Also called "Tungsten-Halogen" and "Quartz". Affordable lights that operate at 3200K, usually. They take a lot of electricity and generate a lot of heat, but did I mention that they're affordable?

(Hydrargyrum Medium arc-length Iodide) operate at 5600K, usually, and are about fives times more efficient than tungsten lamps. A 200W HMI lamp will put out about as much light as a 1000W tungsten lamp while only generating one-fifth of the heat. The catch is that they cost about 3 times as much. Unless you have a lot of disposable income, you will probably rent HMIs for now. By the way, Hydrargyrum is the Latin word for "mercury."

An efficient lens that can be placed in front of a tungsten or HMI lamp, and is used to focus the light. Technically, a fresnel is a type of lens, not a light, but since a fresnel lens is part of a light fixture and is generally not added later, we can consider a "fresnel" a type of light. More trivia: the inventor of the lens, Augustine Fresnel, started life as a slow learner, and could barely read at the age of 8.

An efficient soft light source that generates less heat than tungsten lights, but is more expensive. These are not the same as consumer fluorescent lights because the spectrum is more even (less green and less holes in the spectrum), and the ballasts provide more steady current, reducing flicker and audible sound problems. Fluorescent lights can come in different color temperatures. Professional lamps can come in 3200K, 5600K or other temperatures. Consumers lamps come in may temperatures, but a common type are 4500K, which is in the green light range.

Black metal plates attached to a light that prevents light from spilling onto unwanted areas.

Short for "gelatin." Also called filters. Colored plastic that changes the color or amount of light passing through it. Two types of gels are very important: CTO and CTB. CTO (Color Temperature Orange and Color Temperature Blue). A full CTO gel converts 5600K light to 3200K and a full CTB converts 3200K light to 5600K. Both of these gels will result in appreciable light loss. You can buy these in quantity locally at Gear. You can get smaller gels and a variety pack from Pro Tape. Gels come with most light kits you rent.

Sometimes, gels being crinkled in front of a light can simulate the flickering flames of a fire. In the Big Time, this flicker is created by electronic dimmers.

It's important to not place the gel too close to the lamp as it may melt or catch fire.

An affordable way to have a well-controlled soft light source. By "well-controlled," I mean that there is not much light spill. With a soft light, you may wonder why this is important. The reason is that a soft light can be used to carefully model a subject, without much unintended light bouncing from a wall onto your subject. A soft box has a hard light source mounted in it, and the light is reflected and diffused until it appears that the front of the box is the source of a larger, softer light. You can mount grids on the front that further reduce the amount of spill.

A cheap and easy to use method of producing soft light. Usually, a hard light is pointed into the interior of the umbrella, which provides a larger, soft light. These are prone to a large amount of light spill.

Any flat opaque object that blocks light. This can be as small as a ruler or larger than yourself. These are important in the crucial skill of lighting by taking away light, rather than just adding more. These are also called cutters, gobos, dots, fingers, and blades, and most of these names refer to specific shapes. A flag can also be used to shade a camera lens to eliminate glare.

A very handy way of creating a makeshift flag or augmenting a barndoor. Don't leave home without it.

Wire, cloth, or plastic screens placed in the path of a light source to reduce the amount of light transmitted without softening the light or changing the color temperature. You can use scrims to dim a light. If a screen is on the light fixture, near high temperatures, they will be made of wire.

Dimmer

Most consumer dimmers will make lamps go red as you lower the brightness of the lamp. If the color temperature matters, and you cannot re-white balance with the redder light, you should use some other method of dimming a light. You can use a more expensive professional (expensive) electronic dimmer which does not have this problem, or use a mechanical device like a scrim. Consumer dimmers are sometimes used for subtle tweaking of the light brightness, especially if the light itself cannot be moved or it is visible in the scene, as with a table lamp.

Translucent material placed in front of a light source to soften the light. This can be small, sitting just in front of a lamp, or on a frame, as big as a '59 Chevy Impala. These are often called silks. You can also use frosted glass on the light fixture. It's important not to get the diffusion material too close to the lamp, as it may melt or catch fire.

An opaque flat object placed in front of a hard light source to provide shadows to make the light pattern more varied and thus more interesting or natural.

Well-designed, inexpensive, lower-power lights. Power range for their tungsten lights are 125W to 1000W. Lots of useful miscellaneous hardware and controls are available. Lowell makes various hard and soft lights, fresnels, and fluorescent fixtures.

Rugged lights, especially well-built fresnels. Power ranges from 150W to 2KW. A 300W fresnel is about $300.

I don't have personal experience with this but if I were to buy a fluorescent light set, I'd buy a Kineflo. A 400W Kineflo light bank is about $1000.

Photoflex

Source for soft boxes that are set up like a camping tent. A medium-sized soft box is about $200.

Chimera

I don't have much personal experience with this, but this is the default name for soft boxes for many people. More expensive than the Photoflex soft boxes (about $100 more).

If you can afford to buy or rent a calibrated field monitor, you should. This will allow you to reliably see the image that you are capturing. "Calibrated" implies that it's not just a TV from Radio Shack, and that will make it expensive, from $500 to $900. An LCD monitor is good for checking framing and focus (sometimes), but it can't be used to verify the contrast ratios (see below) or color balance.

Often, you can make adjustments on the camera rather then with lights. An ND, or neutral density, filter is used to reduce the amount of light going through the camera lens, without changing the color temperature. They come in several densities. Other filters such as mist and contrast filters will not be discussed here.

Polarizers

A polarizer can be used as an ND filter, if needed; it also polarizes light, which means that it can filter out light that has been made "coherent" or polarized, by reflecting off an object. Light that goes through the glass is not polarized and this is not filtered by a polarizer.

For the most part, you won't need a hand-held light meter until you try more advanced lighting techniques.

A boon to humankind. Not as sticky as duct tape, and so doesn't leave residue, yet holds really well. Buy black and white tape, and unless you're taping a riot, never go to a shoot without it.

Quick, what's a "C-47"? Would you believe that it's a wooden clothes pin? These are very helpful for fastening gels, diffusion, black foil, or the latest spread from your bookie. You should also pick up some metal carpentry clamps for fastening bigger objects. Finally, you can buy all sorts of nifty special clamps from manufacturers like Lowell and Matthews, and from places like Markertek.

Century stands are wonderful all-purpose stands that collapse easily. You can mount lights and controls on them, and even a microphone, if you're short a hand.

These will keep your C-stand, light stands, and tripods from tipping over if bumped. These are highly recommended for all light stands as you WILL attempt to knock a light stand down at some point in your career. Look for 20 pound bags from a company called American. You can buy them locally at Olden Lighting.

Thick leather gloves are handy for... your hands, if you want to avoid burning them on hot lights. Keep them with your lights.