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Cheap HMI lights from eBay
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  • GabelGabel

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev: Please do, could you also have them send some more pictures, especially of the type of lamp inside as worst case scenario, one could change it out.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Are you sure that they have magnetic ballast?

    As not very costly electronic ballasts exist.

    It looks like it is made by one of major China manufacturers. I ask and tell you more delais soon.

  • svartsvart

    They could be ok. They are magnetic ballast and it's supposedly built it, but I don't see how they could put that kind of ballast in the head of the light since the ballasts are usually as big as a cantaloupe.

    HMI was originally a brand name. These are really just metal halide lights. They can last from thousands of hours to 10,000+ hours, and they don't get nearly as hot as tungstens. They do get hot enough to be painful though. Biggest problem is that they give off a lot of UV so the bulb needs to have UV coating on it or you need to have UV blocking gels or else your talent will be burnt or their eyes harmed.

    The biggest problem is that the cheap bulbs usually cast a very green color, similar to cheap fluorescents. The better quartz bulbs seem to have better spectrum although I always end up putting minus green gels on all of them to match them perfectly.

    The tungsten equivalent is about 4x. So a 150W metal halide will be equal in brightness to about 600W of tungsten.

    My DIY HMI don't really make any noise. There is a slight hum if you get really close to them but it's not really audible. I wouldn't worry.

  • kronstadtkronstadt

    @danyyyel

    I don't know anything about HMI lights. Don't even know what bulbs to buy for them. Never used them before - I've used Redheads. These ones seem to have the ballast built into the unit (hmm, potentially great for portability). I was just searching for lights (or spotlights) to use as a kicker (back-light) and wanted them to be very directional and very strong, like theater stage lights fresnels or maybe like PAR38 bulbs, when I bumped into these by accident. I've read that HMI give x4 or x5 the output, so, theoretically 70W should be a 250W-350W equivalent, and 400W should be equivalent of 1500W-2000W. Noise would be a show-stopper for me, as my shotgun mic is pretty sensitive. But still, these HMI lights could be useful if someone wants to inject more sunshine into INT. scenes or counter the sunlight in EXT. scenes or create artificial Sunlight on a gloomy British summer day, like we have these days.

    that it will flicker if you don't use 50 or 60 for your shutter speed

    That's okey. I've set my shutter speed to 50 about 2 years ago and never changed it since. If you're shooting film (24fps) 50 is recommended.

    From what I heard is that it is quite noisy

    Where did you hear this? I'd love to read some reviews.

    do you have links to the other more powerful model.

    Just search eBay for "hmi light" and sort by Lowest first. The interesting thing is that these come from Meking and the stock is in UK. I once ordered an 800W Redhead for £29.80 (free shipping) from them and it was delivered to my doorstep 4 days later. Here's the list that you asked:

    70W/220v 5600K Photographic Continuous Lighting Lamp Light http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140751914421 £88

    150w/220v 5600K Photographic Continuous Lighting Lamp Light M-150 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/120912932090 £118

    250w/220v 5600K http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/110878536015 £208

    400w/220v 5600K http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/120912932206 £288

  • GabelGabel

    Here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HMI-Light-400w-220v-5600K-Photographic-Continuous-Lighting-Lamp-Light-M-400-UK-/120912932206?pt=UK_Photography_Lighting_Units&hash=item1c26f8ed6e

  • danyyyeldanyyyel

    @kronstadt, do you have links to the other more powerful model.

  • danyyyeldanyyyel

    Yes, strange no one has about these, because it could be potentially revolutionary. One thing I saw is that it has a magnetic ballast. From what I gathered is that it will flicker if you don't use 50 or 60 for your shutter speed. From what I heard is that it is quite noisy also. So it is a bit like magnetic ballast in fluorescent tubes. So you would have to place it a bit far from the light/camera. But all in all it could be very good. Little question, is all HMI the same in trems of colour temperature and CRI ?

  • GabelGabel

    Not really, but I'd be interested in knowing!

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