highest of tech needs a little light some time - particularly if it is going to slug it up through the snowy passes in the twilight. Those are pretty powerful lights. There are deer in the woods in the Japanese mountains and salarymen in the centre of Tokyo and they both leap onto the tracks...

You may never be confronted with the same problem at 250Km/h but in case you are, have you thought of attaching one of the LEDGO LED light panels to the top of your digital camera? They run off standard AA batteries and Sony rechargeable Li-ion batteries. Those aren't included in the kit, but they do supply a hot-shoe mount and a set of colour-corrected diffusion panels to cope with different forms of ambient light.

You can do video easily because they are silent and stills because they are really bright. The adjustable dimmer in the back will let you match the level of illumination to perfection.

Only $ 145 for single panels and they are in stock now.