Profoto Cine Reflector: Shadow Edge Quality

[JoeKitchen]

I am interested in the Profoto Cine reflector, primarily because it has a fresnel lens in the kit.  This would be good for relatively smaller rooms to simulate sunlight and, since the spread is about 35 degrees, I would not have to place the light too far away to cover the windows.  

However, for larger rooms, to maintain similar light quality, I would need to place the light much further away.  (Light falloff and diverging shadows are more noticeable in larger rooms/spills and require a further placement of the light source.)  

My concern with placing the light too far away is that with the fresnel lens, the light would fall off too much to really make a difference, unless I used a twin head with a lot of juice going through it.  So I thought maybe the narrow beam lens (another lens option for the reflector) would help me out here.  I would be able to concentrate the light more, giving me more pop, and allowing me to place the light further away with out the need of a twin head and lots of power.  

I took a look at the Cine reflector today at Foto Care and noticed that the narrow beam lens has a slight frosting to it, whereas the fresnel lens is very smooth (aside for the rings).  This concerns me about shadow edge quality with the narrow beam lens.  

Is the edge quality just as good as the fresnel lens would be?  No one at Foto Care ever tested this out and could not give me an answer.  

[bcooter]

I am interested in the Profoto Cine reflector, primarily because it has a fresnel lens in the kit.  This would be good for relatively smaller rooms to simulate sunlight and, since the spread is about 35 degrees, I would not have to place the light too far away to cover the windows.  

However, for larger rooms, to maintain similar light quality, I would need to place the light much further away.  (Light falloff and diverging shadows are more noticeable in larger rooms/spills and require a further placement of the light source.)  

My concern with placing the light too far away is that with the fresnel lens, the light would fall off too much to really make a difference, unless I used a twin head with a lot of juice going through it.  So I thought maybe the narrow beam lens (another lens option for the reflector) would help me out here.  I would be able to concentrate the light more, giving me more pop, and allowing me to place the light further away with out the need of a twin head and lots of power.  

I took a look at the Cine reflector today at Foto Care and noticed that the narrow beam lens has a slight frosting to it, whereas the fresnel lens is very smooth (aside for the rings).  This concerns me about shadow edge quality with the narrow beam lens.  

Is the edge quality just as good as the fresnel lens would be?  No one at Foto Care ever tested this out and could not give me an answer.  

The profoto reflector is essentially a Par type reflector with adjustable lenses.  It works, much like the bronocolor and well it works, but it doesn't offer what an arri fresnel would, except lighter weight.

The doors are too far out, the zoom is limited.

I use to use pars and now just go with fresnels most of the time.  To me Pars are just good for traveling as they are lighter weight, though renting arri is not that expensive through film suppliers as they will bid on the rental.

Since I think you shoot mostly interiors, without a lot of moving subjects, I'd rent some arri hmis and try those over the profoto unless you need flash.

Profoto use to make a fresnel light for flash that worked very close to an arri fresnel, where you mounted a head into it.

If you don't need daylight, go for the large arri thungsten kit.  Those things are magic and a great price.






Basically what I'm saying is there is a trend to try to use smaller, lighter lights and modifiers to mimic what larger lights can accomplish.

I personally love working with film industry equipment, because it was designed to be virtually unbreakable, to be modified in 1000 ways and nothing you can't create with it.

A fresnel is a great light, allows for softness, hard, accents, to aid practical lights, the only downside is the weight and the output.





IMO

BC

[JoeKitchen]

Thank BC. 

So from what you wrote, I should assume that pars, even with a fresnel lens, just do not give the same edge quality as a true fresnel?  (I guess the fact that a flash tube is a round light source and a tungsten bulb is a small sharp light source has something to do with it too.)   

If this is the case, that is good to know.  And for small rooms an Arri 2K would probably work well. 

But what if I want to simulate sunlight in a large interior?  I would have to place the light very far from the window to avoid diverging shadows.  So it would need to be very powerful, which is why I was looking at strobes.  I can get a very powerful light while still using standard 110v outlets. 

I have never used anything above a 1K, but considering the electrical needs for using a 1K, I would assume something in the range of 10K or high would not plug into a standard 110v outlet, right?  If one rented a Arri 10K, would they need to rent a generator to go along with it?

[bcooter]

Thank BC. 

So from what you wrote, I should assume that pars, even with a fresnel lens, just do not give the same edge quality as a true fresnel?  (I guess the fact that a flash tube is a round light source and a tungsten bulb is a small sharp light source has something to do with it too.)   

If this is the case, that is good to know.  And for small rooms an Arri 2K would probably work well. 

