My Homeade Kino Flo
 

I after spending a ton on lighting I decided to do some research of making my own Kino Flo lights. I spend about $150 on some of the obvious materials and found the ballast online that support kino flo bulbs. I could have paid $629 from BH Photo I can build 4 for that price. Im still looking for a way to keep the barn doors to stay. Im sure I will use some kind of wire like the kinos does anyone know where I can find this material? Im sure I will build more of these and improve on the constuction. Right now Im building 2 so I saved about 1k. Has anyone one else thought of doing this?

I own 2 Kinos Flos that I paid out the ass for and these work just as good or even better. I think the reflectors I got are even brighter.

oddly - i thought u were building a grow room ;)

They are bright enough I bet it would be some good shit hahaha!

do you have any test footage using them, they look really cool.

Not yet but they are really bright and soft exactly like the ones I paid a ton for.

Man I love it good for you, those fuckers are expensive there great but way out there in price...good for the mother of all inventions...saving money!!!

That's great. Good work. As long as the bulbs are CRA 85 or higher you are good as gold.

They are kinos the same bulbs in the Diva Lights.

:1orglaugh

Those look pretty good! I love Kinos, I use two four foot four-banks as my main lights along with some others. I thought about making some myself, but I have been too busy to play around with it. The Kinos are made pretty well though and hold up to a lot of transporting and location use that I put them through so I feel they are worth the money. I will probably just buy a couple of more big ones this year. I purchased a couple of Diva lights last year but I thought they were too small and sent them back.

The Diva 400s are really bright its almost too much. Im now gonna use my 2 diva 400s for fill and the 200s I built as a keylight and hairlight. This should work great. What camera are you shooting with Jim? That sounds like a lot of light.

Why build it for $150 when you can buy it for $155.00 complete with Kino bulbs from Amvona? At least you know that it's tested for safety, etc. The $155.00 price includes shipping. Let others do the work while you make money. :winkwink:

Those look very cool do they come with bulbs?

Yes, bulbs are included. They are the same bulbs used by Kino. Stands are additional. You can get inexpensive stands from them as well. Talk to the sales rep when making your purchase. I like the air-cushioned stands.

where did you get the black board?

Same bulbs as Kinos? Nah I looked into this unit and it uses 5400 K bulbs that aren't Kinos.

There are a couple companies out there marketing DIY projects for the less handy. I found this out of course after I spent $$$ on my Kino's. Had a studio rental about a month ago. Shooter had 2 1500 watt banks and a 500 watt bank that cost him about $1200. Build quality was decent too. Still love my Kino's but you can get same set up for a lot less for sure.

Sinclair

pretty neat man, looking into some lighting myself, post some test shots if u can

The bulbs used in them are Kino Flo True Match Compact Fluorescent Lamp, 55W/5500K - 21", 55 Watts/2900K - 21" or any other color temp that you want to use in that style bulb. I have 4 of these units and I verified them during the purchase process.

Talk to their customer service department and they will let you know. They are good about returns and exchanges. One thing you should know is that the dimensions they give you does not include the mounting bracket. If you're buying a case for them you want to include the mounting bracket in the measurement so that you may get the right size case.

would you mind posting your plans here? i'd like to make my own diva 200's

That would be great... :thumbsup

I mostly film with a Sony FX-1 . In addition to the two four-foot four bank Kinos I use as key lights, I usually add nearly 1500 watts of extra light from two Lowell Riffa softboxes I have, a 1000-watt placed a little further away for a fill light and a 500 watt up high as a hair light. Those four together light up a medium sized room pretty well.

very nice!! and look like the real thing too
could be somethign I will look into :thumbsup

Awesome job :thumbsup

bump give us the plans!!

i was at a workshop couple years back, there was a guy there who had built a beautydish using daylight balanced flourescent bullbs/tubes mounted on a cut out sheet of polished aluminum, it was pretty cool and made a nice light.
its fun to experiment with lighting, the best photographers all have in common their creative lighting..

Here are the plans.

http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=75353&page=3

Man that would be a ton of shit to carry to locations.

The reason Im moving to the new sony


http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...AM_EX_SxS.html

I have been using the HVX 200 thinking it would be an improvment in low light.
With the new Sony it will be 1/2 inch chips and a signal to noise of 54 bd wow! Im selling the HVX after 4 months of use.

I wont have to use giant light setups to shoot HD anymore.

bump....

