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Hi all,

I'm skint, it's official. I have no cash for flash units (nor that Sigma 70-200 f2 that I've been drooling over) but I have a shoot I have to do in a month.

I want to use a combination of different size softboxes to achieve the lighting I'm going for and want to have a go at making my own softbox with some BBQ/mechanic styled bargain halogens.

They run very hot, but was considering putting them into a box similar to this:



The idea being that the back end of the softbox is open, leaving plenty of air flow for the hot halogens to rid their heat and not set the whole thing on fire.


I guess I'm after feedback in two areas:
1) what do you think of the tech design/idea
and more importantly
2) what do you think of shooting with an always on style of setup like this?


Thanks


Rob

as a modelling light static lights can help you visualise the exact lighting produced
but the heat may be an issue, the setup is great, good luck with building it

I've toyed with similar ideas in the past and the heat really is a big issue with those halogen lamps. I cant see how you will be able to get any sort of fabric sheer enough to be translucent to not melt or burn after a few minutes.

Perhaps making some kind of metal beauty dish reflector that would bounce the light back through a piece of perspex on the opposite side would be a more heat safe idea.

when I am forced to use halogen lamps I just sit them a metre back from a white wall and bounce the light.

A way that you could possibly reduce the heat inside the DIY softbox is by not having the lights inside the box.

Obviously if you move the lights back, there will be light spill outside of the box directly on to the subject. To overcome this, you should be able to cheaply build a set of metallic barn-doors to go on your worksite halogens to essentially form a snoot to direct the light into your softbox.

This will have a two fold effect - the light source is further back from the diffusion material which will generally result in a softer light, and secondly allow free air cirulation around the halogens as if they are operating normally.

Barn Doors are often used in other static lighting situations like theatre and stage lighting - I've used them technically incorrectly before to mount a various temp sensitive gels on the front of the barn door rather than in a gel mount in between the lens and the barn door. It's a lot cooler than having a gel mounted 1 inch from the front lens of a 1200w Pebble Convex halogen

Hopefully this might help out