Light Source: Build Your Own Lighting Kit

Jim Stinson
November 2003

From time to time we've suggested ways to beat the high cost of lighting equipment by buying or building your own. So let's pull all those tips together into a survey of guerrilla lighting tools. We'll cover lights and lighting instruments, reflectors hard and soft, and diffusion screens that are surprisingly easy to make - and to use.

But let's start with a safety warning, and hey: please don't skip this part. Just one double work light draws nine amps of 110-volt power - that's some serious juice. Those lamps get so hot that they're covered with standoff grids. Wimpy power cords, loose plugs, and gels or diffusion too close to the heat can create hazards that can be lethal, so use care in selecting and using your tools. Now on to the fun parts.

Ironically, halogen work lights were made possible by the movies: Hollywood needed lamps that burned at a color temperature of 3,200K and didn't turn yellow as they aged, so halogens were developed. Then civilians noticed that they gave off more light per watt than regular bulbs and adopted them for work and general lighting. Now, you can complete the circle by using halogen work lights for video.

You know what yellow work lights look like: movable twin heads on stands with tripod legs. They cost $20 to $80 - and price doesn't always reflect quality. Some plusses to look for: a good height of the extended stand. Cord switches are safer and more convenient than controls mounted on the heads. Check out cord length, since you want to avoid extensions whenever practical. Big hockey-goalie grids are safe, but throw unwanted patterns on subjects, so look for better types of heat guard. Most units use 500-watt lamps, but a few cheap ones use only 300.

Three hundred watts are fine for single-head work lights, though 500-watt units are available. You might look for models with clip-on bases. You can mount them on the tops of open doors or sometimes hang them from ceiling grids. Otherwise, you can just clamp them onto light stands. Work lights are available everywhere from big box builders' stores to small hardware outlets.

This month's column isn't about techniques, but we should mention that work lights are difficult to control, so they work best for fill. Try bouncing one head off a white ceiling and the other off a nearby wall (unless it's painted a strong color).

Nowadays you can buy halogen lights for general household use. R and PAR lamps are available in sizes from 20 to 150 watts. (A PAR lamp is a sealed cone of heavy glass with a lens at the front end and a built-in reflector. An R lamp is similar, but much lighter and usable only indoors.)

Like all reflector lamps, halogens are available in a choice of beam widths: narrow spot, spot, flood and wide flood - though you'll rarely find a full range of choices in any one store. Spots can be used as key lights (keep them fairly far away, to minimize uneven beam patterns). Floods are great for fill lights. If you're clever enough to improvise a single barn door mounted across the top of the light unit (see below), you can use them for back lighting without spilling a flare into the lens.

To mount reflector lamps, you can buy some old-fashioned tension clamp sockets with big reflectors sold for general utility lighting. Keep the external reflectors on even though the reflector lamps don't need them. Those aluminum collars help keep fingers away from hot lamps"

You can also buy bulb-shaped halogens to replace the lamps in "practicals" - lights that will be seen on-camera. Even off-camera, these halogens can replace built-in fixtures at the shooting location. Why bother? Because they're brighter than incandescents, and their 3,200K color temperature matches the indoor white balance camera setting.

• Digg This!
• del.icio.us
• Technorati
• StumbleUpon
• Reddit