Short throws with inexpensive conventional lights

At our church, lighting positions are complicated by the peaked roof. Getting the right angle sometimes requires very short throws. For example, when we need to light an area on the platform steps or on the floor right in front of the platform, some of the throws are in the 5'-10' range. Real short throws would seem to require lower-power lights.

The bulb ban is on hiatus since they withheld funding for enforcement, but even so, it's hard to find a PAR 38 lamp in 100 or 150 watts. There are relatively few options for PAR 46, mostly at 200 watts. For lots of selection, you need to go to PAR 56, but then you're at 300 watts minimum. Even with more expensive lights like the S4 PAR or the S4 Jr., you can't get below 300 watts. As best I understand it, you avoid running lights at very low dimmer percentages so as to avoid amber drift. I think ideally we need 100 watt lamps for some positions. Right now we have a small budget with which we need to get a complete working system in place, so we're starting with PAR fixtures. How do we choose fixtures in this situation?

Thanks for any suggestions!
 
Great questions Searchlight, and welcome to The ControlBooth!

Glad to see the 'bulb ban' moving along slowly, as more cost effective lighting sources are being improved upon every day. Tungsten warmth can be a tricky animal to match but recent LED sources have been effective in getting the color temp while providing dimmable light w/o the amber drift.

I've been very satisfied with the tungsten look/feel and dimming capability of these guys, though probably not wide enough for your shortest throws.

  • Osram LED Par 38 12º with 1070 Lumens 20 Watt Osram Sylvania Ultra LED HDTM Lamp
  • Osram LED Par 38 30º with 1150 Lumens 21 Watt Osram Sylvania Ultra LED HDTM Lamp

http://www.apollodesign.net/Products/View/4532.aspx
*See the lamp specs on the Specifications tab

Also, does your church currently have a lighting console and dimmer/s for platform lighting?
 
Could you use standard wattage lamps and throw in neutral density filters to cut output while keeping colour temperature, or perhaps even better for your short throw application, some heavy diffusion to spread the intensity over a larger area, thereby decreasing fc / sq ft.
 
Could always use an R30 in the fixture like the 9.6 watt Cree LED (2700k). They are about $12 at home depot and have a decent (some blue drift) dimmer curve.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Cree-65W...ht-Bulb-BBR30-06527FLF-12DE26-1U100/204366182
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There's also the TCP PAR38 lamps that are 17.5 watts and put out the same as a 100 Watt lamp:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00835816O/?tag=controlbooth-20
 
I'd look at film lighting units for throw distances that short. I don't know what any issues with permanently installing them could potentially be, though. Back when I was dabbling in video things I was a big fan of the Lowel ViP Pro Light. Great little unit, lamps at 100, 200, and 250 watts. Excellent narrow to wide range with a soft focus. Barndoors are a must, though, for spill control.
 
For short throw, (assuming also not much room for a large fixture and dimmable in the normal filament lamp way). I would look into lights like a PAR 20 with a JDR MR-16 100w lamp in wide focus lamp; 3" Fresnel with 100w (ESR) or 150w (ETC) lamp Altman [HASHTAG]#100[/HASHTAG] or I think Times Square make them still also; or I think they still make the PAR 38 and PAR 38 lamps are only going to be IMPACT’d by way of the lesser efficient lamps.
Will still be able to get long life halogen versions perhaps at different wattages but higher efficiency. It’s not going to be like the1996' days when the non-halogen 150w PAR 38 got discontinued and that was the lamp the industry was using. The 100w or 120w halogen lamp you are fearing going away was the replacement to the 150w incandescent. I am not aware of either halogen lamp being discontinued, but I don’t normally buy those wattages. Not talking the days of 85 Watt crappy Watt Meiser lamps, you can get 20,000 hour PAR 38 lamps from Aerotech which have impressive output, and lots of other PAR 38 lamps still which won’t be discontinued if fixture of your choice.
 
For short throw, (assuming also not much room for a large fixture and dimmable in the normal filament lamp way). I would look into lights like a PAR 20 with a JDR MR-16 100w lamp in wide focus lamp; 3" Fresnel with 100w (ESR) or 150w (ETC) lamp Altman [HASHTAG]#100[/HASHTAG] or I think Times Square make them still also; or I think they still make the PAR 38 and PAR 38 lamps are only going to be IMPACT’d by way of the lesser efficient lamps.
Will still be able to get long life halogen versions perhaps at different wattages but higher efficiency. It’s not going to be like the1996' days when the non-halogen 150w PAR 38 got discontinued and that was the lamp the industry was using. The 100w or 120w halogen lamp you are fearing going away was the replacement to the 150w incandescent. I am not aware of either halogen lamp being discontinued, but I don’t normally buy those wattages. Not talking the days of 85 Watt crappy Watt Meiser lamps, you can get 20,000 hour PAR 38 lamps from Aerotech which have impressive output, and lots of other PAR 38 lamps still which won’t be discontinued if fixture of your choice.

As far as I am aware, halogen lamps are efficient enough to not be subject to the current ban; however, they are not efficient enough to withstand the ban in 2020.
 
When (if ever) the budget permits, we'd like to add some Source 4 Jr.'s. Would these TCP lamps match the characteristics of some kind of HPL lamp? How will they fit with PARs?

Are you shooting video under this light? If yes then it makes a BIG difference. Is your church full of lighting designers? If yes it makes a big difference. If however your church is full of average civilians who have no idea what color temperature means... with the help of a little diffusion and gel, they will probably never notice.
 
As far as I am aware, halogen lamps are efficient enough to not be subject to the current ban; however, they are not efficient enough to withstand the ban in 2020.

This statement is not entirely accurate. it depends on the lamp. This statement COULD be true for Household "General Purpose" lamps such as PAR 38s, etc. This statement is not correct in regards to HPLs, FELs, etc. which are all exempt from Energy legislation as they fall under the categoy of "Special Purpose" lamps and are not affected.
 
I just wanted to follow up and thank everyone for their input, which was extremely helpful. We did in fact go with some used PAR 38 fixtures for the short throw applications, lamping them with some spots and some floods at 75W PAR 38. In a couple places we even went down to some 60W PAR30 lamps that we already had. Also, just knowing that the PAR 20 and MR16 options are out there if needed was very helpful. Thanks!
 

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