When I saw these 1650 watt total photo video lights in a friends studio, I fell in love. Actually when I heard about the price + seeing the quality of light, is what made me fall in love. As you can see i've been investing in some new lighting for an upcoming project. For stationary lights, these are great for both photos and videos. Again, these are not recommended for traveling around, go with the smaller LED panels (fit into Carry-On luggage). These Flourescent Video lights are quite large, a bit heavy (about 6 lbs. each), and fragile due to the bulbs. Since I was all set on my travel lights, I decided for some larger stationary lighting, and this proved to be the best bang for the buck. There are (6) 55w bulbs in each unit totaling 1650 watts. With 2 units you have 3300 watts total of clean bright light. It's such a large source, the lighting comes off very soft and well diffused.
Florescent lights they say have twice the output of LED, twice the distance, better diffusion (LED's are more direct), and these things run almost half the price. Sounds good, but remember they are probably about 10 times more fragile though. It's what you have to deal with I guess for large soft evenly diffused lighting. Sorry about the terrible review, it's getting late (was about midnight when I was unboxing), and I just wanted to throw something online for now. I might be using these on a shoot this Sunday, i'll post up some BTS of it in use if I can.
1650 Watt 6 Bank Fluorescent Photo Video Light Panels
Product Information:
Perfect lights for both studio and on location applications. Because of their compact and light weight design (aluminum chassis), these lights are extremely easy to set up. Simply attach to your stand, adjust the barndoors, and turn them on. No soft boxes to hassle which will minimize the space required to operate the system and create an obstacle to work around. Additionally, feature an innovative system that quick tran sform the light in a very soft source.
Key Features:
compact and light weight gives it the quality of a versatile unit.
die cast aluminum chassis.
high illumination output comparative with regular fluorescent and tungsten fixtures. Power consumption of only 330 watts and has the same output as a 1500 watts regular tungsten bulb.
power saving.
professional fluorescent tubes with high CRI level ( >90RA ), with no green or blu e light sparkle specific to consumer fluorescent light.
build in professional ballast: long life, flicker free, high output, stable Kelvin color temperature, and no noise.
the optional shoemount spigot adapter offers the flexibility of mounting the FB watts either horizontally or vertically giving you a choice of beam spreads.
select the color temperature by using 3000K (warm) tubes or 5400K (daylight) tubes.
remarkable for their low level of heat output.
protection against electrical shocks using integrated fuse into the AC jack (spare fuse included)
Available on Amazon:
1650 Watt 6 Bank Fluorescent Photo Video Light Panels
Oh and I was shooting the video with the the Sony NEX-3 that came in today too, so the Auto Exposure built into the camera didn't do justice when showing off the amount of light. (Just testing out the Sony while I have it).
Birk
Does anybody know if it's possible to get one similar to this but for use in the UK. It's only 110v but it's 220v in the UK. I have been looking for alternatives, but the only ones I could find was Kino Flos and others on the same price range.
All help would be much appreciated!
Emm
Post author@Brian - You can up the ISO on your camera to blow out the background, but I don't think two of these will be enough.
Brian
I'm looking for some lights to blow out a white 8'x10' matte white vinyl background "apple" looking video with a single talking head. Would two of these suffice to do the job? I have two cfl softboxes with 5600k bulbs I'm already using to light the subject.
Joshua Lawrence
So... basically an affordable Kino Flo.... Nice!
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1650 watt 6 Bank Fluorescent Video Light Panels » CheesyCam
michael
@franz,
no, packages of this size from China won't make it to you directly. Are you from Germany? You can count in about 8% duty fees plus 19% VAC which will be calculated from the total amount of price and shipping costs.
franz
Has anyone had experience with ordering light fixtures directly from china?
I am wondering about additional taxes/custom fees.
Heared that most sellers will label packages as gifts, but wonder if that will work on a package that big.
Pls let me know thx!!!!
Emm
Post author@trevor - Very likely..hahah
Trevor
Hey Emm,
So I called ephoto and asked about the product. Turns out the factory in china is backordered for several months. I'm gonna bet that was solely off your blog. haha
Trevor
Yeah I can't find these either for the same price anymore. They have a single unit with stand available on amazon for 299 plus 21 bucks shipping. And on ephoto's website they have a 2 light kit listed for 589, doesn't mention shipping but i'll bet they are charging for shipping.
I was so ready to buy them, but not for $70 bucks more per light. I think they sold a lot and are getting greedy now. Haha. Do you know where we can find these for the same price? Thanks!
demul
Do they not sell these anymore? They no longer have stock on Amazon and have pulled the listings from ebay.
Robertv in Edinburgh.
Can you start doing some light metering on these light review please? We've no idea how bright these are from the video, so measuring them makes sense.
A nice measurement at ISO100 and 1/60th would be a good starting point if you can.
Emm
Post authorWhoa shutter at 800? Surprised there's still enough light coming in to work with. That's some crazy fast shutter speeds.
chrismagic
I am pretty sure this light comes very close to kinos, obviously the light may not be AS nice, but for me this light is good enough.
EXCEPT for slowmotion.
this light flickers like nuts when shooting at anything above 100. when in the high hundreds like 800, you get banding and the light turns into a greenish sort of tint!
not good. but i guess this is for most all flourescents so ya know
fishblimp
Does anyone know the difference between these and Kinoflo? I used to have a set of Kinos and loved them. I wish I had them back! These lights seem very great, but are they too good to be true?
nas
Do they have built in fans, and if so are they noisey
Emm
Post authorIt's a marketing rating that all manufacturers use. A single 1.6K light will most likely not be flourescant or LED, and probably burn a hole through my walls..hahaha. Since there are so many smaller lights spread out, it pretty much 'outputs' the amount of light of at least a 1000 watts of tungsten, but does it much softer and cooler.
matt
no way in hell is that equivalent to a 1.6k light !
All you have is 55w spread over a wider area.
Emm
Post authorThat would be an interesting test. I have used them for video at 1/60th, not so much for photography at those speeds.
Shane
I shoot under Parabeams and Kino flos when working with video crews so I am familiar with this type of light, its very nice to work with, but I wonder how the manufacturer comes up with 1650 watts out of 6x55 watts? That would be brighter than the para or kino flos.
Also, do they flicker at higher shutter speeds? Say over 1/400th of a second?
mmgodfrey
Love the site. Spending too much time (and money) here. 😉
I just got the 6 bank flo. Looks really nice, solid build and very bright for the few seconds I tried it out. This may be a dumb question, but do you know if the plastic film on the silver surface directly underneath the bulbs -- NOT the plastic on the barn doors; I removed that -- is this other plastic supposed to be removed? It's not obvious either way.
Thanks in advance for any info. And stop pointing out so much great gear! 🙂
admin
Post authorHere it is click >> Osram Flourescent 55w.
Wow those bulbs are quite pricey. For 2 sets, that's about $288 dollars in bulbs alone! BTW, there are two different colors available in 5500k and 3200k
Curt Edwards
Any info on what type of bulbs these use?