Introduction
Projector & daylight? Yes, you have read perfectly!
There was a time when projectors were mainly designed to serve you in darkness, but the latest technological advancement in the projector industry has crushed a projector’s stereotypical image. Here we will discuss them briefly, particularly in regards to what a lumen is? Why are all lumens not created equal? Also, how one can hack a little bit more brightness out of your projector without increasing the lumen.
If you are buying a projector for the first time in your life, before jumping to lumen quantity, give yourself a few minutes to understand what a lumen is!
What Is A Lumen?
A lumen is a measure of brightness coming from a light source. You can take the example of a sun, bulb, projector, or a flashlight, or anything that produces light will have a lumen rating. When it comes to a projector, not all lumens are created equal. There two main types of lumens that are measured for projectors. These are as follows.
- White Lumens
- Color Lumens
While going out in the market, many projector companies will market white lumen from the projector—however, it’s equally important to look at the color lumens. If you don’t have a good color lumen rating, you won’t see the colors as bright or as vivid, and it won’t look as good compared to the projector that comes with a high color lumen rating.
Pro Tip: When you compare your projector, make sure to have an equal white lumen rating to your color lumen rating.
How Many Lumens Do You Need For Your Event?
Here the number of lumens count on the type of events! Here we will unleash three different kinds of events. However, the two of them are kind of similar.
- Outdoor events
- Indoor events with high amount of ambient light ( wedding halls )
- Indoor controlled environment (conference halls or just any room without ambient light )
5000 Lumen Projector
- If you are looking for a projector to cover your outdoor projection needs, we recommend you go for 5000-lumen projectors for an outdoor projection screen up to eight feet wide.
- That will get you a projected image onto a screen about an hour before sunset. But if you are trying to project an image onto a screen an hour before sunset, we would highly recommend that you consider either renting a TV for your event or using an LED video wall.
- Outdoor projection is pretty much a no-go for any event during the daytime. But this 5000 Lumen projector will get you a good image on the screen about an hour before the sunset.
- So if you are doing an outdoor movie night, this will get you an hour more video time than a 3000-lumen projector.
3000 Lumen Projector
- 3000 Lumen projector will work great on an eight-feet widescreen. That is super popular on weddings & backyard movie nights.
- If you plan to have an event after the sunset or somewhere where there is less ambient light, you don’t need to spend additional bucks on a 5000 Lumen projector. You can better work with having a 3000-lumen projector.
6000 Lumen Projector.
- In a controlled environment like a conference room, you can get a 6000-lumen projector up to 16 feet wide if you can control the light down to a dinner level setting.
- If you can use stage lights to make your stage bright and you can keep the room quite dark, you can save a lot of money on projection.
Hacks To Maintain Brightness On Your Projector
Here we will be sharing some handy hacks that you can apply to maximize brightness even having less lumen rating in your projector.
Use High Contrast Image
If you are doing an outdoor movie night or something related to an outdoor event, an animated film or animated images will show up much earlier than a real-life film where faces and real camera work are being used.
Use A Short Throw Lens
Another hack to help save you the number of lumens you need for your projector is the short-throw lens. If you can shorten the distance between the projector and the screen, it means that there is less light interference going between the beam of the projector and the screen.
Wrap Up
We hope that our recommendation as per the event requirement would help you pick the suitable lumen rating for your next projector. Always remember that if your need is smaller, then paying extra bucks for extra lumen is nothing but a waste of money. If you have any other tips or recommendations for types of projectors to use in various Venuses, we would love to hear from you.
