On-location continuous lighting solution?

[Markw]

Hey everyone. Some of you know I'm upgrading my studio lights, but I'm also looking for on-location solutions for continuous lighting, mainly for my video needs. So, it would need to be usable without any wall outlets. Whether this is via an attached battery, or an external battery like a vagabond or something similar makes no difference. Anything that will work without a wall power source. If you think you know of something, please let me know. I don't need a supernova, but not a 1 candle-light either.

Thanks alot,
Mark

 

[gsgary]

Profoto do continuos that work off battery and i think Arri do

 

[2WheelPhoto]

I saw this one on ebay earlier when I was peeking at the Elinchrom offerings: Elinchrom Digital Scan Lite 1000ws Continuous light 3200K Still OR Video Light | eBay

 

[Markw]

That's pretty sweet. I wish I knew what 1000ws looks like.

Mark

 

[Markw]

Besides that, I'd still need a solution to make it portable and usable without wall sockets. I don't know much about portable battery solutions, but I know the Vagabond mini only allows 120 watts of power to be used for a continuous source.

Mark

 

[2WheelPhoto]

Take a small gas generator for a ton of continous for extended periods.

I'm taking out a smoke machine and generator or a ton of smoke bombs on an upcoming shoot. I'm trying to figure out the lessor of the evils!

Maybe there is an LED solution that will sip battery power

 

[Markw]

I only need it to work for 1 nice bright light. 2 at the very most.

Mark

 

[Markw]

Looking into wattages, how am I supposed to know how bright each continuous light is going to be? I've only ever used 150ws strobes. I only really need enough light to work at 1/125s, F5.6-8, <ISO3200 in a fairly dimly lit environment. I know that's hard to explain..

Mark

 

[Village Idiot]

A generator is probably your best bet. Most companies that sell batteries recommend that you don't use your modeling lights with your strobes if you want any kind of performance at all.

 

[KmH]

That's pretty sweet. I wish I knew what 1000ws looks like.

Mark

That is not a 1000 ws (watt-second) strobe light. It is a 1000 watt, tungsten light.

It will get very hot, very quickly, and would be ambient light in whatever scene you shoot. 1000 watts eats up battery power quickly. How quickly would depend on how many amps it draws and B&H doesn't list that specification - Elinchrom Scanlite 1000 Watt Tungsten Light EL 20995 B&H Photo

 

[Big Mike]

A lot is going to depend on how much light you need. There are plenty of small, affordable 'video lights' that run on batteries or battery packs.
On Camera Lights

 

[Markw]

That's pretty sweet. I wish I knew what 1000ws looks like.

Mark

That is not a 1000 ws (watt-second) strobe light. It is a 1000 watt, tungsten light.

it will get very hot, very quickly, and would be ambient light in whatever scene you shoot. 1000 watts eats up battery power quickly. How quickly would depend on how many amps it draws and B&H doesn't list that specification - Elinchrom Scanlite 1000 Watt Tungsten Light EL 20995 B&H Photo

Sorry, that was a horrible choice of letters. I meant that as 1000w(s) as in ws=watts, not watt/seconds. I knew that when I posted, but it got lost in translation. Sorry about that.

A lot is going to depend on how much light you need. There are plenty of small, affordable 'video lights' that run on batteries or battery packs.
On Camera Lights

I'm having issues with understanding how much light I need, honestly. I don't have anything to go on besides standard home lights. But, the main problem is that I'm going to need nice, soft light. So, it's going to have to be punched through a softbox of sorts most likely. I'm only looking for enough light to separate my actors from their environment. I was considering getting the Cowboystudio (I know, not the best brand. But, I won't be using it very much) 3000 watt kit: Amazon.com: CowboyStudio 3000 Watt Photography Softbox Continuous Lighting Light Kit with 10 Daylight Bulbs & Carry Case (VL-9026S-85W): Camera & Photo . But, that being said, I was also wondering how I would run them off-camera without a generator.

Mark

 

[Derrel]

LED lights are making huge inroads for video production,due to their low cost and low battery drain as well as their ability to allow the user to cross-fade to get the right white balance between the light source and ambient light.Many smaller LED setups run on Sony-style camcorder batteries. Kirk Tuck just wrote a piece on The Online Photographer blog, touting his new book on LED lighting. That article has some links to some popular sellers on Amazon. $169 to $459.

 

[Helen B]

You need about 700 lux for the exposure you quoted (1/125 at f/5.6, ISO 1600). The Cool Light CL-LED600 will do that at about 6 ft in flood.

It draws 4 A at 12 V, ie 48 W.

Multiply 4 by the number of hours you want to run it and that would be the Ah rating of a 12 V battery belt or pack: adjust for other battery voltages. You can use Sony V and Anton Bauer batteries.

Sorry, that was a horrible choice of letters. I meant that as 1000w(s) as in ws=watts, not watt/seconds.

Quick recap: Flash units have their 'power' (really energy) measured in watt-seconds (watts times seconds, power times time), not watt/seconds; symbol Ws (or more correctly W·s but who uses that?), also called a joule, symbol J. The symbol for the watt is W.
A, V, W and J etc are symbols, not abbreviations, by the way, and they are always unaltered in the plural.