Mixing Tungsten and flash

[Yaakov Asher Sinclair]

As the price of fresnel spot flash units are horrendous, I thought about mixing a small tungsten spot together with flash (as a highlighter.) This would be for shooting still lifes, so a longer shutter speed won't hurt, an d I can judge the exact balance with a Polaroid. I saw that B&H are doing a spe cial on a 100w Pepper for about a $180. Is this sensible? Does anyone have exp erience of doing this? Thanks in advance, and thanks to everyone who answered my other questions. Yaakov Asher Sinclair

[Abel Sanchez]

Hey I converted both a mole richardson 2-K and 5-K solarspot to accept a dynalite head, the fresnel gathers the light so you get about 1 1/2 stops more light(or more depends on the spot-flood setting) out of the same watt-second settings, and a focusable light with a hard edge(which you can soften with a scrim) I would guess you could do the same with a small pepper, or midget and a vivitar 283/285 it might get tough to work with such a small housing...for a quick test get a coffee can and a whole page magnifier (a thin fresnel made of plastic avaliable at an office supply store) and make a very crude fresnel housing for your flash. good luck.

[Robert A. Zeichner]

I've sold LTM's, Moles, Arris and a number of other brands of Focusing Fresnel hot lights for nearly twenty years. In comparing the eveness of illumination of these, the "Pepper Lights" are not exactly at the top of the list. Unfortunately, as with so many things, you get what you pay for. My vote for small focusing Fresnels is the the "Magis" from Desisti. These clearly have the most even output and widest focusing range. Another approach might be to get a small open faced light like some offered by Lowel. There are snoots available for some models that will help to control size of the light pool, and you can very inexpensively diffuse the output with toughspun or quarter grid cloth.

[neil poulsen]

I believe that Lowell sells a bluish filter to color match their tungston to a daylight color temperature, like a flash.

[Ellis Vener]

If you want to balance the light you'll have to filter one of the sources. The R osco filter to convert daylight balanced sources like electronic flash, HMI or heck, daylight is a Rosco CTO. This converts 5500 K light to 3200K. This is the lighting equivalent of an 85B that would go on your camera. To balance a halogen "hotlight" to daylight you 'll need a Rosco CTB. This converts 3200K li ght to 5500K and is the lighting equivalent of an 80A. Are you using studio flash like Dynalight, Comet, Speedotron, Profoto, Balcar, etc.? why not j ust use the modeling light on those units and shoot on a tungsten balanced film like Fuji 64TII or NPL or the Kodak equivalents.