But what if I want to simulate sunlight in a large interior?  I would have to place the light very far from the window to avoid diverging shadows.  So it would need to be very powerful, which is why I was looking at strobes.  I can get a very powerful light while still using standard 110v outlets. 

I have never used anything above a 1K, but considering the electrical needs for using a 1K, I would assume something in the range of 10K or high would not plug into a standard 110v outlet, right?  If one rented a Arri 10K, would they need to rent a generator to go along with it?

I just think flash looks like flash, even for fill or to simulate window lights.

I guess it depends on the room, the exterior lighting, etc. etc.

Yes I think constant light is better, some don't, I use both, though since we mostly shoot motion, my profotos only come out a few times a year.

For larger than 1.5 k's we have a rental company in NY and LA that will come in and spike the line to the fuse box.  Don't know if it's legal . . . I don't ask.

You'll never run larger generators in NYC without some kind of issue and then there is the cables going up and down stairs.  Big drag.

IMO

BC

[Chris Barrett]

IMO

BC

This one on the right has some exceptional fucking light.  Much more interesting than the 70 pictures of chairs I'm working on.

And I agree about the Fresnels.  We used to do these huge furniture sets in studio and my key source would be a 2k on a double high as far and high as I could get it from set (I just pulled a couple chromes I'll scan to show you).  For that stuff, even the fresnel was too soft for me, so I ended up just opening the glass.  The point source of the 2k bulb was perfect.
If you want daylight, an HMI fresnel, like the Arri 1.2k should make a nice hard edge.  Also... there is one thing that might even be nicer than a fresnel... a source 4 or "Leko" light.  They're actually fairly cheap and I have one modified to mount a Joker 800 HMI in it.  Beautiful, sharp lines.

CB

[bcooter]

This one on the right has some exceptional fucking light.  Much more interesting than the 70 pictures of chairs I'm working on.

And I agree about the Fresnels.  We used to do these huge furniture sets in studio and my key source would be a 2k on a double high as far and high as I could get it from set (I just pulled a couple chromes I'll scan to show you).  For that stuff, even the fresnel was too soft for me, so I ended up just opening the glass.  The point source of the 2k bulb was perfect.
If you want daylight, an HMI fresnel, like the Arri 1.2k should make a nice hard edge.  Also... there is one thing that might even be nicer than a fresnel... a source 4 or "Leko" light.  They're actually fairly cheap and I have one modified to mount a Joker 800 HMI in it.  Beautiful, sharp lines.

CB

Thanks.

EFL is one of the goals.

If I had my way everything would be a fresnel.  Shit you can bounce em, slap the doors small, flag em, gel em, SEE em.

About 40 minutes after the shot above we did this with the Fresnel, the doors slapped down to about 3"



IMO

BC

[EricWHiss]

This one on the right has some exceptional fucking light.  

I was thinking the same exactly. Love the light in that particular image which is a great distraction from the business plan I'm working on for Rolleiflex.  BC can you tell us a bit about the set up on that shot?

[bcooter]

I was thinking the same exactly. Love the light in that particular image which is a great distraction from the business plan I'm working on for Rolleiflex.  BC can you tell us a bit about the set up on that shot?

This isn't exact and we set the shot in about 30 minutes or so, as we were shooting motion, prior and after along with this editorial.



On location, I don't try to reinvent the wheel, just enhance, though in this case it was dark so I had to envision what the light would look like if there was practical lights inside and daylight though the window.

The beauty of fresnels for a bounce key is you can squeeze the doors, twist the card, twist the light and pick up accents on the face, hair, etc. with slight fall off on the bottom, tighter fall off to the right.



IMO

BC

[paulmoorestudio]

going back to the original question... a fresnel will not give you a crisp sunlight quality unless it is way far away.  The shadow edge is feathery on fresnels due to the increase in surface area of the source.  I have not used profoto's fresnel only broncolors for flash, pulsospot(~7"dia) and flooter(~15"), in both cases the variable beam is sharper when in widest setting. You can't get away from physics.  shadow sharpness goes up as the light source size goes down relative to subject matter.  Bare bulb (flash, tungsten, hmi, LED) is a way to mimic sunlight in a typical shooting scene.  Broncolor has a sunlite modifier that works with barn doors.  Flagging the spill is the challenge with bare bulbs use and having enough juice. A par or fresnel can get you kinda there but you have to have move it way back to diminish size and again you need a lot of juice to throw the light far.
On the other side of lighting gradient you have much softer bounce light as shown in james's last shot, beautiful wrapping light with very smooth feathered shadows.

[JoeKitchen]

This isn't exact and we set the shot in about 30 minutes or so, as we were shooting motion, prior and after along with this editorial.



