Why are CONTINUOUS lights so expensive?: Studio and Lighting Technique Forum: Digital Photography Review (2024)

Why are CONTINUOUS lights so expensive? Just curious.

Technically I see no reason other than a pure rip off to charge so much. I mean there is not that much technology and parts in it.

Is Hollywood the devil behind the scenes?

It's nothing I want, but like I said, I am curious.

For example, this one:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/196700-REG/Altman_1200SE_E_1_2K_Fresnel_HMI_Electronic.html
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http://ronxp2000.redbubble.com/

The particular hot-light you are looking at is a daylight balanced 5000k HMI Arri which is top of the line. It puts out a tremendous amount of consistent, daylight balanced, flicker-free light and comes with the special ballast which you need for this kind of light.

Bulbs for these are also pricey but the daylight balance and consistency are what puts HMI's above your average tungsten bulb. Large HMI's like these, at up to 20,000 watts, is what you use to light up a street for a movie, for example. Sometimes they're put on cherry pickers, larger ones require generator trucks so these are pro-lights with a cost to match.

FYI, in many major cities, there are rental houses and many photogs rent these and bill the client; it's usually not practical to own all that expensive stuff.
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gmorioka
moriokaphoto.com

That was a great reply, and very informative.

I still don't see the cost in them...lol

But I can certainly see their purpose for expensive work, and detail.

Thanks for the excellent information.
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http://ronxp2000.redbubble.com/

the bulbs are very expensive to make, the gas in the bulbs is expensive and top of the line technology that uses a lot of purification to achieve pure white light (day light). The ballasts behind the bulbs (controls) are very expensive, they are digital to provide consistency as far as voltage and frequency, this is not easy stuff to do at all.

There might not be that many parts for the naked eye to see but the technology is there, 75% of it in the ballast and 35% in the bulb.

Look how expensive top of the line strops are, and that is to drive consistent temp for just 1/2000s of a sec, imagine you want to drive the same but for a long extended period of time.
--
Alan

...
A real artist is the one born to share

This is expensive because it is HMI.

You can get continuous light for a lot less if it is normal halogen bulb or the so popular fluorescent bulb

I just purchased two lamp both can take 5 bulbs.

I put five 85 Watt fluorescent bulb into them. All bulbs emit about 3X the light than halogens with the same Watt number.

So lamp light like that is 5 x 85 x 3 = about 1275 Watt, and that is good enough for home video. Daylight, and no heat. And consume less energy. Save the world buy fluorescent

RonFlashwrote:

Why are CONTINUOUS lights so expensive? Just curious.

It depends which kind of continuous you are lookiing at....

Open faced Tungsten Halogen lighting is relatively simple and cheap... where Fluorescents are rather more expensive.

HMI is a different beast altogether and is more like elecronic flash running at high frequency and so simulates continuous light from multiple pulses in the same way as fluorescents. This complexity makes HMI the most expensive of all.

Note: All these sources become much more costly if they built into the more complicated optical systems of Fresnel lensed spotlights, rather than simple open faced lights needing nothing but a backplate bent to shape as a reflector.

Indeed, the remakable thing is not so much that continuous is so expensive, but rather that quite sophisticated flash (Alien Bees) is remarkably CHEAP by comparison. However, Fresnel lensed spotlights are not availble from makers of economy studio flash, (beamangle narrowing grids are used, instead) and those makers that do offer Fresnel spots sell them at a pretty high price.
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Regards,
Baz

rockjanowrote:

So lamp light like that is 5 x 85 x 3 = about 1275 Watt, and that is
good enough for home video. Daylight, and no heat. And consume less
energy. Save the world buy fluorescent

Yes... except that if you break one of the lamps you're gonna have to evacuate the room for 24 hours... Errr... you did KNOW that, didn't you?
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Regards,
Baz

Yes... except that if you break one of the lamps you're gonna have to
evacuate the room for 24 hours... Errr... you did KNOW that, didn't
you?

EVACUATE??? Really I did not know that. Where do you get that information? (I doubt it) Why just for 24 hours. Why not forever??

Thanks
jano

rockjanowrote:

Yes... except that if you break one of the lamps you're gonna have to
evacuate the room for 24 hours... Errr... you did KNOW that, didn't
you?

EVACUATE??? Really I did not know that. Where do you get that
information? (I doubt it) Why just for 24 hours. Why not forever??

Here in UK we are advised to ventilate and stay out of the room for 24 hours to let the mercury vapours escape. This is separate from the irksome clean-up of the lamp debris itself, depending on what kind of surfaces it has fallen on.

