@Amadeus5D2 I actually had those before and as Vitaliy said, packing them up and building them are a pain in the butt. I actually went to the 4 bank flourescent panels. I bought the cowboy studio ones that look like the Diva kits and purchased the same bulbs as Kino uses. They just rebrand GE or Phillips. I can't remember offhand which. The doors suck but they work just as well as the Kino brand, without the dimming which I just do with diffusion or ND. I think you can pick them up for $250 a piece and that includes stand.

ah, o.k. I would use it only stationary, but what means you with fluos panels( fluorescent?). for me is important that the light is producing low heating.

@Amadeus5D2.

The only issue with that style of softlight is that they are fiddly to setup.
You can't just throw it on a stand, they take about 10 minutes minimum each to set up:

60-120 seconds per globe .. then .. 180-300 seconds per box and diffusor
half that to pack away

They are all soft lights .. if that's what you are after and you don't need to work fast

@kronstadt

A roll of black wrap can help control the LED's.

I worked for a gaffer for a couple of years fresh out of school. My light kit lacks hard/point sources.

@kavadni wow, that's one mighty lighting kit you've got there. Enough to light up pretty complex scenes even on a constructed studio set. Are you like a professional "electrical department" person?

I think I'll take your advice about acquiring another Redhead in the future, although I'm giving a serious consideration to a 2K Blonde or a 250W HMI. I know that there's a lot of hype around the LEDs, but I found it difficult to work with (no easy way to "contain" or "shape" the light), and same thing with fluorescent energy-saving bulbs - the light from them always somehow looks "unnatural" to my eye. I keep my own lighting kit as basic as possible due to cost, portability (I try to make sure that my entire cine-gear is no more than 2 bags so that it can fit an average taxi cab) and, importantly, workflow on location shoots (we all know that lighting gear is the most time-consuming to set up or pack up) and I can only afford to shoot in "natural" locations (inside real living spaces, for example), rather than inside studios.

Has anyone used 120W Par38 bulbs? Or 250W infrared bulbs? Would they make for a good backlight kicker light?

I wonder what do people in this forum use for kicklight (backlight)?

@kronstadt Poundland white baking paper = clever idea! I'd also love to know if / how you work out how to clamp bounce boards 'cos that's the thing I've most struggled with (without buying the proper bits). I use a strong mic stand & boom arm because you can quickly tilt it to any angle, but how to attach the board properly - I use bulldog clips attached to a mic clip on the end of the boom arm, with the other end clamped as best I can to the main bit of the mic stand, but that's not ideal as the thing moves round on the boom arm. Certainly not much use for anywhere windy.

Re your b&w experience, I read that in the days of b&w TV, that the studio was much more colourful than it is now. Presumably people used slightly reddish tints to be kinder to skin tones? Or maybe b&w TV cameras had a particularly strange spectral sensitivity?

I've not done CTO on windows as it needs a lot of CTO but I can see it would make more sense to knock down the daylight level and the use un-gelled lights (as opposed to letting it all in and then balancing it with lights which are losing a bit of power due to being gelled). BTW but possibly related, have you ever seen those clothing shops with what looks like CTO covering their windows? I think it was something popular with shopkeepers in the 1960s or so. I wonder what that was about?

@kavadni yes, thanks for clarifying that about the contrast ratio. Yes, that makes sense.

@Mark_the_Harp yes, that's what I've been doing for daylight scene rehearsals/readings (I mean adding a 1/2 CTB or 1/4 CTB). Works ok, but I've gotta try this CTO on windows trick too at some point - sounds compelling. I'm only just getting started with shooting in color and using filters, after a long sleep after once shooting on super-8mm and 16mm B&W many years ago. With B&W however you light it, even a simple single hard-light + some practical light, it looks interesting and "stylish", but with color and HD it's a whole different ballgame.

By the way, I've found that using white baking paper (£1 for 8m roll from Poundland) works pretty well in creating a "diffusion filter". I'm gonna update my list with this item.

I have a question to everyone. What would you say is a good cheap bounce-card? Foam-board or polysterene, or what? Any eBay links would be appreciated.

I'm also interested to know what would make for a cheap substitute to a C-stand in order to hold fairly lightweight items (white bounce-cards and black flags). So far I'm thinking of getting those ultra-cheap eBay light stands (£8), mounting small ball-heads on them (£3) and constructing some sort of DIY foam-board forks with wood/plastic and nails/screws.

The more I delve back into lighting gear and experiment, the more I recall how indispensable bounce-cards and flags are. I'd say maybe just as important as the light projectors.

@kronstadt

thanks for the advice about using CTO gels on the window. But wouldn't that look weird that a tungsten color light is coming from the window?

My suggestion is for when you want all light sources the same colour.

If using daylight from window and tungsten inside .. if you put CTB on the tungsten sources your contrast ratio goes up or you need more tungsten light .. if you put CTO on the windows contrast ratio goes down, or you need less tungsten light.

You white balance appropriately

@Albertz yeah, I guess I'll get one of those IKEA table top goose-neck clip-lamps with 100W tangsten bulb (for mid-shots), but will probably go with 300W As-ARRI as a general kicker light. (To light the actual background walls one will need more power like a 650W I guess).

@jules No worries - we are all learners. Basically, this is a kind-of a neo-noir style. The key-light often comes from my redhead 800W which is being projected not directly onto the talent, but onto a white card, which bounces light to one side of the talent. So my key light actually comes from the white card. This creates quite dramatic, but at the same time relatively "soft" light. My guess is that most of the interviews in this great video were shot using this simple technique

I tend not to use fill-light. Instead, I might place a silver reflector to the other side of the talent that serves as a minute "fill-light", so that the other side is not completely dark.

The second light lights up the background (walls, shelves etc).

This is pretty much a Two-Point lighting. Check this video for more explanation

The third light (kick-light or back-light), (which I don't have, and would like to have) throws a very thin and focused light edge onto the dark shoulders and jaw-line of the talent. Thus separating the talent from the background.

for backlight I think that a 150W Arri would be too low..on the other hand, I have seen a video where even two 100W CFL bulb were used as backlight (medium shot) and they worked fine..

Could you save weight and cost of weights / sandbags by using screw-top plastic milk containers which you fill with water as needed? Just an idea really, never tried it.