Brown and Black Altman

[Rose03]

Since we seem to have crossed over into talking about the 3.5 Altman's, I'll throw in my little bit of knowledge about them. Over the years, I bought about 18 of them from Altman's rental house. They are great little instruments, which also have the ability to use different focal length lens tubes in the base unit. As for the dichroic reflectors, they did produce a few with a polished faceted reflector, which I am sure cost them additional $$$'s. I was told that they got complaints that the increased light output was eating up the color media. I have 7 of those and wouldn't trade them for almost anything. The light output using a 575watt lamp is quite impressive. The only brown Altman's we still have are some 'older' (LOL) 360Q - 20X40 zooms. I'll bet you don't see them very often, if ever.

I wonder if it would be possible to still but them? Perhaps as a replacement part from Altman

 

[ship]

My later purchases were thru Bash (believe the brand spelling) and perfect in condition. Faceted reflector was quite the trend at one point. Interested in a fascinating concept who invented it. Would argue Altman 3.5Q Dichroic would reverse melted gels for the most part. $$$

A 20x40 zoom, would have to check my inventory but no not many left. Believe 30x60.


Curious thoughts about further research into reflector versions of HPL 575w lamps now that the pattent is done and while told "can't add a reflector under the HPL filament..." has technology progressed yet and if the HPL or LED versions for the 360Q lamp caps work on the 3.5Q5. Curious - my favorite lighting fixture.

 

[Pete Borchetta]

I have a brown altman 3.5q but I've noticed that the ones that are sold new on the altman website are black. Why?

these are all good answers but the reason that you units are brown is that they represent units that were built roughly 30 years ago. At that time many of the Altman units were
brown such as the 360Q Ellipsoidals, 65Q 75Q, 165Q and 175Q Fresnel series as well as the entire 3.5Q range. At that time our paint process was out sourced to one of our local vendors. When we brought both wet and powder coating into our facility we then changed over to a specific black paint that was then added to all of our products. I hope that this answers your question.
if you have any additional questions please do not hesitate to reach out.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

Buty why ever brown? I guess I could then ask why Century (Strand) were light grey...

 

[microstar]

Buty why ever brown? I guess I could then ask why Century (Strand) were light grey...

We have the answer to grey already..... "the color of dust"!

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

Or Ed Kook got a great deal on grey paint.....

 

[ship]

Thanks on that question of how but not why brown, and welcome to the forum plus thanks for passing on your knowledge. A question I never got ansewered to verify... was there as I surmise a color/texture paint in the origional serise of Altman lights? From that I suspect the Brown was much more dependable in qualities even if why the color asked. Thanks for coloring in the history of why/when Altment went black instead of brown.