Digital Video - April 2008 - (Page 40) DV 101 BY JAY HOLBEN YOU TUBE FLUORESCENTS, BOTH PRO AND DIY, OFFER UNIQUE LIGHTING OPTIONS. BY JAY HOLBEN number of questions about fluorescent lighting fixtures came up during one of my seminars at this past year’s DV Expo. Fluorescent light was long the bane of most cinematographers and videographers. Fluorescent light, which is light derived from electrically exciting phosphors inside a partial vacuum tube, is unlike incandescent light (standard filament light bulbs, which create light from heat), and does not produce a full spectrum of color. Although fluorescent lighting is energy efficient and doesn’t create the heat that standard incandescent lighting does, the lack of color spectrum causes cinematographers and videographers a number of headaches. In the late 1980s, then-gaffer Frieder Hochhiem created a high-output fluorescent fixture for cinematographer Robby Müller while shooting the film Barfly. This creation eventually evolved into a whole new career for Hochhiem as he founded Kino Flo, Inc., a company dedicated to the art and science of fluorescent lighting for film and video. These fixtures set the standard in the industry and brought fluorescent technology out of the taboo and into vogue. Research and development into specific recipes of phosphor blends, first with third-party vendors and then through Kino’s own creation, resulted Check out Jay’s DV101 Blog for addiin color correct tubes with high CRI. tional information CRI stands for Color Rendering Index, and images related to this a scale from 1 to 100 by which nonstory. Visit DV online. continuous spectrum light sources are 40 dv april 2008 A measured to denote how accurately they simulate a full spectrum of color. Inexpensive, industrial lights don’t need to represent a full color spectrum, they need to be bright and last a long time, these fixtures (such as street lights) have a very low CRI. Commercial and residential fluorescent lighting normally has a moderate CRI to make the light more comfortable for people to work and live in. A CRI of 100 would, theoretically, represent a full spectrum of color identical to an incandescent source. Kino Flo True Match tubes have a high CRI of 95. There are many other manufacturers who are making fluorescent fixtures now, including Arri, Lowel Lighting, Pacific Coast Lighting and Videssence, to name a few. I have not had the opportunity to work with any other company’s fixtures, other than the Lowel Caselight (which I liked quite a bit), but all of these companies offer extraordinary tools. There are times, however, when budget, location or overall resources don’t allow the luxury of working with a refined system like Kino Flo’s. There are alternatives for the Do-It-Yourselfer that may not be as refined and flexible, but are workable in many situations. Fluorescent tubes are now available at your local hardware store with high CRIs in various color temperatures. To put the available fixtures to the test, I took some time with actress Amanda Bolten to test out a number of fluorescent tubes that I purchased from a local hardware store. These are all inexpensive and readily available. The test here is to show how these lights represent color and color anomalies in various color settings of the camera. For this test, I purchased an inexpensive fluorescent ceiling fixwww.dv.com http://www.dv.com http://www.dv.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.