Lighting Mirror Ball: Which would you recommend?

[LesWilson]

Okay. Thanks for helping everyone. Several things:

1. The dark spot is indeed the lamp hole in the reflector. Adding diffusion gel helped quite a bit.
2. After eliminating the dark spot with gel, I felt the dots were too large and not so random. So I tried a 20 degree lens. No real difference: Large and patterned.
3. I moved to the closest fixtures on the adjacent pipes using 20 degree lenses. This results in smaller reflections and a less patterned look.
4. In all cases, lens was fully retracted, diffusion gel applied and precise positioning of beam used such that the center of the beam misses the ball. The consequence is there is a lot of spill.

It's adequate for our show but a little disappointing. In the category of doing it better next time, is the correct solution to avoiding the "dot" and having to use diffusion to use a narrower lens?

Original patterned donut shaped reflections from 20 or 30 degree 4 feet from ball


Smaller reflections using 20 degree lens from ~20 feet. Beam diffused and positioned off center of ball to avoid dot.


POV

 

[RonHebbard]

Okay. Thanks for helping everyone. Several things:

1. The dark spot is indeed the lamp hole in the reflector. Adding diffusion gel helped quite a bit.
2. After eliminating the dark spot with gel, I felt the dots were too large and not so random. So I tried a 20 degree lens. No real difference: Large and patterned.
3. I moved to the closest fixtures on the adjacent pipes using 20 degree lenses. This results in smaller reflections and a less patterned look.
4. In all cases, lens was fully retracted, diffusion gel applied and precise positioning of beam used such that the center of the beam misses the ball. The consequence is there is a lot of spill.

It's adequate for our show but a little disappointing. In the category of doing it better next time, is the correct solution to avoiding the "dot" and having to use diffusion to use a narrower lens?

Original patterned donut shaped reflections from 20 or 30 degree 4 feet from ball
View attachment 17949

Smaller reflections using 20 degree lens from ~20 feet. Beam diffused and positioned off center of ball to avoid dot.
View attachment 17947

POV
View attachment 17948

@LesWilson If you have a follow spot, especially one you can preset precisely where and how you want it then control remotely from your board without any shaking / jiggling or missing its target, I suspect you'd be happy. If you had two, even better. Decades ago I worked in a theatre with two Strong carbon arc Super Troupers and two Strong Xenon Super Troupers. The carbon arc Supers were SUPERB on mirror balls! (When zoomed down on their trombone, irised only minimally and their rods positioned for a hot centre they beat the pants off the Xenons.)
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[AllBulbs-Lori]

I would go with an odd number of mirror balls all different sizes and lit with 2 different colors to make a statement. https://allbulbs.com/collections/mirror-balls

 

[LesWilson]

@LesWilson If you have a follow spot, ... The carbon arc Supers were SUPERB on mirror balls! (When zoomed down on their trombone, irised only minimally and their rods positioned for a hot centre they beat the pants off the Xenons.)
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

Unfortunately both my Lycian SuperArcs are on the other side of the pipe and not at the right angle. I didn't realize how important it is to have the proper fixture for a mirror ball. An ellipsoidal doesn't really cut it. Most of my time was spent circumventing the dot from the lamp socket. Thanks everyone.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

The customary thing to light a mirror ball with is actually a tungsten pinspot, mounted relatively close. Whether there's too much spill on the places you want the reflections to be seen is another question; those are usually not the brightest lights...

 

[LesWilson]

Thanks @Jay Ashworth , I'm in a 70 x 90' room with a 40' deep stage. THe two 750w Shakespeares and 20" ball to the job bit are a borderline too dim for my old eyes. SO I skipped those pin spots figuring they didn't have the lumens.

 

[LesWilson]

I wasn't fan of the Shakespears before but I have a whole new level of negative feelings toward those blasted gel holders. LOL. This the end result with some help from two more 750 Lekos for the cyc with gobos made of black wrap and lots of pin holes.

 

[Les]

Looks good!

THe two 750w Shakespeares and 20" ball to the job bit are a borderline too dim for my old eyes. SO I skipped those pin spots figuring they didn't have the lumens.

The 4515 lamp from a pinspot would be a lot dimmer on paper, but they are extremely efficient, projecting a beam much closer to parallel than an ellipsoidal reflector.

I tried lighting a mirror ball with Colortran Mini-Ellipses many years ago but was discouraged when the director said "they look like tits!"... Lately if I am doing a mirror ball effect, I use 4 pinspots 90° apart, or throw a few movers on it. Even irised down, a group 250w MSD based moving lights can give a pretty brilliant effect in a medium-sized theatre.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

Oh. Your three pipes are side by side.

 

[RonHebbard]

Oh. Your three pipes are side by side.

@Jay Ashworth The clue was each pipe is only 10' long.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[LesWilson]

Here it is in action without sound. It's a little brighter in person. It definitely delivered the "wow" for the audience.

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[LesWilson]

Looks good!



The 4515 lamp from a pinspot would be a lot dimmer on paper, but they are extremely efficient, projecting a beam much closer to parallel than an ellipsoidal reflector.

So is there a pinspot alternative that would light the large room as well as the two 750w ellipsoidals?

 

[Les]

So is there a pinspot alternative that would light the large room as well as the two 750w ellipsoidals?

In my opinion, yes. Just about any pinspot will do better than a 20° 750w ellipsoidal whose majority of light is hitting the back of a shutter blade. But placement is key and you really need four (90° apart) for the best coverage.

In your particular case? Probably not. Your pipe positions in relation to the mirror ball were not ideal at all.

 

[DELO72]

I don't have a lot of time to experiment. I've read as many of the mirror ball threads here as I can to narrow down my options. I have a 20" ball mounted on a 25' ceiling on our center FOH pipe (we have three 10' FOH pipes). The FOH pipes are about 30' from the proscenium.

I want to create a star field effect as well as blender. I have two Altman Shakespeare ellipsoidals at the end of the pipe with 30 degree lenses slightly below the bottom of the ball. Alternatively, I can use 20 degree Shakespeares on the FOH left and right pipes which is about a 25' throw but at a shallower angle.

What order would you try things?
A) Shutter the 30 degree Shakespeares on the center pipe
B) Shutter the 20 degree Shakespeares from further away
C) Swap the 30 degree lenses on the center pipe with the 20 degree lenses on the left/right pipes and shuttter the center pipe fixtures to taste
D) Other

TIA

View attachment 17933

D) OTHER- Use a pinspot gobo. (Or a drop in Iris kit) Keep the field circular to just the size of the mirror ball. Don't use shutters as you'll get spill.

 

[Calc]

Not sure why the shapes have the dark spot.
View attachment 17940

Derek's right, it's the reflector. If you play around with the focus of the fixture, you can pull different things into focus, like the filament of the lamp.