Hi! First time poster.
I've taken on lighting design & programming for a small group that throws parties a few times a year in various settings. I'd like to add a laser element to our production, after falling in love with some of the beam and liquid sky effects you can achieve with RGB projectors these days. I will likely start with QuickShow and some sort of cheap Chinese option. I'm stuck on figuring out what sort of power I need to make it all worthwhile.
Our typical outdoor venue will be:
- Pretty dark woodsy environment, with most of the immediate lighting under my control
- 100 to 250 foot open space between projector and woods or whatever else the beam eventually hits
- 50 to 300 in the audience
- Sometimes we get lucky and have some fog, but generally no haze or fog machines available
Other venues it would be used at, but less important than the above:
- Small to medium warehouse spaces
- Open desert spaces
Given that, would a 3W or 5W RGB projector give me bright, visible beams and liquid sky effects? Projecting onto the trees will get a cool secondary effect, but I'm really looking to have visible beams over the dance floor itself. We also use a lot of deep purple/blue/aqua colors, which I know aren't the brightest for a laser to recreate.
Second question, I've been combing through a lot of threads about cheap Chinese lasers vs. namebrand models. I understand the variance and image projection quality can be quite variable, but what about the power ratings? Is a 2w blue beam from China going to be equivalent to a name brand? Or are they pumping up ratings? Maybe other components matter more to perceived brightness? I went through these same issues buying cheap LED lighting, you just really don't know what you're going to get until it shows up.
Thanks for any help! Really to avoid getting something "lukewarm" in power.