David, the number to look for on the bulb is the CRI. If it is in the 90's then you've got a pretty decent bulb. The last time I checked at Home Depot they were carrying a 4 foot bulb for about $6 that had a CRI of (I think) 93. As far as the ballast goes that is most of the expense of the fancier set-ups. You are not going to get a flicker-free ballast at Home Depot, at least not that I am aware of. However, since you are probably going to be using a tripod with this set-up it won't matter as long as you keep the shutter slower than 1/60 which is the cycling time of the flicker. If you want to give yourself some flexibility with variations in the lighting then wire each individual bulb with its own power switch so you can have different ratios. Having 4 bulbs per side would give you a 3 stop range. One bulb on, two bulbs on, or all four. Gee, can you tell that I almost built some lights of my own? [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]
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