Hardware Review: Alzo Quad Pan-L Fluorescent Light Fixture — Kino-Flo performance at a budget price

Welcome to the DOJO!

As I’ve mentioned here on The FilmSensei.Com a number of times (and as my wife is painfully aware), I am absolutely love picking up new indie and guerrilla filmmaking equipment to try out. Even more specifically, I love coming across new filmmaking gear while out on a film shoot and getting to play with it. When I come across anything ultra cool I’ll promptly run home and order it up online.

That is exactly what happened at a music video shoot I was directing about two weeks ago. The shoot was pretty standard until, during a move to a small backroom office, a PA dropped and almost completely destroyed two of the rented KinoFlo Diva-Lites we were using. After freaking out a bit (and killing the afore mentioned PA in a manner far too gruesome to describe here), we managed to get our first day of shooting done. Things looked great even with the crew reduced down to only two Kinos (and one PA), but we all knew we were going to be in a little bit of trouble on the next day of the shoot where all four Kino-Flo Diva-Lites were going to be needed. It being after midnight on a Saturday, we were pretty desperate.

Lucky for us, our gaffer, a well-spoken Englishman named Andy, spoke up ever-so-politely and mentioned that he had a fluorescent light kit back at his house. Needless to say, we were all incredibly relieved even when he told us that the kit wasn’t a “Proper Kino” one. We broke at the end of the day and went off to get a couple of hours sleep before starting up again and 10am the next day.

Skip forward to about 9:30am that Sunday as we were all just starting to arrive for the shoot and get set up. I was a bit surprised when Andy sheepishly approached me and started to apologize for his kit. He mentioned that he was a bit embarrassed that he didn’t own a “real” Kino-Flo kit, but that he was still new and wasn’t able to afford the “proper” gear yet. I let Andy know there was nothing wrong with having a budget lighting kit proceeded to ask him 3 questions: Did he have the lights? Were they flicker-free? Would the light color match our main Kinos without a lot of extra work.

His answer to all three questions was “yes.” Andy wheeled in a nifty little case and promptly pulled out a set of slick-looking lights labelled Alzo. Never having heard of the brand before, I paid extra attention as he was setting up. The kit he had (the Alzo Pan-L Lite 3 Light Kit — much too long of a name for my taste) was made up of two 2-foot 4-bank Alzo Pan-L lights and one 2-foot 2-bank Alzo Pan-L light. We got the things set up and then shot with them alongside the Kinos for the next 10 hours.

You know what? For a brand I’d never heard of before, I was incredibly impressed with the Alzo fluorescent light banks. First up, the lights were strong and the color tubes Alzo supplies with the fixtures matched dead-on to the Kino tubes we had from Wooden Nickel here in LA — the 3200K and the 5600K were both spot-on. They also came with snap-in honeycombs and fabric diffusers.

All-in-all, the lights performed above and beyond the call of duty on our music video shoot. They ran almost non stop for most of the day and we had zero problems. To this day I’m a bit surprised by Andy’s apprehensive attitude towards the fixtures. I think far too many people in the film industry are more interested in expensive, brand name equipment instead of doing whatever it takes to get the job done well. The Alzo Pan-L lights are an amazing alternative for indie and guerrilla filmmakers looking to pick up some Kino-Flo style fluorescent light banks. There is never a need to apologize for having a budget lighting kit.

In fact, the Alzos performed so well for us that I went home and ordered one of their Pan-L Quad Fixtures to test out myself. I ordered up the Quad Pan-L light with 3200K tubes and added on a set of the 5600K tubes for good measure. Even though they were coming from Connecticut, I received my order less than a week later here at my home in the Greater LA area. It was cool to find out that Alzo’s customer service was as good as their product.

I’ve had this low budget fluorescent light for a few days now and have had the chance to play with it a bit. The Alzo light itself is pretty study, especially considering the price — less than one fourth the cost of a new Kino-Flo Diva-Light. It’s not as heavy-duty as matching Kino unit, but it will hold up very well to both studio on location shooting. I was (and am) impressed with the quality of the unit and am itching to pick up the full Pan-L Light Kit from Alzo (although, I do wish it has a more light weight name!) here in the next couple of weeks. I’ve been jonesing to add some fluorescent light banks but the cost of Kino-Flos, even used, has kept me from pulling the trigger…until now.

Alzo has done an excellent job with their Pan-L Fluorescent lights and they would make an awesome addition to the kit of any low budget, guerrilla or indie filmmaker looking for Kino-Flo performance at a more budget-friendly price. If you are a microbudget filmmaker in need of a budget or low cost fluorescent light fixture to add to your kit, then you’re doing yourself a disservice by not checking out the Alzo Pan-L Quad lights right now.

That’s it for today. Look for my video post showing off the Alzo budget Kino-style lights in the next couple of days. Until then, Keep Shooting!

-Mat Nastos, the Film Sensei
http://www.FilmSensei.com

Mat

Mat Nastos is a filmmaker, writer and comic book artist, with work produced for the SyFy Channel, Cinemax, Disney, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and more. He also wears a pig hat.

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One Response to “Hardware Review: Alzo Quad Pan-L Fluorescent Light Fixture — Kino-Flo performance at a budget price”

1. Chad Matthew
   

   Thanks for the review! Love the way things are going in the industry with companies like this.

   
   June 24th, 2011 at 7:58 pm

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