Chapter 11

HMI

image

Since the early 1970s, HMI has captured the hearts and minds of Directors of Photography (DP) of film and television. Now, they are the lighting instruments of choice for many major motion picture productions.

For quite a while, HMI was too big and too expensive for photographers.

Today, some HMI instruments are so small that you need only one hand to carry a couple of light heads. Some are even small enough to mount on top of a video camera.

HMI is an abbreviation of Hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide. Hydrargyrum is an archaic word for mercury (Hg), so the HMI is more accurately a mercury-halide.

The light from an HMI has a very special ...

Get Stoppees' Guide to Photography and Light now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.