Are Carnivals "fixed lighting"?

[blasterman]

Feeling a bit bored, I stopped at one of the seasonal carnivals that show up in your local mall parking lot a few times a year hoping to grab some long exposure shots of the carnival lights with my camera, and get my 10 year Crisco intake of elephant ear.

I was standing directly behind the ferris wheel shooting straight up with my camera and getting some light trail shots and didn't notice the carnival mechanic standing next to me. I swear I got the conversation word for word.

"Yeah....yeah....I just got a $1,200 lighting controller for that thing and installed it yesterday. Can do over 50 different lighting programs"

I turned to look at him and noticed he was staring affectionately upwards at his wheel while chewing on a cigar and holding a 2.5 gasoline container.

"Yeah.....they make good pictures. Glad I got that controller installed. Go ahead...Take all the pictures you want"

You know, if there's an unsung job in the universe it's his, and of the million or so people who walk through that carnival a year I'm likely the only one who's actually interested. So, if he wants to proudly talk a little shop about his machine to a total stranger the least I could do is oblige.

"Looks pretty good" I said. Quickly reverse engineering the lighting so as to not sound stupid I asked "how many channels?"

"48" he said. "Yeah...$1,200 bucks...took me all afternoon...I think it looks pretty good"

At that point I did notice the strobbing patterns of lights on the giant wheel where more sophisticated than a typical small carnival and would likely draw more attention.

"So, how long do the bulbs last, and how often do you have to change them" I asked.

"Oh, I re-lamp the whole ride once a month just to make sure they are all working. We order these ones special from Europe because they last the longest. Plus, the bulbs run in pairs, and that helps."

I then noticed that there wasn't a single burnt out bulb on the whole rig. Now I'm really impressed; "Ah, two bulbs in series to help with voltage swings?"

"Yep, keeps the generator from blowing em when it's not running right"

I noticed he still hadn't stopped gazing up at his pride and joy, but I just had to ask him the big question; "tried LED bulbs yet?"

"Yep, they actually work pretty good and the ones we use are designed for this kind of stuff. Owner has em' at another carnival he owns. Bright as hell. Problem is, the colors don't look right because they are so bright. So, I'm sticking with these because they look better. Well, I gotta get back to work before we close. Nice talking to you"

...And he vanished as quickly as he appeared. I didn't ask what the can of gas was for.

 

[kingofwylietx]

He sounds much more dedicated and dignified than the guys that maintain a lot of the carnivals I have seen around here. It is common for a lot of bulbs to be burned out, good for him.

 

[donn_]

The gas was probably for the generator.

Great photo! :twothumbs

 

[lyyyghtmaster]

I agree, if you're going for a more period look, the LED bulbs just aren't good at that yet. Until we start making them with several similar colors run at different levels to mimic the wider spectra of filtered incans, LEDs will always look too intense by comparison. That's fine for some apps and even is superior for others, but is not always what the lighting designer has in mind. For example in an LED Christmas light string the blues are usually way too bright compared to the dim red and yellow; orange (or amber) is a better level, and green is just about right. Also the blue especially is too monochromatic to mimic incan; not enough deeper and shallower blue, cyan, and perhaps green in it. Very few small dyed incan bulbs delve very deep into the blue anyway, because you wouldn't get much out. Now if you have the ability to separately control RGB or RAGB channels that's fine, but this would likely be too expensive for a lower- to mid-budget carnival, what with the probably hundreds of thousands of bulbs they use! Although you could reduce the bulb count, you would lose resolution. So we're pretty much stuck with fixed-color LED bulbs if any LEDs at all (even those are still pricey!).

Why not make a blue LED bulb that has 60% of its spectral power at 475nm, 20% at 455nm, and 20% at 495nm? That would probably make for a pretty decent approximation of an incan blue! And make it low enough powered (or the red and yellow high enough powered) that the blue doesn't drown them out!
:crazy::mad::ironic::green::crackup:;):shakehead:(