Not to knock you man, but I own more than 20 ton of grip and lighting and have lit almost 4000 scenes not to mention more mainstream shows than I can count and I still have the first two 4 foot x 4 bank Kinos that I bought 10 years ago. Kinos are very durable, light weight, portable and reliable as hell. Many respectable companies, 100 times the size of “Amvona” have tried to clone a Kino, but none have even come close. Largely due to the fact that Kino has reflector technologies that not even a mirror can reproduce. Plus “stable,” high output, and very low heat electronic ballast. I too, have built many custom florescent fixtures for specific lighting situations but never for a general key or fill light. When it comes to light output I have metered a 4 foot x 12 bank homemade fixture against a 4 foot x 4 bank Kino and the Kino beat it by almost two full stops. Although your aftermarket ballast may have the power to strike a Kino globe, keep a sharp eye out for subtle flicker that may intermittently show up in your video. Especially when your cheaper ballast heats up. Also the globe probably will not give off the correct color temperature of 3200 Kelvin (tungsten/indoor) or 5600 Kelvin (daylight/outdoor). Sure you can compensate for this variance in video by white balancing, but the number one problem with homemade systems is the inability to hold a constant color temperature over a period of time. In other words you might start the scene off with the skin tones looking normal but toward the middle you may notice things going a little green. Here again it may happen subtlety so your eyes will naturally adjust and the unwanted greenish tint may go unnoticed until it’s too late. This shit green tint is due to the increase in the “green spike” common in all fluorescent globes. Forget about color balancing in the middle of the scene because the camera will all of a sudden add a fair amount of magenta to overcompensate for the increase in green spike. You may be able to hide the difference in the skin tones, but any and all background lights and colors will visibly shift in the middle of the scene. Remember: what you pull from one side of the color spectrum you take from the other. Green happens to be the worst color for skin tones due to the fact that green pulls the magenta or pinkish color from the skin causing the flesh to appear pasty even sickly depending on the shade of green. To test this: light your scene how ever you see fit with a green sofa under the talent. Shoot some test footage, then switch out the green sofa for a warm tone colored sofa like red, deep yellow or tan and note the difference. What’s happening here is known as a radiosity effect. Your light hits the green sofa which pollutes the temperature of light, then bounces back all over the talent almost as if you put a light green gel on your Key and/or fill light.
Divas in my opinion output far too much light for the relative size of the fixture if and only if your intention is to try to use them for direct key or fill light. On the other hand Divas are great for back/hair lights. The key to lighting porn is more in the physical size of the source and not so much the output. This is why so many pornographers gravitate toward bouncing lights off the ceiling. Obviously I am no fan of pointing two or more lights at a ceiling and calling it lit, but it does give you the effect of a large source which reduces shadows while softening the light a great deal. The main problem with this style of lighting aside from the uncontrollability is the angles of most ceilings are not 30-45 degrees to the talent. Unfortunately, they are more like 90 degrees which is a very “toppy” and unflattering placement for the key light. If you don’t have a 4 foot x 4 bank Kino aka “Fat Man” try bouncing a 1 or 2 Diva 400s into a 4x4 piece of foam core at an above head height 45 degree angel for a much more flattering high key fashion type look.
To sum it all up, relatively speaking Kinos are cheap as hell. Don’t forget how long they last, the very high resell value, and have you ever heard of anyone regretting owning a Kino? Time is money...Don’t waste it building a light, instead invest time in where to place the light. I’ll stop here and save my C-light discussion for another time. If any of you guys need any more free tips on lighting let me know. I am easy to get a hold of and I’d be happy to help…

I like my homeade 200s just as much as my divas. I can my lighting setup perfect for what Im doing and I saved a bundle. These things are just as durable as Kinos however the ones I made are being used in my studio so they wont move much. Trust me the reflectors I found are even better than the Kinos ones. The 200s I make seem more intense then i thought they would be the reflectors are no doubt brighter than the Kino ones. The lights burn the same but with a better reflector. Im not the best at constructing these things but when you look at Kinos a monkey couls make these thing. I haven'y used 4X4 banks but I bet they would be hard to fit in my luggage. The lights I made are burn just as bright or brighter at the same color temp as the kinos. The refelector was a good arguement but in this case the reflectors i found are superior from what Ive seen.

The high frequency balllast doesnt heat up or color shift. I have been testing thsee lights I like them better that the divas. The Divas but off the same light but are big and bulky. Ill probably use the smallers ones more than the Kinos. These lights worok perfectly guys. No heating up no solo shift.

You can get the kit her guys.

Little secret called ahsupply.com
They sell kits WITH AMAZING REFLECTORS for 2 bulb setups, about 65 with everything but an enclosure and bulb. All wiring, caps, etc included, and I think they run at 60 khz. ot 60hz, 60 KHZ. I use them for video, stills, you name it. With their reflectors they are simply amazing! About 2x the output of a kino diva 2 bank. But, if you really want a completely DIY solution, the ballast they use is a Fulham Workhorse 5. Good for about 120 watts in any bulb configuration. Google "Fulham workhorse" and you'll find that most commercial lighting suppliers will sell you their ballasts for about $30 or something (to drive 2x55w bulbs). I thought long and hard, and ended up with AH supply, because their reflectors are better than anything I've ever seen before (arri, kino included) and would cost WAY too much to buy separately or make. They are very very very very efficient. Comparable in output more to kino's parabeam series. Work to the wise - use good bulbs! Osram studio's or Kino's. You'll kick yourself later trying to get away with $9 bulbs when for $23 you can have the right bulbs and not need filtration or frustration. To your eye, they may even look the wrong color, but on film, they record perfectly. Hope that helps!

I ended up using my Kino Divas as fills. These make a better keylight without being to extreme. Im about to start using the Sony EX-1 with 1/2 inch chips. Probably wont need as much light once I make the jump.

Excellent thread Jay :thumbsup