You can buy 1000w household dimmers at many hardware stores. Last I checked they were substantially more expensive than the 600w dimmers. I have mine mounted in a small j-box with tails coming out. In some regions you may be required to put GFI on everything but I don't think that's the case with the US.

The only problem with household dimmers is that they can induce a buzz into your lamps that a pesky sound person might detect. Also, many household dimmers stall out when the they get very, very dim.

The better but far heavier and more expensive choice is a variac (autotransformer). These are very quiet and don't stall out at low levels. I wouldn't run out to find one but if you have electronics surplus stores in your region it's worth it to keep an eye out for one, especially a 2KW unit. Many experienced audio folk will just ask the lighting people to use variacs as a matter of course.

Another option might be to lamp the 650 down to the next lamp size. Then you can use a cheaper dimmer.

Rob Mack

A 1000W dimmer shouldn't be that expensive, you should be able to find one with a plug and socket designed to do what you're wanting it for.
I've been everywhere I can think of (incl B&H) and can't find anything. Maybe I should just call a wholesale electric supply and describe what I need. I recall somewhere people talking about making them for real cheap but cant remember where.
Thanks Bob,
Randy

Sorry I missed your Rob.
I have mine mounted in a small j-box with tails coming out.

hmmm, j-boxes with tails eh? That sounds like a good idea but I don't know what they is.

As far as the audio problem...as long as one is not using AC (evrything else battery-operated) it wouldn't be a problem right?

You'd most likely burn up the dimmer if the load is too high. Generally, they burn if the load is too high and you're dimming that load. less likely if the dimmer is wide open, but then your dimmer isn't dimming.

I'll take the gaffer's position on this. Before you consider dimming your 650 fresnels you should have a scrim bag and set of 5 scrims (2 doubles, 1 single, 1 half single, 1 half double) for each light that can use them. Every light gets its own set in a bag hanging on it's stand. Once you've done this then you can start thinking about dimmers but the scrims should get you in the ballpark while maintaining proper color temp.

The reasons every light gets its own set hanging on its stand are a) the scrims are always right there when you need them and b) if each light has a standard number of scrims in it's own bag it's very easy to see when one is missing.

Rob Mack

How many scrims have you used at once Rob? I've tried a double and single together (red and green right?) and it wasn't enough.

The correct thing to do is not use a dimmer at all. A variac is the best if you really must as that sound caused by cheap dimmers is coming from the lamp filament vibrating, not good fo the life of the lamp.

What you really need is a set of scrims. They're just metal gauze mounted in a frame and they come in a variety of configurations that let you do things that you cannot do with a dimmer, like reduce the light in part of the beam. But more important is that unlike a dimmer thay don't change the color temperature of the light.

For my money though the best thing is to not use incandescent lights at all.

Bob.

Tons of high-wattage dimmers here:

Smarthome

You definitely want to use a larger dimmer than your load, unless you like the smell of electrical smoke (from the dimmer). It WILL overheat.

The other advantage of the Variac is lower electrical noise. I have had room dimmers make it into my on-camera mic and cause all sorts of problems.

The buzz is always a problem because it's audible to the human ear, so mics can hear it too. This is most often a problem with mics on a boom because they may be closer to the instruments and may have their back ends pointing at a light. If I remember correctly most cardioid mics will pick up noises directly behind them.

The household dimmer creates the buzz, but the noise comes from the lamp and may be amplified by the lamp's reflector dish.

J-box is Junction Box. Available at the hardware store. A tail is a short cable coming off the unit. I'm using the term loosely --- I thing if you make a dimmer you'd have both a head and tail cable.

Rob

Well okay it seems scrims are the best and cheapest way to go (since I already have 2 full-doubles and 2 full-singles) so maybe next time I'll try 2 doubles. Ordinarily I use 2 small (Smith-Victor) softboxes but have been wanting to do more accent stuff and the Arris were just too much. While I have your attention what do you guys use for hair lights?
Thanks very much,
Randy

For hairlights we have the Zylight Z90.

Seriously loose your inkies, not only will you solve a lot of other problems going to daylight lighting improves image quality. CCDs are less sensitive at the blue end of the spectrum so to WB to tungsten they camera has to increase gain in the blue channel which increases noise.

