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Lighting a Stream (in a Marquee!)


chil6ep

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Posted

Hi all, looking for advise again I'm afraid.

 

I have a customer (mate actually) who is building an artaficial Slate Mountainside in a marquee for a promotional stand at an event. The centre piece of the display is an 18in / 2ft wide stream running 20-30ft through the slate (yes it is flowing, out of the tent, into a pond, pumped back to the top etc. Oh yeah and the top of the stream is a 2ft waterfall) . There will be some demonstations taking place which I'm using a couple of profiles (or poss tightly focused fresnels, no-one expects to much artistic talen on that bit). Some background flooding is required incase the weather is'nt to great (background light is otherwise reliant on 2 sides of the marquee open.).

The one I'm struggleing with a little is they want to light the stream in an effort to emphasise it. Now throwing some green and blue at it should be easy but I need to avoid to much spill, need to some how avoid seeing reflection of light in the flowing water and have about a 10ft bar 15-20ft ish up in the middle of the marquee.

 

Anyone ever tryed this before. Any advice greatfuly recieved.

 

30ft

|----------------------------------------|

| /|

| Stream ______/ |

| _______________/ |20ft

|____/ O------------O |

| 10ft | height 15ft-20ft

| |

| |

|----------------------------------------|

 

Sorry little drwing didnt seem to work but sure you getr the idea

Posted

Have you considered putting lights IN the stream? a trip to your local garden centre should provide you with a selection of reasonably cheep pond lights and if you could 'hide' them underneath the waterfall and within the banks of the stream you might get good results.

 

Si

Posted
need to some how avoid seeing reflection of light in the flowing water

 

Actually, this is probably the way the water will be seen best; I assume it's clear water? You won't be lighting the water itself, but rather whatever can be seen through the water, and also the crests of the ripples. It's like trying to light a mirror: you can't light the mirror itself, but you can show off the fingerprints on the surface.

 

For what it's worth,

-w

Posted
a perfect one I was studying for my gcses, try to get T.I.R (total internal refraction) using a waterproof light at the head of the waterfall so the water is internally lit up and nothing else is. That should definitely emphasise it if you use enough power. I have never tried it, but theoretically it is possible, but someone is always more knowledgable than me so ahll leave it up to them.
Posted

need to some how avoid seeing reflection of light in the flowing water

 

Actually, this is probably the way the water will be seen best; I assume it's clear water? You won't be lighting the water itself, but rather whatever can be seen through the water, and also the crests of the ripples. It's like trying to light a mirror: you can't light the mirror itself, but you can show off the fingerprints on the surface.

 

For what it's worth,

-w

 

Indeed - probably wasnt clear the first time, what I want to avoid is reflection of spots of light making dots all the way down. If a was doing a wide expanse like a lake, pond (ocean) I wood simply throw some flood across the surface to catch the ripples and mask off the edges with barn doors. I supose loads of fresnels slightly out of focus and well masked would work but thats a lot of lights and lots of power which is a cost problem.

 

Regards the TIR idea, I love it but can't even begin to imagine how I could get the Landscape gardener building the stream to calculate his flowing curves and jaged rocks to work out all the maths which I would have to think about hard and read up on never mind tech it to a gardener .

Posted
a perfect one I was studying for my gcses, try to get T.I.R (total internal refraction) using a waterproof light at the head of the waterfall so the water is internally lit up and nothing else is. That should definitely emphasise it if you use enough power. I have never tried it, but theoretically it is possible, but someone is always more knowledgable than me so ahll leave it up to them.

It's called Total Internal Reflection (not refraction, which is something else entirely). TIR is the method by which optical fibres work, and you can do it in laminar water jets as they're very similar, I don't think you'd get this to work in a waterfall though.

 

Either way, uplighting the waterfal could still look good, as long as the lights weren't obvious.

Posted

LEDs or 12v lights either bought as pond lights from a hardware or hobby store or custom made into the slate and sealed in with silicone.

 

Side emiting optic fibre immersed in the flowing water lit from a dry housed colour-changer.

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