On location, I don't try to reinvent the wheel, just enhance, though in this case it was dark so I had to envision what the light would look like if there was practical lights inside and daylight though the window.

The beauty of fresnels for a bounce key is you can squeeze the doors, twist the card, twist the light and pick up accents on the face, hair, etc. with slight fall off on the bottom, tighter fall off to the right.



IMO

BC

Thanks for the info.  I really would like to start fooling around with rags and frames like in this image, and get a better idea of how to use them.  With interiors, we are often shooting too wide to really hide these things, although with commercial spaces it can be different.  This is one of the reasons I want to get more into resort shoots, to have an application to use equipment like this. 

My local grip and production rental house offered to let me stop by and just fool around with some rags if I was interested.  I may take them up on it. 

Going back to the original theme, I am not looking for super sharp shadows, just shadows that have decent edges when the shadows are thrown a good distance.  If the shadow is soft, that is okay.  Actually I noticed that on a bright cloud free day, the shadows are never super sharp anyway.  The shadow of a light pole gets softer the further the shadow is thrown. 

The Profoto Narrow Beam reflector gives odd edges over a long distance.  It looks more like there are 4 or 5 lights in slightly different locations giving off overlapping shadows. 

My 420 and 650 fresnels all produce shadows that hold up over a distance, but 650 is just not strong enough. 

[paulmoorestudio]

I agree the shadow cast from a light pole does get softer the further from the base.. But, how soft is the shadow cast from the nose falling on the cheek from the same light source?,pretty damn sharp. I also agree with BC on the flexibility of the fresnels. Here are a couple shot with the Broncolor Flooter in sets.   

[Conner999]

A Leko (sic?) /theatrical spot modified to take a strobe head at rear will give very nice sharp shadows, but the lenses soak up a lot of light. Love mine (modified for Profoto), but don't use often.

A Profoto hardbox or DIY version might be an idea. Essentially un-domed head mounted vertically into a blacked-out box so really only lighting with small vertical cross of the tube.

I know some folks love the Bron mini satellite  (Buff has a cheap version, don't think Profoto does) to mimic sunlight. Not used one, but concept simple and apparently highly efficient with long throw.

 

[EricWHiss]

BC,
Thanks for the extra info.  How much space was there between the flat and your model?
Eric

[bcooter]

BC,
Thanks for the extra info.  How much space was there between the flat and your model?
Eric

I dunno, about 15 ft.   Enough to clear a 2:85 video frame.

BTW:  Paul, very nice commercial shots.  That's hard to do.

Much more difficult and professional than most people would understand.

Good job man.

IMO

BC



Arri Fresnel.

[paulmoorestudio]

somehow I missed reading chris's post, regarding optical spots I have had a hard time getting enough out of them and was not a fan of the colour fringe they tend to have at edge, but have not played with the seriously big or good ones.  I saw Les Miserables in SF years ago and sat not far from the main spot, It was about 18 or 20" diameter beast that threw the most incredible light, slight flood to very narrow spot, it was 80-100' away from stage and was barely 6ft in diameter when narrowed, and god it was BRIGHT.  I was so impressed I had to call the production company the next day, they put me in touch with the lighting director in London who built it just for the show in the UK.  It had variable colour temp as well and like James, they dialled it cool and bright at times for a very nice effect, conceived on set, not as afterthought in post, there is a difference. 

[Brent Daniels]

Here is a sample of the light & shadows from the older Profoto Fresnel housing mentioned earlier by bcooter. The end of the shadows have been shaded lighter in post. The shadow from this light is very crisp and gorgeous. The light was about 20 ft away and up about 16 ft. Straight light, barn doors fully open, and set at spot setting. I have had this older Profoto fresnel from when it was new about 20 yrs ago. It is basically a De Siti housing with a 12" lens. Much larger than the present Profoto unit with built in head. The square mount post for a Pro-5 bi-tube head places the flashtube exactly where the bulb in the De Siti sits so it acts just like a tungsten 2K. I do not think the new style Pro bi-tube would fit without alterations. I have both the frosted and a clear UV pyrex flashtube cover for the bi-tube head and the clear cover is a bit crisper. A beautiful light for still life. Probably nice for beauty too, but I would have no reason to try. 

[JoeKitchen]

Thanks for the example.  Looks like very nice light. 

[ndevlin]

I was interested to see that Elinchrom showed a new Fresnel adapter at Photokina (the "FS30") which they advertised as working on any Elinchrom strobes.  There's been no other pricing or availability information since, but I'm keeping an eye on it bc a friend gave me a pair of Elinchrom monoblocks, which may make this an attractive option is the price is reasonable.

http://www.lightingrumours.com/elinchrom-litemotiv-6294#.VL1UqMmEios

- N.