Worst lantern?

[Stu]

Another vote for the Teapot/T64, a totally useless lantern in my opinion. Too heavy, heats every bit of metalwork to blast furnace temperature, bad optics... etc. Only thing good about it is the hard/soft shutters (but not exclusive to the range so doesn't count) and when focussed soft it's quite nice. At the expensive of halving the beam size! I'd also have to say the old Selecon 1200w profiles (I can't remember the model name/number if they had one) but they too heated everything to temperatures unknown to mankind. Again too large, heavy and clumbersome.

 

The Thomas 1k 4cells, to the gentleman who posted about them earlier on - your dead right! They have left my mark on me, thanks to colour frame only comming out due to excessive force and leaving me with a 3inch cut down my wrist which has now scarred. Doh

 

I'll also stick up for the Patt 60, I'm quite fond of them!

 

I'll stop now!

Stu

[pete LD]

The Thomas 1k 4cells, to the gentleman who posted about them earlier on - your dead right! They have left my mark on me, thanks to colour frame only comming out due to excessive force and leaving me with a 3inch cut down my wrist which has now scarred. Doh

 

your probably one of the local crew who has been telling me how #### they are! Ive been through a couple of south cost receiving houses! one with Thomas floods!

[jhaynes199]

You need to at least justify your choice. unless you are just stirring the pot! :D

 

Financially the worst thing to happento my show budgets. I have no S4 stock but lighting designers all love them. To the extent I had a LD basically refusing to do a design unless I hired them as "all other profiles are rubbish compared to them"

 

 

Hence why the humble source 4 is the only conventional light you will see in the West End, give or take a few specials or UV cannons.

[Renny]

Hence why the humble source 4 is the only conventional light you will see in the West End, give or take a few specials or UV cannons.

 

All well and good with West End budgets. Sadly I don't have that luxury :D

[jhaynes199]

Hehe very true! Though if every theatre in the country bought a couple then the price would come down!

[James]

I have a number of single 1K Thomas cyc lights.

 

I rather like them as they are much lighter than my Nocturnes.

 

I must say I can't remember the gell holders being any harder to remove than anything similar though.

 

James

[gareth]

I must say I can't remember the gell holders being any harder to remove than anything similar though.

It's not so much the fitting/removal of the gel frame into the lantern - the real PITA is getting the colour into the frames. Most 'normal' floods have colour frames that hinge open along one edge, but with Thomas units you have to carefully slide the piece of colour into the frame - which, if the frame is a bit old and bent and the colour isn't quite as flat as it could be, can be a very frustrating experience. When I used to use Thomas 4-cells on opera rep seasons with daily changeovers, we abandoned the colour frames altogether - instead, we made 'colour strips' for the Thomases for each show, which just got croc-clipped onto the front of the batten. Much quicker, and a lot less swearing!

[James]

the real PITA is getting the colour into the frames. Most 'normal' floods have colour frames that hinge open along one edge, but with Thomas units you have to carefully slide the piece of colour into the frame

 

Perhaps mine are different as they are the single variant but I remember them as being like "normal" floods, hinge along one side.

 

I got these second hand still in the cardboard boxes from Thomas, they had only been used a couple of times so I doubt the original owner had looked elsewhere for frames.

 

You have be doubting my own sanity here...

 

http://www.jthomaseng.com/pdffiles/Cyc%20lites-99.pdf

 

I'll look closer at them today.

 

James

[woolfie]

Selecon fresnels and P.C.s. Brilliant light but burn out colour in moments, and if used near a cyc you have to blackwrap round the colour frame holder beacuse of the spill that pours out there.

[Thirdtap]

'lo

This feels strange unless I have missed something I'll be the first to nominate TEATROs?

 

A nineties thing several venues got these lanterns after referbs because of the price and generally found them to be disappointing. One mate had a load of either 2kw or 1.5kw profiles in the house rig that because the reflectors burnt out with the correct lamp they had to run them with 1kw lamps so they were not doing the job properly. We had I think 2 x 500w profiles in with one Christmas show as footlights. They were so dim you had trouble finding them in a rig check.

[maeterlinck]

833 - no reflector and screws to get in. When the 803 existed - why?

teapots - think my maglite was brighter and better focused last time I played

823 - is pretty bad as memory serves

 

and I'm tempted to mominate most Strands more modern ranges. So many of their lanterns are a step back and they often didn't keep knowledge learnt previously. I'm sure there were reasons for this but it doesn't make good lanterns.

 

 

Also ETC have sold 1 million+ source 4s now, so not so sure it's quantity that's the problem with the prices.

[trotboy]

For me personally I'd have to nominate Preludes - because I wasted so much of my life replacing burned out lamp trays in the things and biting my nails through performances waiting for the inevitable flickering & arcing sound as another one started to go.

 

Also, if we're nominating Gel barbecues - the Strand Minim F has to be up there, unless they are at narrowest spot - with the lamp as far from the gel as possible - they eat gel by the end of the 1st scene - even Supergel.

[Tomo]

Strand SL - Why oh WHY did they have to make the lamp so difficult to change?

 

Thankfully I've never had to deal with the wiring set, but that looked almost impossible!

The gelframe holder is incredibly fragile to boot - of the few I've used, perhaps 10% have been damaged or completely shattered during transit.

[gareth]

Oh, come on! Perspective, please! The Strand SL is not perfect - but there's no way it's the 'worst lantern'.

 

Yes, the lamp burner is a complete to open up for wiring purposes (due to Strand's insistence on saving a few pennies by using self-tapping screws when putting it together - the screws cut their thread as they went in the first time, but the swarf went in with them, and the constant expansion/contraction of a steel screw with swarf wedges around the thread in an aluminium burner block simply seized the whole thing together in one inseperable lump). And yes, they're a bit too fragile for touring (but they're OK if they're just sitting in one venue and are treated with a bit of respect). But there are many lanterns out there that are far worse.

[pscandrett]

The Patt 45. If it is all you have got you have to use them in amateur theatre and schools but so inneficient.

We've got a couple of Patt 45s at work which we never use (obviously, after this thread!). Anyone want them, or know what to do with them? If we ebayed them would it be worth it, or shall we just dump them?