Got insipired by Peter Hurley a while back and loved his Kino Flo setup. Unfortunatly, I did not want to spend close to 3k on a kino system so I made my own instead.
What bulbs did you use? Did you do anything special besides remotely wire the ballasts? I can't figure out how you spent $350 unless the bulbs were really expensive.
The bulbs are Philips TL950. They are color balanced and have one of the highest CRI's on the market. The ballasts are electronic Philips as well - so no flicker. No dimmer on these, just on/off switches for individual ballasts.
The $350 added up because of all the small little tid-bits. It required special connectors to sustain the 600V the ballasts put out. Then there were other things like the COREX sheets, aluminum reflectors, project box, etc... Between actual item costs/shipping/tax it added up to around $350.
Full EXIF is on flicker. At 2.8 and ISO 100 at about 1.2m you are looking at about 1/100s. It's a good output - you can shoot wide open without problems and you can easily sync with flash (for blowing out bg) if you stop down.
It all looks pretty straight forward but I'm sure the step-by-step will help. Any plans to make grids? Maybe a piece of this cut in half and sprayed silver:
HappyCamp wrote:
Any good reason to not just use some shoplights that take two T8 bulbs?
I was thinking about doing something similar but just buy some shoplights and bulbs and put them on light stands.
I have seen that done, with a stud attached to the fixture so it can be mounted on a c stand..
The Corex plastic panels help out by reducing weight, but there's a reduction in rigidity too.
I think he is using the old magnetic style ballasts since he mentions shooting at 1/125th in order to eliminate flicker. I think with the newer electronic ballasts that should not be an issue.
HappyCamp wrote:
Any good reason to not just use some shoplights that take two T8 bulbs?
I was thinking about doing something similar but just buy some shoplights and bulbs and put them on light stands.
Shop lights will work provided that they have an ELECTRONIC ballast. The downside with shop lights is that they will be missing a efficient polished aluminum reflector. Florescent bulbs do not have much output, and without a good reflector your will be wasting a lot of light and bumping your ISO up. Another big downside is the weight, my version is like the real KINO system - the the fixture is on corex and only have the wiring contained making it extremely light. Since the reflector is aluminum, and I have it bolted on to the corex using some washers, the actual fixture is very rigid, and the folding barn doors provide protection for the tubes and reflector when not in use.
When building these, my goals were:
1 - See if I can make the system almost identical to the Kino for a fraction of the price.
2 - See if i can create a remote ballast to remove weight from the fixture.
Again, you could make this system any way you want. You can wire your ballast to the actual fixture and be done with the build much quicker and spend less for parts.
All in all, the most important aspects of a DIY fluorescent setup for photography boil down to BULBS and BALLASTS.
You want bulbs that are color balanced for daylight with a high color rendering index (CRI) to prevent the green tint you usually get from fluorescent lighting (All the samples posted above are auto white balance). I found the Philips TL950 T8 are EXCELLENT for this application. I would also suggest using a T8 system because of this bulb and because T8 is actually more efficient and has more output than the older style T12 system. It also reduced weight because T8 requires smaller and lighter ballasts, reflectors and bulbs.
For a ballast, you MUST make sure it is ELECTRONIC, otherwise you will be getting flicker and your exposure will vary frame to frame. The electronic ballast will let you use any shutter speed without a hint of flicker.
Thank you for showing your DIY project - It looks great
Would love to see a video of you making them if you have the time
And I think I missed the link to the corex sheets
Also you mentioned 600 volts ballasts but the link to the ballasts i believe were 277 volts
Thanks again
Jay
I'll see about a video if i have the time/patience.
The corex sheets can be purchased at a local sign store (I bought mine at SIGN-A-RAMA) - usual in 4'x8' sheets for around $30... just cut to size and your done.
The 277 that you are referring to is the INPUT voltage, it is listed as 120/277 meaning standard voltage from your wall outlet here in the US or Europe. The 600V is what comes out of the ballast and goes to the bulbs. That's why its important to make sure your connectors and wires are rated for at least 600V if you are making a remote ballast. It is also equally important to GROUND the aluminum reflector AND ballast as well for obvious safety reasons.
gintasr wrote:
Shop lights will work provided that they have an ELECTRONIC ballast. The downside with shop lights is that they will be missing a efficient polished aluminum reflector. Florescent bulbs do not have much output, and without a good reflector your will be wasting a lot of light and bumping your ISO up. Another big downside is the weight, my version is like the real KINO system - the the fixture is on corex and only have the wiring contained making it extremely light. Since the reflector is aluminum, and I have it bolted on to the corex using some washers, the actual fixture is very rigid, and the folding barn doors provide protection for the tubes and reflector when not in use.
When building these, my goals were:
1 - See if I can make the system almost identical to the Kino for a fraction of the price.
2 - See if i can create a remote ballast to remove weight from the fixture.
Thanks for the info. I'm pretty sure you will be hard pressed to find any ballasts for T8 bulbs which are not electronic. All that I see are electronic. Now if someone does want to use magnetic ballasts (T12) I think they can get around the flicker problem by shooting at 1/125th of a second or slower (not my preferred method).
I think I will keep my eye out for some T8 fixtures with shiny reflective surfaces. This looked cool: Six Light T8 Fixture at Home Depot but expensive at $85. A local store sells some two-light T8 shop lights for $12 each, but I'm sure that six-light fixture is going to put out a lot more light.
I'm just trying to be cheap. Your system looks a lot nicer than me using some shop lights Also your lights are much lighter than the shop light route.
Also your lights are much lighter than the shop light route.