Tip of the Week: Build A Lighting Kit
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As promised last week, I am serving up a few more BTS pictures of the music video shoot from the third week of May. And as with last week’s tip of the week, this one centers on some of the gear we used for the shoot.
Now, I am sure that there are a great many folks who will read this article and will feel that tungsten lamps or HMI should be a go-to choice rather than LED. And in some cases, I would tend to agree.
However, having both tungsten and HMI instruments as part of our lighting package, I still found that we continually pulled out the ikan ID-1000 lighting units. We had two on the shoot and to
[caption id="attachment_1516" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The ID-1000 provides just enough fill for the truck bed scene."]
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be honest, the only reason we had those units was because the ID-500 (which I had requested) were impossible to lay hands on. ikan cannot keep those units in stock for anything. The units are just too popular! But as the time for the shoot drew nearer, I went ahead and opted for the larger units, figuring we could always dim them down or decrease the number of active banks. Even diffusion was a possibility.
And it ended up being a perfect solution for our needs. The ID-1000′s had just enough punch (even in daylight situations) to provide the necessary fill for several key scenes. However, I also could tell you that having three of them would probably not have been necessary. After all, we had tungsten 1K’s and a 1200 watt HMI on standby. And that brings me to the purpose of this week’s column… building your own custom LED lighting kit.
Now, this is definitely not a standard tip of the week… it’s not a neat little piece of tech to utilize our products, but rather a helpful nudge to tell you to contact ikan’s second-to-none customer service & sales dept with your own custom requirements.
[caption id="attachment_1517" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="A color-corrected ID-1000 for an interior scene."]
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Sure, ikan has pre-assembled kits listed in dealer networks and the website, but who’s to say that’s all you can purchase?
Why not look through the catalogue of offerings from ikan’s LED line and pick and choose the instruments that most fit your shooting situation?
For me, I found that packing 2 x ID-1000′s and 2 x ID-500‘s, plus a Multi-K and an ILED-144 would give me the perfect mixture of sizes to have in a small grab and go kit. But who’s to say yours needs to be anything like this?
Why not call Lindsay or Daniel or Ryan at the ikan office and ask about purchasing 1 x ID-500 and two ILED-312 units, which would be a highly effective run n gun kit. Throw a pro battery plate on the back of the ID-500 and you’re ready to go, completely wireless!
Or, you could go for the full enchilada and order 3 each of the ID-1000, the ID-500 and the ILED 312, which would provide you with every possible combination of LED lighting unit you could ever hope for?
In reality, your specific production needs can be met perfectly by spending less than an hour perusing the ikan website and then calling the office at 713-272-8822 to ask a few simple questions.
So, what are you waiting for? Your perfect kit awaits!
