Cool Lights!

Has anyone have any experience with these.

http://www.skaeser.com/cool_lights1.html

 

For digital cameras they seem perfect. How many would you need for a

good portrait? Could you mix them with other light soources>

I am eyeing the very same lights, so I hope someone weighs in. But I also want to know about the umbrella vs. softbox. I can't find these cool lights in a kit with a softbox from skaeser.com -- can you get that same wonderful soft light with umbrellas?

I don't have any experience of these particular lights, but please take a look at 'an intro to studio flash' in this link http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00BjHh&tag= where I gave my findings on some other fleurescents.

 

The problem is likely to be the same - inadequate power. And of course they don't have any kind of 'standard' fittings so I think it very unlikely that they could be used with softboxes or any other type of modifiers, other than the umbrellas shown.

 

James,

 

The type of umbrella shown in the link is a reflective umbrella, these are efficient in terms of light output but can't produce soft lighting. For soft lighting you need either softboxes or shoot through umbrellas, placed very close to the subject.

I would be leary of the light output as someone has stated above, from what Ive seen of

150watt white bulbs- they are roughly the same as output as incandesent.. so a 600 watt

"soft" bulb dumping into an umbrella?.. not much light.

the other problem I see with the umbrella set up shown is too much spill from lights - it

needs a reflector to contain the light within the area of the umbrella, with the setup

shown, half of the light output is lost beyond the umbrella..as for soft light, the silver

umbrella can make soft light.. it is all relative to the size relationship of source and

subject.. my open flash tube will produce soft light if I am photographing a thimble. and

have it close to the subject.

I would not trust the color balance of a flourecent bulb with out putting a color meter on

it.

yes it could very well be 5100 degrees kelvin but it might need a magenta filter for

balancing to daylight.

the only advantage I see would be if you are using as fill light only on a daylight lit set..

but again, is it really daylight?.. or as main light where you can get the light very close to

the subject for maximum output..