Classic profile designs

[Stu]

My ongoing interest in the industry past has recently lead me to read a couple of Frances Reid's excellent books. Anyway after reading it in dawned to me that there is so much kit used in the past that I simply haven't used and information upon these bits of kit has disappeared from readily accessible sources (my attempts to find out more about the TBA Magic Lantern for instance). Anyway, obviously over the years there has been many profiles available on the market - just wondering what people favour, and if peoples favourites are different depending on when they entered the industry etc...

 

Anyway here's my 3 favourites purely to get this started, not very imaginative really. I'm always interested to see why people like a certain thing, so will be intrigued to see peoples responses.

 

1 - Source Four. Do I really have to say anything?

2 - Sil 30. Not even born in it's heyday, the fact there are still loads of them being used up and down the country shows something to me. Far ahead of anything available at the time, from what I can tell anyway.

3 - Cantata range. Relatively easily changeable lens tubes, first use profile to use the new T29 1.2kw lamp, IEC disconnecting when opening lamp tray (although that was in the Harmony series too), urm rotatable gate, ability to bolt yoke on along the length of the lantern, built like brick outhouses etc.

 

All IMHO...

Interested to hear responses,

Stu

[J Pearce]

Every source 4 I have used has a different light output and colour temperature. It could be the local hire companies not cleaning them properly though.

 

Sils I don't use much, only use the bigguns as followspots.

 

Cantatas, our rig at college is full of cantata fresnels and profiles; lovely lanterns, not the best optics ever, but nice and bright. Very heavy, which can make them a bit awkward to rig. The only other problem is having to PAT the cable separately from the lantern, but I believe you can get round this by cable tying the cable to the handle at the back of the lantern.

[GreyBadger]

I really like the Brio, assuming they've had the modification to stop the focusing controls jamming!

[paulears]

patt 264- not so much the lantern itself, but the soft shutters, Still have a few that get used for just that feature, Not often, but damn useful. A shame the idea died a death.

[dbuckley]

Selecon Pacific

Patt23

And thats about all you get in NZ! Well, not quite true, you can get Lekos but they are both expoensive to rent and in my opinion inferior to the Selecons.

 

In my UK days I was a Sil boy, and I'm also a big fan of the Minuette Zoom profile. In fact I liked MZPs so much I bought a couple which I still have, and they're still great lights :)

[mn8146]

patt 264- not so much the lantern itself, but the soft shutters, Still have a few that get used for just that feature, Not often, but damn useful. A shame the idea died a death.

 

what are soft shutters paul?

[TallPaul]

They are an additional set of spikey shutters in front (?) of the straight ones. The P264 is the only lantern I can ever remember seeing these in. The P263 only had the solid ones if I recall correctly.

[paulears]

Yup, that's a good description. The 264 shutter section has two sets of shutters, about 18mm apart. the idea is that not only did they have vignetted edges, sort of a zig-zag edge, they are also out of focus, compared to the proper set. Where a beam catches something like the edge of the pros, a hard shutter is sometimes visible - the soft ones blend nicely, a bit like the effect of a barn door being moved. It briefly carried on to the t-spot range. (the soft shutter knobs were coloured red)

[the kid]

Why did they stop? The twin shutters that is

[dvl_gsr]

Soft shutters were great,

and no mention of Strand SL's,

a few minor faults but I love them

Cheers Sam

[paulears]

Why did they stop? The twin shutters that is

 

This is only my opinion - may be very wrong - but this was the Rank Strand days. Not long after the t-pots (sorry, T-spots) were launched everybody seemed to go off on the mimic the american designs, CCt had the axial lamped Sil, Lekos kept appearing and none of these had taken up the bifocal design. I suspect Rank just bottled out, not wanting to promote somthing unique, in case they got left behind. The T-spot was a pretty poor thing, and when it was replaced, the twin shutters just got forgotten.

 

If anyone knows morer accurate history - I'd love to know too.

[CornishLampie]

The Cantatas are damn good lights!

[krisn]

The T-spot was a pretty poor thing, and when it was replaced, the twin shutters just got forgotten.

 

If anyone knows morer accurate history - I'd love to know too.

 

I remember in the dim and distant past we had some spikey shutters in some of our T84s. Not sure if they were a 'retrofit' or original.

 

They've been retired from use, but as a good bye one was dropped from the grid onto the stage floor (after removing glass bits). It survived with some minor dents to the case. The focussing mechanism, lamp holder, etc all worked fine. I wonder if a Source 4 would survive such impact?

[J Pearce]

According to someone I know who has dropped one; it survived but it needed re-lamping.

[themadhippy]

Bigest problem ive had with 264's is the captive nuts in the lens tubes tend to break very easily,but it gives you a good reason to replace them with nice selcons,Another intresting profile was the thomas condesor profile,very good light output for a 650w unit,until the condeser lens breaks due to the heat