Dimmers for Halo Flood Kit??

[petengina]

Hi,
I recently purchased a Britek Halo flood kit for individual and group digital portraits as well as some video work.
Each lamp is 1000 watt and for the smaller scale work its more light than I need, plus it becomes pretty warm for the subject.
I have been trying to (with no success) to find somewhere that can supply individual inline dimmers for these lamps so that I can vary the light intensity.

Britek weren't able to recommend anything and even B&H photo didn't have a solution for me. The dimmers they have are either for lower wattage lamps or for theatre set-up.

Can anyone offer any suggestions? At the moment my best bet looks like constructing a box housing and mounting home wall switches rated at 1000w inside it.

Any help gratefully appreciated.

Thanks..

[Asylum Steve]

Welcome to the site and this forum. I can't help you with the heat aspect of your lights, but I can tell you that there are many other ways to modify your light output without using dimmers.

Light panels come to mind first, as they are easy to make yourself. Look through the archives of this forum for one of the many discussions on the subject.

Other grip gear such as scrims, flags, dots, fingers, gobos, cookies, and grids are all available for the sole purpose of controlling your light and getting to go where you want it and not go where you don't want it.

To get an idea of what's out there (and what each item does), go to http://www.bhphotovideo.com and click on the Lighting icon, then the Lighting Controls & Modifiers link, then look uder the heading of Lighting Controls.

Don't be put off by the somewhat high prices of many of these items. Most, if not all of them can be made at home for a fraction of the cost...

Go to a fabric store and find a semi-translucent black fabric (loose weave), or maybe a fiberglass screening material at a home improvement store. This is what you want for a light panel screen that will cut the output of your light fixtures without affecting color. A single layer of the fabric will cut it a certain amount, a double layer will cut it more. Experiment to find the best solution.

You can also make side panels (called flags) made of denser, more opaque fabric to block any side spill from your lights.

[petengina]

Hi Steve, Thanks for the response.
I have thought about using flags, filters etc. and I do have barn doors on my lamps. I am hoping for a dimmer solution because I would like to a) extend my lamp life a little b) cut down on power consumption c) Manage heat in my space & d) try not to add to my clutter of stands, booms etc.

I appreciate the comments however and they serve to confirm that there doesn't appear to be any readily available dimmer solution for photographers/videographers with Hi-wattage halo kits. At least so far..!

Very impressed with your site by the way - cool graphics.

You can check out my far less exciting one at http://www.pcdigipix.com

Thanks again.