Tag Archives: nanlite

Everything Else, Videos

Earth Ritual with the GFX-100 II, One Year On

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This time last year I was preparing to shoot the amazing “Earth Ritual” performance by the Of The Wild Ecological Circus Collective. I have been incredibly fortunate over the last few years to have been involved with various circus acts and performers, from Glastonbury to traditional travelling circus. I filmed this performance using the then new Fujifim GFX-100 II. The GFX-100 is a large format camera with a 102 megapixel sensor that has an area around 1.7x greater than a full frame sensor (approx 1.3x wider/taller). This sensor can be used in many different ways, for example using it’s full width to shoot 4K or shooting at 8K with a frame size just fractionally smaller than Full Frame. For Earth Ritual I used the large format 4K mode with the large format Fujifilm GF 55mm f1.7 lens for an extremely shallow depth of field. 
I really like the way this camera looks, I shot using F-Log but it also has a number of different film emulations built in. Since I shot the film there have also been firmware updates to improve it’s autofocus. There is a more in depth write up about the shoot here.

Fujifilm Eterna digital cinema camera

But also since I shot this Fujifilm have announced that this year they will be releasing a large format cinema camera based on the GFX100 II.  The Fujifilm GFX Eterna looks like it will be a really interesting camera, especially if you are interested in larger than Full Frame formats. You can find more information about the Eterna here.

I used Nanlite and Nanlux lights to light this. Mostly utilising the Forza 720B with a projector lens and gobo as well as a number of Nanlite Pavotube lights for the background.

One thing about all of the circus people I know is that they are passionate about what they do and put a huge amount of effort into delivering entertaining performances. Yet circus is often seen as something seedy or second rate – I can assure you that most contemporary circus is hugely entertaining. Whether that’s a beautifully artistic performance, a funny comedy sketch or a show just for grown ups. So, next time a circus comes to your town, go and see a show. And I hope to bring you more circus later in the year. 

Everything Else, Lighting

Nanlite and Nanlux Black Friday Deals.

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Nanlite and Nanlux have a couple of amazing, global, Black Friday deals.

Featured Black Friday Deals:

 

NANLITE FS-300B LED Spotlight

MSRP: $399 (excluding local taxes)

Now: $239 (excluding taxes) – 40% off

NANLUX Evoke 1200B LED Spotlight
MSRP: $3949 (excluding local taxes)
Now: $2764 (excluding taxes) – 30% off
 
The FS300B is a light I really like. It produces a huge amount of very high quality light, its Bi-Colour so very flexible. It has a standard Bowens mount and can be fitted with a wide range of modifiers including a Fresnel lens (FL20G), soft boxes, domes, etc, etc. At this price it is an absolute steal for such a great highly versatile light.
 
If you are just starting to build a lighting kit this would be a great place to start. A couple of these, one with a soft box as your key and another with the FL20G zoomable fresnel lens (with barn doors) as your fill and you will be able to light a large range of scenarios. It’s probably a bit overkill using the FS300B as the fill but they do dim all the way down to virtually nothing and having a second punchy light gives a lot of flexibility to deal with different lighting challenges. I wish I had these sorts of options at these prices when I started. 
A bit more expensive, there is also the FS-300C full colour version which takes all of the same modifiers but gives you the ability to use it for coloured effects and washes, I believe there should be some discounted offers for these too.

 

The Evoke 1200B is another great light that packs a lot of punch. Great for lighting larger spaces or simulating daylight. It’s also rain resistant to IP54, so it can be used outside in the rain if needed. 

Along with the FS-300B and Evoke 1200B, a range of other top-selling products are discounted by up to 30%, including the NANLITE FC and FS series LED lights, PavoTube II C series LED tube lights, and FM Projection Attachments.
Discounts vary by region but are generally in the 30-40% range. You’ll need to contact your local dealer to see what deals they have, but these really are great lights at incredible prices.

 

Also – while you are there put a Nanlite WS-RC-C2 remote control in your shopping basket. It only costs around $15 and it allows you to remotely control up to 12 fixtures, it’s a huge time saver when you want to tweak or tune lights from the monitor or for when a light fixture is in a hard to reach spot. While there is also app control the WS-RC-C2 is a great add-on.

 

If you are a dealer and able to offer these discounts please comment with your location and contact details below.

Alpha1, Burano, FX3, FX30, FX6, PXW-FX9, Workshops and Events

Film making workshop in Dubai, 25th May 2024

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I’m running a film making workshop around “how to get the film look” in Dubai for Nanlite and Sony on the 25th of May. During the workshop I will be showing how to expose S-Log3 on the Sony FX series cameras, how to use CineEI and then looking at film style lighting using Nanlite fixtures. We will look at a couple of different types of scenes, an office, a romantic scene and also at how to light for greenscreen.