Safety suggestions in other parts of the world are different... for instance...

http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/#fluorescent

Try Googling "Compact Fluorescent Lights Safety Precautions" for a list more relevant to your own language/zone.
--
Regards,
Baz

Barrie I remember when I was growing up, we broke thermometers on purpose to playe with the Mercury. Our science teacher passed small amounts of mercury around so we could observe how it is effected by the temperature of the human body. I hope the 24 hour waiting periode will make you guy's live forever!

I'm glad I grew up fearing only the wrath of my parents and god, Mercury, Lead and other fine metals were not on the list.
--
Alfred

alfredkywrote:

Barrie I remember when I was growing up, we broke thermometers on
purpose to playe with the Mercury. Our science teacher passed small
amounts of mercury around so we could observe how it is effected by
the temperature of the human body. I hope the 24 hour waiting periode
will make you guy's live forever!
I'm glad I grew up fearing only the wrath of my parents and god,
Mercury, Lead and other fine metals were not on the list.

I too remember mercury being a plaything in the school science lab, even making some from mercuric oxide using a blow pipe in a bunsen flame....

...... but there's a lot of things we don't do anymore.... some of them regrettable losses to childhood, some of them a "very good thing, too". That's because we learn, and one of the things I've learned is that there is no god.
--
Regards,
Baz

alfredkywrote:

Barrie I remember when I was growing up, we broke thermometers on
purpose to playe with the Mercury. Our science teacher passed small
amounts of mercury around so we could observe how it is effected by
the temperature of the human body. I hope the 24 hour waiting periode
will make you guy's live forever!
I'm glad I grew up fearing only the wrath of my parents and god,
Mercury, Lead and other fine metals were not on the list.

Fortunately for many of us, that metallic mercury that was so much fun to play with as a kid isn't terribly toxic on it's own and we really don't need to worry too much about our kidneys falling out one day for having played around with it as long as we didn't make a long term habit out of doing so.

Mercury vapor (and some more soluable compunds of mercury) is another thing though as our lungs can efficiently absorb it. Clearing a room and ventilating it for an extended period over a broken fluorscent tube is a good safety precaution but having forgotten to do so sometime in the past isn't much of a reason to panic. It's just best not to make a habit out of that either.

Yes, mercury vapor is toxic to the lungs and respiratory system, liquid mercury is relatively harmless.
--

http://www.pbase.com/jfinite

over caution??? (if there is a word like that?)

I mean like on the rear mirror of american car there is a writing that the mirror distort the view and things like that.

Europeans tend to laugh on these things. It is probably to avoid expensieve court cases.

OK it is not good to inhale it but to evacuate the room for 24 hours come on where should I go, that is my home.

rockjano wrote:
snip

OK it is not good to inhale it but to evacuate the room for 24 hours
come on where should I go, that is my home.

Yeah, yeah. I so totally see where you are coming from on this. If you're gonna get a healthy dose of poisoning, nothing beats doing it in the COMFORT of your own home, right?

(Ha ha. You guys break me up, really you do!)
--
Regards,
Baz

Barrie Daviswrote:

alfredkywrote:

Barrie I remember when I was growing up, we broke thermometers on
purpose to playe with the Mercury. Our science teacher passed small
amounts of mercury around so we could observe how it is effected by
the temperature of the human body. I hope the 24 hour waiting periode
will make you guy's live forever!
I'm glad I grew up fearing only the wrath of my parents and god,
Mercury, Lead and other fine metals were not on the list.

I too remember mercury being a plaything in the school science lab,
even making some from mercuric oxide using a blow pipe in a bunsen
flame....

...... but there's a lot of things we don't do anymore.... some of
them regrettable losses to childhood, some of them a "very good
thing, too"....

By the way, back in the late 1800s and early 1900s mercury [metal] was used medicinally as a physic [laxative]. Take a tablespoonfull....

Yeah, yeah. I so totally see where you are coming from on this. If
you're gonna get a healthy dose of poisoning, nothing beats doing it
in the COMFORT of your own home, right?

Yeah I like to die at home!!! It is sooo comfortable.

Come on Berrie.

Regards
jano

Dasherwrote:

Just remember that when all you can buy are CFL's because of
Congress's mandate in 2012. Thank you Nancy Pelosi

Hmmm... we've already had god in this thread..I suppose it was only a matter of time before politics came in to it as well, I guess.
(Funny... it's usually the other way around.)
--
Regards,
Baz

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