800 Watt DIY Video Light That Does Not Get Warm For $86

I am not really sure how this one went under the radar, but late is better than never. The fine folks over at Indy Mogul came up with a tutorial on building an 800 Watt video light that relies on our good old friend the Compact Florescent Lightbulb (A.K.A CFL).

The nice thing about this light is that it does not really get warm. And if you ever tried lighting a video with an 750 Watts worth of halogen lighting, you know how hard it is to manage.

The other nice thing is that if does not actually eat 800 Watt. Since it is using 8 100-Watt equivalent CFLs as light source (probably only 20 Watts each), it only eats 160 Watts.

Lastly, if you are going to do this, make sure you get decent CFL bulbs that has a high Color Render Index (marked as CRI in the package), and has the same color temperature rank.

The wiring diagram is a bit hard to find and was on the matching instructable, so I am posting it here as a service. Make sure you check the Q&A section on that instructable as it holds valuable information.

And here is a test shoot done with this light:

Thanks for the heads up, Jason

P.S. we used a similar method when we built our DIY white backdrop studio.

[Indy Mogul via slr lounge]