We got rid of all our inkies years ago and have never looked back. Probably in that time the money we saved in buying lamps alone has more than covered the cost.

Bob.

inkies are the Arris right ?
not only will you solve a lot of other problems going to daylight lighting improves image quality. CCDs are less sensitive at the blue end of the spectrum so to WB to tungsten they camera has to increase gain in the blue channel which increases noise.
and these are flourescents?

If you always use a triple then you can afford to lamp down that light. The most I ever use is a full house (2 doubles and a single). Generally I think it's better to have to scrim a light down than to wish you had a bigger light ;-)

Dimmers are nice because you don't burn your fingers and they're easy to adjust, especially if you don't keep sets of scrims with each light. But they mess with your color and they make noise so they are often not a first choice. You can certainly scrim and dim, no law against doing both.

There are other options too. You can move the light back, which has the bonus effect of making a larger bubble of space in which your exposure can stay fairly constant. Gives your talent a little room to move without blowing out or ducking into dimness. You can squeeze the barn doors, which might work very well if you've got diffusion clipped with clothes pins to the front of the barn doors. You might also "waste" the light by letting the hottest part of it miss the elements of the shot. You often waste the light when bouncing it off foam core -- you just purposely let the light miss the card a little to reduce the remaining bounce.

Rob Mack

Inky is the Mole Richardson name for a 200watt fresnel. You'll find that most of the Mole model names are now used generically for lights.

An inky is a tungsten light.

Personally, I prefer tungsten fixtures for a number of reasons. They are simple to set up. They are also relatively easy to repair. The cost of entry for a professional light is pretty low (compared to flos and HMIs) and the lights are very flexible. Generally, tungsten fixtures are pretty easy to spot and flood, and they can be flagged cleanly. Also, it's easy to soften a hard light but impossible to sharpen a soft light like a flo, so with tungsten lamps you have a lot of options.

However, there are plenty of down sides to tungsten lights. They're hot. They aren't daylight, and as Bob described that's a disadvantage for video. Not so much for film. They also aren't quite as efficient as an HMI.

What do I use for backlights and hair lights? Often it's a 100 or 200w fresnel in an extra small Chimera. I often like a soft backlight for interviews because these show up as a panel of light on skin. It's a conservative approach because I often don't know what the person being interviewed will look like. Often I can use two, one overhead and one as a back/side glow.

Rob Mack

Thanks to the Chinese you can buy very cheap flo lights these days. We have a 3x softbox kit that costs peanuts, all fits in a carry bag and is very cheap and easy to setup. We bought 10 of these kits that were given to people who'd never used a camera much less lights, to shoot footage in clubs for a campaign by a very large Vodka distiller.

To answer Randy's question the zylight Z50 and Z90 are LED lights. Colour temperature is adjustable to whatever you want, on the Z90 you can even dial in colour by gell number. We've been the local agents for these since day one. It's taken a couple of years for them to take off but lately we're getting a lot of interest and quite a few sales.

I do agree with Rob, tungsten was the cheapest but that's changing. The lower heat of LED and discharge lamps means the fixtures can be made cheaply using plastics or even carbon fibre. All those lighting sources produce three to four times the amount of light of a tungsten lamp per watt of power. That can make a big difference when all you have are domestic /office power circuits to power your lights.

Bob.

Maybe I should just call a wholesale electric supply and describe what I need.

Sorry to be coming in late to this thread as you've received excellent advice.
That's what I did a number of years ago when I needed to make up a few dimmers.
I ended up with industrial-grade 1200 W. dimmers in heavy-duty boxes.
Use 12 gauge cable, heavy duty plugs and sockets and make each end at least 3 ft. long.
That way, you've covered if the plug you're going into is more than the usual "just off the floor" type.

Mike

LED luminaries provide about 10 times as much light per watt as tungsten, and fluorescents usually about 4-5 times (depending on color temperature and CRI, high CRI=less efficiency but better-looking light).

