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[Chuck Steinmetz]

Spot on!  You have brought yet another situation I need to learn about which is watts - I assumed when I purchased my fixtures (since they were inexpensive) they would be on the low end of the scale and it appears one of those specs was watts.  I'm OK w/ that, just starting out.  This is all great info.  What I love about the forum is that everyone brings their own perspective and I get to learn from all. 

Turns out my event is in Wisconsin in January - which means cold and no humidity....oh well, it is what it is.

All good.

Chuck

[Scott Holtzman]

Spot on!  You have brought yet another situation I need to learn about which is watts - I assumed when I purchased my fixtures (since they were inexpensive) they would be on the low end of the scale and it appears one of those specs was watts.  I'm OK w/ that, just starting out.  This is all great info.  What I love about the forum is that everyone brings their own perspective and I get to learn from all. 

Turns out my event is in Wisconsin in January - which means cold and no humidity....oh well, it is what it is.

All good.

Chuck

So you have an "event" and two flashlights mounted to toy robot servos and the wrong board to control them.

Suggestion, tell is what you are trying to achieve and we can help give you an idea of what you need.  The good thing is outside in WI in January is not going to draw a big crowd.

I do have a question,. Have you never bought a lightbulb before or any appliance for that matter?  I am not sure I understand how you are not at least casually familiar with a watt.  One important thing.  A watt is a unit of work and not of light output.  Without knowing the efficiency of the lamp you can't correlate watts to light output.  You can draw rough conclusions, like I did that 10w is a two cell flashlight.

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[Chuck Steinmetz]

Funny guy!

My 'event' is a small gathering for family and as long as I supply food and alcohol I'll get a decent showing - and you'd be surprised what we do outside in the winter - http://visitfishcreek.com/events/winter-festival - you should check it out if your game!

The most I know about Watts are that JJ and his brother are from Milwaukee and they went to UW Madison.  Well, not entirely true, I do look at those tiny numbers on the light bulbs I buy.  Actually, I was joking in my last post, but I'm far from an expert.

Again, thanks to this forum as you have been very helpful. 

Happy New Year.

Chuck

[Scott Holtzman]

Funny guy!

My 'event' is a small gathering for family and as long as I supply food and alcohol I'll get a decent showing - and you'd be surprised what we do outside in the winter - http://visitfishcreek.com/events/winter-festival - you should check it out if your game!

The most I know about Watts are that JJ and his brother are from Milwaukee and they went to UW Madison.  Well, not entirely true, I do look at those tiny numbers on the light bulbs I buy.  Actually, I was joking in my last post, but I'm far from an expert.

Again, thanks to this forum as you have been very helpful. 

Happy New Year.

Chuck

At least you saw the humor in it. 

You still are being secretive, you lighting the band, doing a stand alone visual show, lighting the curling board?

I am familiar with WI, I have an office in Neenah and our COO, a good friend of mine, works out of that office.  He has a house on Lake Poygan.  I thought we were hardy in Ohio, once I got to know folks from WI I updated that opinion.

If you tell us what you are trying to achieve we can give you an idea of what you need.  No matter how inebriated someone is I can't image those lights holding much attention.  That's why we need to know if the lights are an ancillary role to the show or the focus.

[Mark Cadwallader]

Chuck, as you start looking at the various fixtures, you will see a wide variance in specifications.  As Scott mentioned, "watts" is only a measure of power. More helpful is a measurement of light produced. "Lumens" is a measure of light output.  But that is only part of the answer.  Most of the time entertainment lighting is intended to put light in specific, defined location. The amount (intensity) of light that falls on a given surface area is measured in "lux" or "foot-candles".  The greater the lux, the more intense (brighter) the illumination of that surface. 

So is the lux the only thing to look for in specifcations?  Sadly, no. The further away from the source, the less light falls onto the surface. The intensity decreases inversely with the of the distance from the source.  So lux only makes sense when you know at what distance it is measured. Compare apples to apples - different makers use different distances from source to surface.

The other thing to look at is "how much surface" is being lit by the fixture. The standard used is degrees of spread. A 15 degree beam covers less area than does a 30 degree beam.  Maybe you want a wide area illuminated; maybe you only want a very tight/small area lit up. This is the "flood light vs spot light" concept.  By using various optical tools (such as lenses), the same source can illuminate a wider or narrower surface.  As the surface increases (a bigger area being lit), the more powerful a source is needed to provide the same lux.