I will also be at Cabsat 2024, so do drop by the Nanlite booth to say hello.

Please click here for more information or to book a place.

Everything Else

Get up to $20,000 funding for your next project from Nanlite/Nanlux

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Following on from last year’s successful “Project Spark”, Nanlite are running a competition for aspiring film makers with the continuing aim of supporting the next generation of filmmakers, not just with money, but also advice and assistance in origination, shooting and post-production.

With each successful project receiving mentorship and a massive USD $20,000 worth of funding, creators have an unparalleled opportunity to turn their short film pitch into a reality.

This year the theme is ‘Shining through’, which can be interpreted however you wish. Submissions based on this theme can be either narrative or experimental. In the Global section (outside China)  four pitches will be selected for funding: two narrative shorts and two experimental shorts.
 
The contests in the Global section and Chinese section will run in parallel. Each of the four finalist teams in the Global section will receive a production budget of USD $15,000 and additional equipment rental support of up to USD $5,000 courtesy of NANLITE and NANLUX.


What have you got to loose? For the full details go to the Nanlux competition website.

Everything Else, Lighting, Review

Nanlite Forza 300 LED Spotlight

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 The Nanlite Forza 300 is a LED COB spotlight normally used with a reflector to provide a 55 degree light cone.

Nanlite Forza 300 spotlight with included reflector.

 

The lamp is 300 watts and can be powered from the mains with the included power adapter or vai a pair of V-lock batteries. It is daylight balanced at 5500K and has a CRI of 95 (measured by myself). It has always resulted in very pleasing skin tone whenever I have used it.

Skin tones look good when using the Forza 300 from Nanlite.

 

The 300 watt LED COB emitter produces a similar amount of light to a 3000 watt tungsten lamp. This  makes the Forza 300 suitable for illuminating very large areas or as a source light for a large soft box or for use with large silk diffusers. Nanlite make a very nice parabolic reflectors/soft boxes for the Forza lamps that are very quick to erect due to the use of clever quick locking support arms.

Parabolic reflector/soft box for the Nanlite Forza 300

 

The lamphead has a standard Bowens mount so there are many light modifiers that can be used, but one that I particularly like is the Nanlite zoomable Fresnel adapter. This large fresnel lens can be adjusted to provide a very tightly controlled light beam from just 5 degrees wide to 45 degrees wide. It comes with barn doors and turns the Forza 300 into something comparable to the old Arri 2K fresnel, just without the heat and power draw.

Nanlite zoomable fresnel lens with barn doors for the Forza 300 and Forza 500.

 

I’m a big fan of fresnels as they give you good control of where your light is going. Make it dimmable as well and you have a very versatile lamp.

The light can be controlled via DMX as well as a couple of very cheap wireless remote control units (around £20/$30) and an app is due to be released soon. 

Like many modern lights it also has a number of effects modes including strobe, storm, TV and bad bulb and these can be quickly and easily selected from the lamps control unit and power supply. The build quality is very good. The lamp head is mostly metal while the control unit is a mix of good quality plastics and metal.  The whole thing weighs 4.8kg so you don’t need a particularly large light stand to support it.

with a street price of around £650/$850 this is a very affordable yet also very capable lamp. I would suggest that anyone trying to build their own versatile light kit should include at least one spot light and not just rely on LED panel lights. Having a good, bright spot light allows you to a lot more creative lighting as a spot light, especially if you add the Fresnel lens can be used with gobo’s or objects in the foreground to create interesting shadow effects.



For a recent short film shoot I used the Forza 300 to throw light through a forest of trees. The trees creating interesting shadows adding a lot of extra contrast to the shots.  For another scene I used the Forza 300 as a backlight through some smoke for an interesting mystic effect. A flat panel light cannot reproduce these effects in the same way.



For this shoot I needed to power the lamp off batteries. It is worth noting that if running the lamp at is maximum output of 300 watts you will be drawing over 10 amps from each of the 2 V-Lock batteries need to run it. This is right at the limit of what many V-Locks can deliver.  As a result you may find your batteries cutting off before they are fully discharged. To run a high power LED lamp like this you should consider Lithium Manganese batteries or other batteries capable of at least a 12 amp output. My own preference is to use Pag Paglink batteries as by linking two batteries together you can double the amount of power they can deliver. Using 4 Paglink batteries (2 pairs of 2) I was able to run the lamp for 90  minutes at full power.

4 Paglink batteries will power the Forza 300 for around 90 minutes.



The lamp I used for the review was supplied by Prolight Direct UK. They are very knowledgable with many years of experience with all kinds of film and television lighting, so do contact them with your lighting needs.

I highly recommend the Forza 300. It is, in my opinion, one of the best of this type of lamp on the market today and very competitively priced. Please see the video above for more information.

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