i’m looking for some guidance on a projector i could tour with. put together some visuals for the band i’m in, and the ability to change stuff on the fly is pretty appealing.
i’ve gotten some input on projectors, but more never hurts. i guess i’m looking for a short throw (or ultra short throw) laser projector. how many lumens should I be looking for? probably 3000+ from what i can gather. i’d love to not spend a ton, the stuff we’ll be projecting doesn’t need to be 4k or super high resolution.
I’ve been told that 4k lumen would be bare minimum for club setting and 8k minimum for outdoor. That being said, different folks have different standards. I’ve used extremely cheap and dim projectors at shows and have gotten some cool results albeit not what most VJs go after.
Are there any safety problems with using laser projectors on bands? I’m looking into getting one too but I really don’t want to damage someone’s eyes haha
Be aware that most affordable short throw projectors get dimmer the further away the screen is from the projector. I recently bought an Optoma GT1080E for a project in a small gallery where I simply can’t move the projector back far enough. It can cast a massive image from just a few meters away but the picture really loses its brightness the further back you go. It’s rated as 3700 lumens but that must be from a meter’s distance or less because compared to the other projectors I have (Optoma DH1017, EH500, and Sony VPL-HW45), it’s very weak indeed but in a completely dark venue it’s ok. The positives (for me at least) are I’m probably going to combine it with other light sources like slide machines, and it will look ok alongside those since they’re of a similar brightness. But honestly, if you’re going to use it in venues where you can’t guarantee it’s dark, I would look into buying a used older high-end projector that has changeable lenses, like a Panasonic PT-RZ570 for example. Or split your visuals across two outputs and place a couple of regular type projectors next to each other to create a wider image and do some edge blending.