Looking for a spotlight for Photgraphic lightpainting

The need is for a 50w or so spot with a good beam (maybe orange peel reflector).

I have a Lightforce Walkabout (30w) w/ 12v gel battery pack that I would like to use because it has variable power. It would be nice to just plug the light head into the battery socket (automotive lighter plug).

The adjustable beam on the Lightforce is horrible. It is in bad need of a better reflector.

It is a great concept with lousy execution.

Still looking for a much better alternative, maybe an HID or something in the range of 4500-6000 kelvin, preferably a warmer brighter light that I can vary the intensity/temperature.

Thanks to all of you in advance, I have found this forum to be informative and inspiring.

I cannot believe there is no response to the thread, I have always felt these forums were of tremendous help. Maybe I am in the wrong section, is everyone using flashlights and not flood/spotlights? Maybe it's because I don't need a 1000w atom splitter.

Anyway if this is the wrong forum, please let me know, there are bound to be more photographers out there that are in these forums.

Thanks again

If you want to get the attention of the photographers, you should try posting in The Dark Room sub forum.

I don't know of any spotlights that can vary their CCT, without using a filter.

Could you get away with using a single mode HID light, and using different coloured / opacity filters?

mvyrmnd said:

I don't know of any spotlights that can vary their CCT, without using a filter.

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Yeah, what mvyrmnd said........

Polarion makes the underwater photography specific Abyss "D" model which is diffused and 5500K. It's $1500+. If that doesn't work, you might check out magnalight.com and look at their HID lights since many of them run on 12V power via a lighter plug.

The nice thing about photography is its world wide popularity. It's community is millions of times larger than the flashlight enthusiast community and virtually every possibly dilemma you could run into has been encountered and overcome by someone else in that area of expertise. Therefore, give one of the photography forums a shout out since you're not getting your questions satisfied here.

Thanks Patriot, Not as many photographers as you may think do landscape light painting. Most of them consider "light painting" to be a fad that you carry an LED light around and draw circles to create your name on the picture.

But Thanks for your input.

Read your question before but assumed you concluded to look for a better reflector for your light.
So actually you look for a bright light with nice beam pattern / good reflector and adjustable intensity and colour temperature?

dta116, if you would like me to move this thread to the Dark Room, just let me know.

I've had a little experience of this, and if the subject to be lit is large you are right to look for a very bright light source, otherwise you will need very long exposure times. The effect will usually be DFN, so maybe you don't need to worry too much about the color temp.

You may move the post to the Darkroom forum if you like, the flood is to brighten certain objects in the sceen, not to reduce exposure time.

Thanks.

For any of you who wonder what kind of light painting I am talking about....

Nice wok dta116. I like the warm tones contrasting nicely against the deep blue sky.

I find either a neutral or high CRI LED or a good incan works well for light painting.

I've used the HDS EDC CRI 100 and the Surefire 9P for longer distant illumination. I prefer the incan for the higher output in a good CRI factor as well.

EV, Thanks for the kudos, I have found the Surefire M3T. what do you think about that one as an Incan? I think incan will work better because of a lower color temp.

Dave

I have and love the M3T. That thing really throws the beam well. Incan is warm, but allows wider light spectrum. (CRI)

if you get the SureFire A19 extender, you can use two 17670 lithium rechargeables for "gult free' lumens. This is the setup I currently have for my bump-in-the-night light.

It is also kinda narrow beam, the price you pay for a deep reflector that throws a long way. You may need to sweep it back and fourth during the duration of your exposure.

Have you tried the defuser with that light? I wonder if you can make it an M3LT?

Also do you know how 225 lumens compare to 100w?

Hello folks,

EV_007 said:

I have and love the M3T. That thing really throws the beam well. Incan is warm, but allows wider light spectrum. (CRI)

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As someone who is currently looking into purchasing a couple of flashlights, your post has raised a question for me: does using an LED flashlight cause any issues with colour temperature that are difficult or impossible to correct in post processing by changing the colour temperature for white balance?

Rob

I use Siteco metal halide spot lights and a small yamaha generator. The spot lights can be configured to be 35, 70 & 150watt, smooth or orange peel reflectors. I run Osram lamps and i have both 3000k and 4200k, 35w & 150w. The 150 watt lamp Delivers an astonishing 14,500 lumens.










The Yamaha generator is quiet and can power five 150w Siteco spotlights.

SiCOMPACT® R1 MINI-S


YAMAHA EF1000IS


Leoht.

Folks

I've been doing some additional reading. It seems that poor quality LEDs have a low Colour Rendering Index (CRI). However, the flashlights I am looking to potentially purchase use Cree LEDs which, I have read, are high quality. Unfortunately I have been unable to find out the CRI value for Cree LEDs such as the XP-G LED.

Can anyone help me? I'm hoping someone can confirm (or not) that using a flashlight with Cree LEDs for light painting will not return a colour temperature that is difficult to correct in post processing.

Cheers,

Rob

Leoht (or anyone else too),

This may be a silly question, but if I wanted to create a similar backlighting effect as can be seen in your third photo, would it be best to use a torch with a concentrated beam or one with a wide spill?

Hello? Is there anybody out there?

Doesn't anyone frequent this forum? Should I take my questions elsewhere?

AreBee said:

Hello? Is there anybody out there?

Doesn't anyone frequent this forum? Should I take my questions elsewhere?

Click to expand...

Sorry AreBee but I have been on shift and i dont always get the opportunity to log on whilst at work.
Welcome to CPF.
As to your question about spot or spill a floodier light is best. To recreate the effect in my third photo you may need several Flashlights/Torchs to get the contrast between light and dark, depending on how much ambient light is present. I took that picture when there was no moon and used three 150 watt siteco hid's :naughty: It was slightly foggy, that perfect amount of fog that is the secret.

Hey Leoht,

Thanks very much for responding. Hopefully you or others can help me out in selecting a flashlight for use in creating a specific photograph I have in mind.

I would like to set up my DSLR on a tripod for a long exposure, triggered by remote release. The subject in the photograph will be a wind turbine (approximately 100m in height). I will be positioned behind the turbine, out of direct line of sight of the camera, and begin the exposure when I have pointed a flashlight (or some source of light) at the turbine and switched it on.

I am aware that I will require a high powered light and had been looking at the Olight SR90 (if a thrower was ideal) or the JetBeam RRT XML (if a spill light was ideal). Ideally I would steer clear of using an LED light due to the non standard white balance, but from my limited searching online, incandesent flashlights are nowhere near as high powered as LED flashlights, and unfortunately an HID is too pricey for what is, ultimately, a photographic experiment. In other words it may not turn out nearly as good as I have visualised it in my head. I'll find a way to get around the issue of white balance in post processing.

Can you or anyone else offer me any advice? Bear in mind that I will be hiking to the wind farm so vehicle mounted lighting is out. Remember also that the shot can be as long an exposure as is required and therefore I figure that even if a high powered flashlight isn't sufficiently powerful to expose the turbine silhouette, I can always (and expect to anyway) repeatedly paint the turbine over its full height with the flashlight to expose to a greater extent (clearly lots of experimentation will be required for this shot).

Cheers,

Rob