winny
Flashlight Enthusiast
After my Advent candlestick-experiment in my apartment in Gothenburg, I went home to my parents house for Christmas. While they where gone, me and a fiend of mine planned for something fun in the same spirit. 
In Sweden, people don't often use colored lamps in Christmas trees and other decorations as it seems to be the case the the US. Way too little colors here for our taste we thought and started thinking about what could be done. As we both are into concerts, we have just about everything you need in sound and light to pull of a concert, we had some equipment to back this experiment up with.
As you probably could guess, I'm the light-guy in the group so I had the garage full of PAR64 cans and color filters. Several dimmers and a light desk stood there too. Hmm, what do do?
Well, a ladder, my parents outdoor furniture, lots of extension cables and two hours later, their backyard looked like this:
Supersize picture
Look from behind:
Supersize picture
Dimmer and light desk:
Supersize picture
By now, you probably get the big picture here.
We aimed the cans at the forest behind their house so that all neighbors could get their share of Christmas colors too. While doing so, my friend came up with the brilliant idea to run the two Christmas threes outside on a dimmer channel as well. Some more extension cable to the front of the house and it was done too.
We did a small program/chase with random changes and levels and set it for four second change and as smooth transitions as possible. The result was quite impressive.
The pictures are quite bad. I ran the camera at maximum ISO-setting (320) and it still required one second exposure time so the images are sometimes quite blurry. The video is horrible, but you get the idea from it.
View from the backyard:
Supersize picture
The lamps:
Supersize picture
From the front:
Supersize picture
I wish I had more fun colors, like lilac and orange, but I'll get some more for next year.
Oh, and the neighbors did enjoy it.
In Sweden, people don't often use colored lamps in Christmas trees and other decorations as it seems to be the case the the US. Way too little colors here for our taste we thought and started thinking about what could be done. As we both are into concerts, we have just about everything you need in sound and light to pull of a concert, we had some equipment to back this experiment up with.
As you probably could guess, I'm the light-guy in the group so I had the garage full of PAR64 cans and color filters. Several dimmers and a light desk stood there too. Hmm, what do do?
Well, a ladder, my parents outdoor furniture, lots of extension cables and two hours later, their backyard looked like this:
Supersize picture
Look from behind:
Supersize picture
Dimmer and light desk:
Supersize picture
By now, you probably get the big picture here.
We aimed the cans at the forest behind their house so that all neighbors could get their share of Christmas colors too. While doing so, my friend came up with the brilliant idea to run the two Christmas threes outside on a dimmer channel as well. Some more extension cable to the front of the house and it was done too.
We did a small program/chase with random changes and levels and set it for four second change and as smooth transitions as possible. The result was quite impressive.
The pictures are quite bad. I ran the camera at maximum ISO-setting (320) and it still required one second exposure time so the images are sometimes quite blurry. The video is horrible, but you get the idea from it.
View from the backyard:
Supersize picture
The lamps:
Supersize picture
From the front:
Supersize picture
I wish I had more fun colors, like lilac and orange, but I'll get some more for next year.
Oh, and the neighbors did enjoy it.