So you also want to look at the size (in degrees) of area in connection with the luminous intensity (lux).  A fixture that provides 2 lux at one meter with a 2 degree beam (full on) has less intensity than 2 lux at one meter spead across a 30 degree beam. Does that make sense?

Look for the "photometric" data to get the information to make meaningful comparisons. If a fixture doesn't provide photometric information, that generally means the fixture isn't designed for "serious" lighting use in an entertainment setting. The final spec you typically see is "beam" (in degrees) and "field" in degrees.  The beam is the brightly lit area, while the field is the wider "spill" of light outside the beam area.  It helps tell you whether there is a soft, gradual transition from bright center of the beam to where the light of the field fades to nothingness.

I hope this helps as you continue learning about this subject. Good luck!

[Chuck Steinmetz]

Helps a ton - thank you.

I did detail a bit more of what I was looking to do in a previous post, but to summarize I think you guys are giving me way too much credit - much of that must be on me as my sense is that this group is a serious (albeit very helpful) group.  This all started as a way to introduce 'searchlights' into a family event....for fun.  I can see the day where it evolves into more - a choreographed light show to a edited video, etc. 

I have a few hobbies - I video edit, do photoshop work, and even have a 737 one-seat flight simulator in my basement - all of those hobbies work because of forums like this. 

Again, thank you.

Chuck

[Scott Holtzman]

Helps a ton - thank you.

I did detail a bit more of what I was looking to do in a previous post, but to summarize I think you guys are giving me way too much credit - much of that must be on me as my sense is that this group is a serious (albeit very helpful) group.  This all started as a way to introduce 'searchlights' into a family event....for fun.  I can see the day where it evolves into more - a choreographed light show to a edited video, etc. 

I have a few hobbies - I video edit, do photoshop work, and even have a 737 one-seat flight simulator in my basement - all of those hobbies work because of forums like this. 

Again, thank you.

Chuck

This is a forum for working professionals but of course help hobbyists.  I am a licensed pilot too and was an ME on the FSFORUM on CompuServe 25 years ago.  Part of the group that authored the original HSI visualization plugin for ATI chipsets in 1994.  Small world.



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[Jeff Lelko]

Absolutely - hobbyists are definitely welcome here!  I’d even wager to say that a fair number of us began learning the trade as a hobbyist or volunteer at one point before taking on the business or career aspect of things.  It just helps to know where you stand to put things in perspective!

So since you don’t have paying customers or audience members with any expectations, sure, use whatever you want and have fun with it!  As you’ll find out, like with many things, you get what you pay for here.  There are many factors that set apart the $100 fixtures from the $1000 and $10,000 ones.  It all depends on what your expectations are, and in this case it’s really just a matter of how seriously you want to get into this!

So looking back to software, many of the more advanced software programs will have a very steep learning curve.  Whether or not you feel it’s worth learning is again up to you.  The reason I meantioned the Light-O-Rama product is that it’s specifically intended for the average consumer or hobbyist wanting to set up a synchronized light show (usually Christmas lights), though some professional entities use it as well.  Other software that’s targeted more for lighting professionals will be based around programming concepts that are stardard to the industry.  While it certainly can’t hurt you to learn them, it may be difficult, confusing, and more involved than you need to get for what it is you’re trying to do.  As an example, the operating manual for the console I currently use is something like 1070 pages long, and it’s still mostly a high-level overview of all the various features and control options.  Even having owned the product for a few years now I still learn new tricks with it fairly often.  Most other professional hardware or software is similar in scope.  It can definitely be a lot to take in at one time, but thankfully with resources such as Youtube there is no shortage of tutorials and examples available for practically anything you’re trying to do.  Good luck with all this! 

[Chuck Steinmetz]

It's great that you guys help hobbyists - one way to keep your craft growing!

I checked out Light-O-Rama and played w/ the software - since I edit video and use the Adobe Suite (Pro/Photoshop/AfterEffects, etc) the timeline is extremely simple, but as you point out since I'm just learning the in's and out's of lighting controls it could be a good place to start.  I downloaded a few other programs to play with - ShowXpress and Daslight - and they seemed more involved which might be good for down the road if I get there.

I'll spend more time looking through the website - I'm guessing now that I know a few things some of the other posts may make more sense to me and hopefully I'll be able to learn from others - that's one of the great things about forums like this. 

Updated Note - just a few posts down and I found two other software examples - M-PC and MagicQ PC.  Also found a video on Ableton Live w/ DMXIS.  Watching tutorials now.

Happy New Year guys.

Chuck

[ProSoundWeb Community]