I want to buy a couple flourescent lights with daylight balanced bulbs but am not sure how many watts I need. These won't be used for close interview style lighting but will be needed for full body high key lighting. Anyone switched to using flourescents and have some advice?

I've been looking at the Westcott Spiderlite TD5s which are 115 watts (I think equivalent to 478 watts halogen) but I've never worked with a flourescent and am not sure if I need something with more total wattage since I hear their light drops off more than halogen.

If I need more wattage I've been considering buying one large panel flourescent light with 200 or more watts and then a couple smaller and cheaper flood lights that have 3 small flourescent bulbs.

It's confusing what to get cause none of them are cheap.

Drop-off -- what is the light output (candela, foot-candles, lumens, etc.). Equal light output should drop off about the rate with distance.

However, where a difference may come in is that a 600W (since my photolamps are that) quartz halogen is nearly a point source -- the entire bulb is only about an inch across -- and the equivalent in fluorescents is a panel some (estimated) 3x4 feet across, one won't get the distinct shadows (of course, for video, one probably doesn't want the contrast of shadows).

The halogen would create a strong bright spot in the center, with rapid fade off around the edges (unless behind a soft-box or umbrella). The bare fluorescents will look like a soft-box from the start).


Hmmm, I'm not sure I ever completed a thought in the above ramblings <G>

I've done a lot of indoor video work with the DVC30 and a variety of lighting setups, using flourescents, Quartz and combinations of these and other lights.

What I can tell you is that the Quartz tri-lights I use mostly with a bounce brolly will give you more depth with the lighting. So that if your light is right beside you (hot), your model can move in and out more and still stay relatively lit in a larger range (sweet spot) than with flourescents. The sweet spot is more narrow with the flouro lights I found. What's nice with the DVC30 is that you can easily adjust the gain to compensate for when the model comes too close or too far without noticing too much of a difference on the video.

The Quartz lights, 3 bulbs, small in diameter puts out a harsh light which will give you sharp shadows, hence why using a bounce brolly to soften the edges. But because the total max output can be 750W you can place the lighting further away from the scene and get a better soft edge on the shadows.

The flouros, are wide panels of light so you have a much nicer wrap of light which will soften your shadows nicely, and depending how you place your lights, you can eliminate the shadows nicely. Day time bulbs are great but you can alter the look with Custom White Blance in the camera, if so equipred with that feature.

Ideally, I prefer to shoot with flouros than Quartz for the softness but I find I have to use more of them, spread around the room to get a nice full lit scene for the type of shoots we do. However, because of the bulk size of them, they aren't the easiest thing to lug around from site to site..