Hougoumont

Thanks Dennis, I'll give the lenses a clean - I assume camera wipes are ok? I'm getting chromatic aberration at the edges and I guess that could be grease/dirt? The latest gobo is brand new and sitting flat - or as flat as my limited experience tells me.

It's got three lenses - two movable (plano-convex as far as I can judge) and one fixed in front of the bulb. I've been able to take the throw to around 8m (by going outside!) simply to test - at that distance the focus across the plane improves - but still not good. I'm using M sized gobos already. You're right - dribbling is the word! I'm using, normally, one key light and one hair light (sometimes a kicker as well) and all have the barn doors closed right down - the key is slightly wider as I'm lighting 'down the nose' and want a column of light just to illuminate the subject and no wider. If I need a light on a prop (for example) I'll light that separately and again control the spill. One thing I've not tried is covering the white walls (that might create bounce onto the backdrop) or flagging - a kind theatre installer let me have the surplus heavy-weight wool drapes(?) that are used on stage wings (not learnt that word yet) and I may try that. It's incredible stuff - absorbs light like black hole and far better than anything supplied for normal photographic use. Or... I may just buy this Selecon SPX - if I can get one stop more light on the backdrop I'll be happy (ok, that's doubling light.. I'll be ecstatic... even 1/2 stop would help) - and perhaps the gobo projection will be better. I'll have to replace all the gobos going from M to B though...

Hi, Have you owned the lantern for long or is it something you have recently purchased new / second hand? Kind regards, Dennis Hi Dennis, I bought it maybe 3-4 years ago from a popular auction site (without shutters as I didn't know what I was doing!) but only used it as a spot very occasionally. It's only recently I've been experimenting with gobos as photographic backdrops - just using breakups and because I typically use a wide aperture (say f/4) when shooting portraits the projection is out of focus in any case. It works well. Now I'm wanting a sharp projection (specifically a night city scape) and will therefore close down the camera lens to f/8 or f/16 - that's where my plan is falling apart. Bob Thanks Rob, This is what I feared :( I only have a throw distance of 5 maybe 6 metres available (in my studio anyway) and wanting a projection diameter of around 3 to 4 metres. I am asking too much? I had thought of a Selecon SPX profile (there are some going cheap on that auction site) based on a) I think the optics are better than the LDR and b) according to the seller the standard bulb is brighter than a Source 4 and apparently with a 800w bulb outperforms a Juliat 2k - at which point I could maybe use a donut. The LDR is not bright enough anyway without a donut. Alternatively I give up on the profile and try various flash gobo projectors that are now seen in photography - although I'm not convinced by what I've seen of such tools so far. ...or I go back to Photoshop, slide in a high res image of a gobo as a background. Easily done - although I'm trying to stay away from such trickery as much as possible and do (almost) everything in camera. Bob Thanks David, I'll try that - it makes sense as it'll do the same job as the iris in a camera lens. I suspect however that it really will be too dim - as the LDR on 650w (the max) is not enough anyway for my purposes. A more powerful profile with a donut might be an option.Bob

I'll PM you.

Hello, Forgive the following question - I'm very new to theatre lighting - my involvement is that I use such lights in a photographic studio. It's a tad unusual and I've had to learn an entire new set of jargon words - however I like the results so I'm sticking with my Quartzcolor and Berkey fresnels! I have a LDR Suono 20/40 zoom profile that I've used so far reasonably successfully with steel breakup gobos. But... I have noticed that I cannot keep both the edges and centre in focus at the same time.. if the centre has a crisp projection then the edges do not, and vice versa. I can't believe that this is normal - so it either a) there's a trick I don't know about to get crisp projections across the frame, 2/ the LDR Suono is faulty in some way or 3/ it's just a crap lantern.. I have read people here aren't that keen on LDR. Thanks in advance!