Picked up a pair of Smith-Victor A120 lights and stands for super-cheap the other day. A good deal unless I contracted some contagion for which there’s no cure.

These are made for 500w bulbs with a regular E26 Edison base.

If nothing else I’ll use them as reading floor lamps with an appropriate LED in them.

But I have no intention of running actual 500w bulbs in them, not even with a dimmer. Are there good LED photo bulbs? A casual look seems to hint this is one area where CFLs are still a thing.

As for a dimmer, I’d want to make one for flexibility, but that would depend on what bulbs I play around with.

Uses? I don’t know. Quick iPhone vids for the YouTubes, “product shots” of my meager watch collection or other randomness.

Bonus points* if I can fashion a grid or find some diffusion paper for them. Double bonus points* if I decide to gel them.





*no actual points awarded to me or to you

Google 32K 500 watt photofloods..they're out there.

If you learn these they are a great light source..

So far, what that brings up are 500w tungsten bulbs I don’t want to use. Anything else lighting the room would have to be gel’d in order to match such a low 3200 K source, anyway. Gel - ing a speedlight I can do. Not so if ambient light is an LED ceiling room light for example.

I’m imagining these would blend with other light, not BE the light necessarily. I don’t mind adjusting WB and tint in post, but not for different parts of the frame.

Typically..the term Photoflood always implied 32K 500 watters (or 250's)...'back then'

Not familair with the current SV line but I have a pair of older fixtures that i still use tungsten 32K's in.
There is a quality to that light that is great through a large diffusor or bounced off a large white flat pointed at your subject..gorgeous continuous light.

I don't use any of the newer LED stuff so can't contribute much more.

I appreciate it, I really do. And ya know, for quick setups I don’t suppose twin 500w is gonna put me in the poor house on the electrical bill.

On the other hand if might blow a circuit in this old house tho. (Says the guy who used to run a 1000w Lowel DP’s from parking lot outlets, kinda.)

twin 500s for an hour and a half is what, a quarter?

I used to run 100,000 watts of tungsten for my high speed set-ups. It was like a Mexican beach with snow outside.