Hello from Georgia

[gkyork]

Again Hello
My name is Greg and I live in the second largest city in GA. I am a technical volunteer in my church. I am primarily a sound guy. I am choosing to educate myself on lighting and hope to find some good info sources here!

 

[RonHebbard]

Again Hello
My name is Greg and I live in the second largest city in GA. I am a technical volunteer in my church. I am primarily a sound guy. I am choosing to educate myself on lighting and hope to find some good info sources here!

@gkyork Welcome to the Control Booth forum. There are worse places you could be. You may find the Control Booth search function in the upper right corner helpful. Always feel free to post 24 / 7 as we often have posters on line from Europe and New Zealand / Australia
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard, posting from Canada

 

[gkyork]

@gkyork Welcome to the Control Booth forum. There are worse places you could be. You may find the Control Booth search function in the upper right corner helpful. Always feel free to post 24 / 7 as we often have posters on line from Europe and New Zealand / Australia
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard, posting from Canada

Thank you Mr Ron
I actually have used the aforementioned function., I trying to learn what we need to consider as we prepare for lighting upgrades in our sanctuary. Specifically how "bright" we need to be to be properly lit for our video stream. Lots to learn here!!

 

[jonliles]

Greetings from NW Metro Atlanta!

 

[RonHebbard]

Thank you Mr Ron
I actually have used the aforementioned function., I trying to learn what we need to consider as we prepare for lighting upgrades in our sanctuary. Specifically how "bright" we need to be to be properly lit for our video stream. Lots to learn here!!

@gkyork Appreciate we can't see your sanctuary from here and thus don't know what hanging positions are available to you. That said, you might consider lighting from both sides rather than directly straight in from the front for several reasons:
1; Straight in is harder on the presenters' eyes.
2; Straight in lights faces in only one color appearing flatter and shapeless and possibly with a shadow below their noses and / or in their eye sockets depending upon the elevation of the source.
3; If / when you're lighting only directly from the front, you're often using only one source per area and thus all your lighting "eggs" are in one basket. If / when a lamp burns out you've a dark area.
Conversely:
4; If you light each area from two sides, even if from directly off-stage to the left and right, presenters are able to have eye contact with their parishioners with comparatively little to no glare in their eyes.
5; When presenters are lit from two sides in somewhat different yet complimentary colors, their faces will have more visual depth and facial features will appear better both live and on camera. Granted two lights will consume more power and create more heat for your air conditioning system but two lights providing complimentary colors from two opposite angles offer so many benefits and with the rapid developments in LED sources power consumption and heat are becoming of less concern daily.
Again, the Control Booth search function may be your friend, I'm recalling a number of posts extolling lighting from more than one angle as well as discussions regarding posters' favorite complimentary colors.
All the best @gkyork and never hesitate to post. We've all started somewhere, made our mistakes and many of us have learned from them and still remember them.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[gkyork]

@gkyork Appreciate we can't see your sanctuary from here and thus don't know what hanging positions are available to you. That said, you might consider lighting from both sides rather than directly straight in from the front for several reasons:
1; Straight in is harder on the presenters' eyes.
2; Straight in lights faces in only one color appearing flatter and shapeless and possibly with a shadow below their noses and / or in their eye sockets depending upon the elevation of the source.
3; If / when you're lighting only directly from the front, you're often using only one source per area and thus all your lighting "eggs" are in one basket. If / when a lamp burns out you've a dark area.
Conversely:
4; If you light each area from two sides, even if from directly off-stage to the left and right, presenters are able to have eye contact with their parishioners with comparatively little to no glare in their eyes.
5; When presenters are lit from two sides in somewhat different yet complimentary colors, their faces will have more visual depth and facial features will appear better both live and on camera. Granted two lights will consume more power and create more heat for your air conditioning system but two lights providing complimentary colors from two opposite angles offer so many benefits and with the rapid developments in LED sources power consumption and heat are becoming of less concern daily.
Again, the Control Booth search function may be your friend, I'm recalling a number of posts extolling lighting from more than one angle as well as discussions regarding posters' favorite complimentary colors.
All the best @gkyork and never hesitate to post. We've all started somewhere, made our mistakes and many of us have learned from them and still remember them.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

Awesome! If need be this thread can be moved to a more subject oriented part of the forum
Our stage is approx 20 feet deep and 45 feet wide. We utilize a truss with 16 incandescent par 60? lights which are aimed(at this point) somewhat haphazardly to illuminate as much stage as possible. These cans are controlled by a Obey 70 board. When we stream video I have noticed we still have shadows. We are going this Friday to make adjustments to positioning and try to correct some DMX issues we're experiencing

 

[RonHebbard]

Awesome! If need be this thread can be moved to a more subject oriented part of the forum
Our stage is approx 20 feet deep and 45 feet wide. We utilize a truss with 16 incandescent par 60? lights which are aimed(at this point) somewhat haphazardly to illuminate as much stage as possible. These cans are controlled by a Obey 70 board. When we stream video I have noticed we still have shadows. We are going this Friday to make adjustments to positioning and try to correct some DMX issues we're experiencing

@gkyork My understanding is you have one, and only one, truss flown in front of your stage. (Hopefully your truss is flown and not ground supported on towers.)
Let me contribute a few thoughts:
Your stage is 45' wide. Ideally your truss is much longer (wider) possibly 30' longer, 15' on each end allowing you to hang lights near the ends and illuminate in complimentary colors from the sides.
Another option is to create hanging positions on each side, even if directly off stage left and right.
At both new locations you could provide real line voltage power (NOT from a dimmer) and hang modern LED sources with self contained dimming circuitry which would only require extending your 5 (or 3) contact DMX control cables to the new DMX controlled LED's. Ideally your side locations would be quite high, possibly 15 or 20 feet above stage level allowing the lights to light faces with less shadowing on immediately adjacent performers.
If you choose to employ older technology, you could go with quality "shoe box" dimmers from (for example) CAE Leprecon and continue to use 500 or 1,000 Watt incandescent PAR 64's but realize incandescent PAR 64's are power hungry and produce heat, not only from the lamps themselves warming your building but in their beams as well causing perspiration resulting in possible makeup problems. Would you care to elaborate on your "DMX problems"?
All the best.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[gkyork]

My understanding is you have one, and only one, truss flown in front of your stage. (Hopefully your truss is flown and not ground supported on towers.)
Let me contribute a few thoughts:
Yes we utilize a single flown truss using incandescent can type lights(unsure of bulb pattern or wattage), we also have 6 RGB LED fixtures flown lower on the same TRUSS . This trus is only as wide as the stage due to room geometry/shape. Due to the same issues the lights are only 6-8 feet above the stage(13 ft ceiling height)

DMX issues are as follows.
After the recent hurricane(Michael), we lost power for several hours, I am sure there were several power glitches as well. After power was restored, the lights blink regardless of fader positions. Last night we separated house lights from stage light by disconnecting the DMX cable that goes to the stage light truss, that restored control to the house lights. which are LEDs. We only have on-off capability with these, if we dim those they buzz horribly through our house sound( I am told that an additional dimmer pack would give us the ability to dim)