I never expected this much information/knowledge on lights from an editors forum.
Thanks everyone!
We have a 3x softbox kit that costs peanuts, all fits in a carry bag and is very cheap and easy to setup.
I'd like to learn more about this Bob, can you elaborate or maybe you have a link you can provide?
Thanks again everyone!
Randy

"LED luminaries provide about 10 times as much light per watt as tungsten,"

The exception to that is the Zylights, they're only 3 times more efficient, the Z90 outputs as much light as a 90W lamp and draws 30W. I don't have the exact figures but I'd say you'd be about right for the Litepanel Micro at least. I think the reason the Zylight is less efficient is it used R,G,B LEDs to mix a precise color of light and the blue LEDs are not very efficient. Whatever it is, left on for long period at full output they sure get warm, not burny hot though.

Bob.

I'm sure they're coming along. We have a 1'x1' unit and a little 2"x6" that my employer took to the Galapagos and they worked out really well for him. However, when we shoot here at home it's just two lights in a full kit and I find the don't't really make the grade when they have to be used with the tungsten kit. I can blue the tungsten or I can gel the LED lights down to tungsten but to my eye it still looks like mixed lights. For an interview, I might try again using the LEDs as hair and scratch lights where I could get away with lights that don't quite match the rest of the kit.

While they may provide 10 times the light/watt, these two units can't put out a hard light and don't have any throw. On top of that, the 1'x1' is functionally more of a broad light with specular qualities. Essentially the light quality is kind of bad. It works out to be the equivalent of a low wattage Tota.

A 1'x1' source certainly can't be hard, nor does it really qualify as a soft source. Even if you slap some diffusion on the face of it it's still 1'x1' and still not really soft. You have to rig a bigger frame of diffusion out in front of the thing.

So, for me to make a kit out of LED lights (lets say 6 to 10 lights), what would I want?
--Single LED instruments with outputs equivalent to 100, 200, 300, 600, and 1kw tungsten, or 100, 400, and 800w HMI. More would always be welcome. (Why single LED? Mechanically this makes for a much more flexible and focusable light with hard edges. Multiple LED emmiters mess with a light's sharpness.
--Professional housings that are focusable and have secure bails that will fit on a baby stud and also hold up under the weight of a Chimera. The housing should also accept scrims and gel frames, even if the single LED is dimmable without color change
--Price that's comparable or cheaper than its tungsten equivalent.

I think we'll get it but I haven't seen it yet, and I'd want to be able to replace my entire kit because I doubt they'll really mix all that well. A light here and there that needs special treatment to fit into the whole setup just doesn't cut it for me but for a shooter who does his/her own lighting and travels a lot, LEDs are a good first light. (I would recommend LED lights to shooters who need one or two lights, I just don't think they are suitable in a complete package yet.)

But this is OT, isn't it. Randy has an Arri 650. If he can do it, I'd recommend that he lamp the unit down to 400+ watts (it'll last longer too) and then try out a cheap 600W dimmer, keeping alert for lamp noise. Cheap dimmers are available that suppress that noise but I don't think they're marked as such so it's pot luck. People cleverer than I have added capacitors to these to suppress the noise so I know it's possible to make them quiet.

Rob Mack

I'd recommend that he lamp the unit down to 400+ watts
I checked BH and Googled for a smaller lamp for the Arri 650 but no luck...do you happen to know where else I could check Rob?
As you guys can probably tell I don't have a lot of experience in lighting. Since you are all so knowledgable on color temperatures etc I have another question.
I occasionally do a shoot to where I can't get away from sunlight on one side of the subject but the light isn't strong enough to bounce (and wind up with that cold blue on the sun side). Does a daylight filter on say an Arri 650 resolve this issue?
Thanks for your patience,
Randy
BTW, any recommendations for lighting techniques materials (free or cheap)

With all the suggestions, I thought the first one would be to use a compact theatrical or DJ lighting dimmer pack. They have self-contained dimming controls so you don't have to use a DMX board (although you can).

Do a Google for DP-DMX20L

They retail for $189 but I've found them on sale for around $100. They have four channels, built-in controls for each channel, and handle 10 amps per channel, or 20 amps total. That's 1200 or 2400 watts at 120V. And since they're used in smaller live theaters, the audible and AC line buzz is kept to an absolute minimum.