Lights - How much power?

[KiiY]

Hi again. After more reading I'm leaning towards using lights to get better color in my videos. But now I'm wondering how much you would consider as the "minimum" halogen wattage necessary for good color during daylight shooting. 50 watts? Dual 50 watt heads? 100 watts?

I was really impressed by the colors of the marine life in Leni Riefenstahl's Impressionen unter Wasser. Now I realize that the lights her cameraman used must have been very, very bright.

How can I get colors like that? In daylight, clear tropical water at about 20 to 30 meters down, how strong do lights need to be to get good subject illumination out to about 2 or 3 meters from the video camera?

Right now I'm leaning towards halogen because of cost and the fact that HID lights take a while before they come up to full power. Budget is actually the bigger factor since I'd still like to be able to afford some diving after getting new lights.

 

[Taxgeek]

Hi KiiY. I dive in murkier water here in socal, but I use 2 light cannons - HID but affordable. I use the included diffusers, and with those, the lights are only really good for lighting things within a foot or so. Our water isn't as clear as yours though, you may be able to get 2 feet out of them! ;-)

I guess what I'm saying is, get the brightest lights possible.

 

[Tom Winters]

For that shooting, Leni Riefenstahl had enough of a budget to use surface-supplied lighting from Birns & Sawyer ($$$$) or some huge HID video lights. Pretty cool releasing your own film on your 100th birthday.
There are no minmum light powers - get what you can afford. The big rigs have huge battery packs to lug also. There are some really awesome lights at the higher end of the scale.
Salvo makes a nice 24W dual-head HID - not too bad for $2200.
http://www.salvodiving.com/inc/pdetail?v=1&pid=1438

 

[ronrosa]

For that shooting, Leni Riefenstahl had enough of a budget to use surface-supplied lighting from Birns & Sawyer ($$$$) or some huge HID video lights. Pretty cool releasing your own film on your 100th birthday.
There are no minmum light powers - get what you can afford. The big rigs have huge battery packs to lug also. There are some really awesome lights at the higher end of the scale.
Salvo makes a nice 24W dual-head HID - not too bad for $2200.
http://www.salvodiving.com/inc/pdetail?v=1&pid=1438

We each have our own individual budgets to play with.

$2,200 "not too bad" ?

Call me cheap. That's a lot of cash-ola for lights.

 

[KiiY]

Tom,

Oh. Surface powered? I guess I can forget about that possibility...

It's a great video though. It's too bad she wasn't able to do more.


Taxgeek,

Thanks for sharing your impression on the Light Cannons. I was looking at those, but they sound like they wouldn't be any better than the Light & Motion SunRay that I already have.

 

[Scubacastor]

I would recommend something like 2x100W halogen or 2x35W hid to have some nice lights. Obviously it depends on your dive conditions. The clearer and sunnier the water is, the more power you need.

 

[Nocturnal Lights]

You're welcome to check out our lights on www.nocturnallights.com, we make a lot of very high powered Halogen lights that's comparable or brighter than the 10w HIDs out on the market. Feel free to fidn more information about our product on our website or on scubaboard.com

 

[Nocturnal Lights]

I forgot to mention that our dual overvolted 50w lamps (TL50 Twin Beam) have approximately the same brightness as two 21w HIDs at a fraction of the cost:

http://www.nocturnallights.com/content/view/28/58/

Most of the underwater videographers that we encounter doesn't need more than 60 minutes of actaul shooting time underwater, so our system will do the trick for you. However, you can always switch to a 35w blb for 100 min burntime or 20w bulbs for 160 min burntime. On top of that our systems are overvolted so the light output is brighter than typical 50w, 35w, and 20w systems.

 

[JamieZ]

I forgot to mention that our dual overvolted 50w lamps (TL50 Twin Beam) have approximately the same brightness as two 21w HIDs at a fraction of the cost:

http://www.nocturnallights.com/content/view/28/58/

Most of the underwater videographers that we encounter doesn't need more than 60 minutes of actaul shooting time underwater, so our system will do the trick for you. However, you can always switch to a 35w blb for 100 min burntime or 20w bulbs for 160 min burntime. On top of that our systems are overvolted so the light output is brighter than typical 50w, 35w, and 20w systems.

According to your web page your over volted 50w bulb is 20% brighter due to over volting (which shortens bulb life). Also your web page states that mr16 bulbs are between 12-16 lumen per watt. So lets say a regular mr16 is 14 lumen per watt, 14*50=700*20%=140+700= a total of 840. This would mean that your 2-50w halogen setup would output 1680 lumens. 1-21w hid puts out 1500 lumens, if you had twin 21's you would have 3000 lumens. I think your approx. figures are a little off. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Have you thought about building HID's?

 

[Nocturnal Lights]

Hi Scubanarc,

We actaully underestimated the lumen rating becuase we wanted to be extremely conservative and not misleading in any way. A lot of bulb manufacturers don't display the lumen rating, but the last time I saw a Philips bulb at Home Depot it does say the bulbs are rated at 850 lumens at 12 volts. I mentioned somewhere on Scubaboard that some companies are making the claim that 10w hids are the same as a 50w halogen, and we don't want to be in that position.

Some of the HID bulb manufacturers claim 1100-1300 lumens, but you can see the comparason on our website, and the design of the refelctor plays a pretty significant role in how much light gets directed outwards. What I'm trying to say is that you dont' have to spend thousands of dollars to have a "really bright" light when your dives are not going to be more than 60 minutes. HIDs are great as far as efficiency but they have their drawbacks as far as bulbs, ballasts, and igniters breaking on you. I was just on the phone with a videographer who uses 10w hids for his videos and he's telling me how frustrated he is with bulbs breaking, and a lot of people who shared the same frustration when they came to our booth at DEMA this year for our products. If you're looking for a more compact system that is very powerful and can provide burntimes over 4 hours, our products are not for you. However, if your dives are 30 minutes you can buy our SL50 for $330 and still achieve the similar brightness as a 21w hid that costs a lot more than that. And if you do need to go on a 1 and 1/2 hour dive you can just pop in a 20w bulb, which is about the same brightness as a 10w HID, and get burntimes up to 2 hours. On top of that we have worked with 10w, 21w, 24w, and 35w HIDs and we decided not to sell them.

Because we are pretty new to the market so you're not going to find a lot of our products in the stores that you go to, and unfortunately those store owners are not going to recommend you a product that they don't carry. I would love to get together with some of you guys in Southern Cailifornia so all of you can get your hands on the various lights in the market and review each one of them for yourselves. I hate to say this but editorials are sometimes biased because they have to favor advertisers. I wouldn't be surprised if there are lights that are better than ours for specific types of diving, but at the same time I'd like to show everyone the "flexibility" that our SL and TL lights offer. I'll contact the admins and see if we can get something set up and we can get writeups from everyone who is involved in the meet.