Rosco Announces Wedding Gobo Design Website

On what is typically the most romantic day of the year and when most people pop the big question, Rosco announces their brand new Wedding Gobo Design Website.  Perfect planning guys! ;)

Rosco Labs has created a website that allows the “Bridezilla” to design her own custom gobo to project what ever she wants from selections of fonts, wedding themed graphics and borders.  Typically this would have been done either by a dealer or the manufacturer themselves.  Now, the bride to be can visually lay it out, try different things all right from her computer.

After they are done creating the gobo of their dreams for their dream wedding, click create my final design PDF and Rosco walks them through the steps to complete the order with an authorized Rosco dealer and BAM, their name is up in light!

Check out Rosco’s new Wedding Gobo Design Website at www.rosco.com.

Rosco Introduces LitePad Axiom and LitePad HO+

Last week, Rosco Labs introduced the newest member to the LitePad family, the LitePad Axiom.  Back at LDI 2010, you got a sneak peak of the Axiom from Chad Tiller giving a quick run through of the 100 years of Rosco.  In the video, Chad mentioned some of the latest products that Rosco is preparing to announce and one of them is The LitePad Axiom.

The LitePad Axiom has a steel and aluminum housing is designed not only to protect the light source, but to make a variety of mounting solutions quick and easy. The back of the housing has a universal mounting system allowing the LitePad Axiom to be affixed with brackets to C-Stands or mounted with Velcro, rubber bands or other conventional methods. The housing includes a gel slot for adding Roscolux or Cinegel color or diffusion.

An interior connection in the LitePad unit assures secure electrical connection. The slim profile, low heat and power consumption and outstanding quality of light make LitePad Axiom an excellent choice for professionals everywhere.

The new Axiom also features two color temperatures, daylight (approx. 5800K) and tungsten (approx. 3800K). With tungsten and daylight LitePads, which have equal light output, there is no need to color correct your LitePad, losing valuable light intensity. LitePad’s minimum green content allows for high color rendering and great film and digital photography.

LITEPAD HO+

LitePad HO+ looks and performs similar to the current LitePad HO fixtures. HO+ continues to allow photographers and filmmakers to hide, tape, Velcro and rubber band LitePads in the areas they need that extra kiss of soft, indirect light. The upgraded differences between LitePad HO and Litepad HO+ are: LED’s on ALL edges, interior connector and the number one requested upgrade – now available in Daylight or Tungsten balanced units.

Except for the larger 12″x12″ & 24″x24″ units, most of the original LitePads only had LED’s on two edges. LitePad HO+ fixtures have LED’s on all four edges no matter what the size. This change becomes particularly significant for the 6″x6″ and 6″x12″ sizes. Those two units had the same number of LED’s as their thinner 3″x6″ and 3″x12″ counterparts; meaning that even though they were larger they didn’t generate significantly more light, they just illuminated more surface area of the unit. Now that these two HO+ units have LED’s on all four edges – they are noticeably brighter and much more useful. In my opinion – the 6″x6″ unit is the perfect light choice to mount directly to smaller cameras and the 6″x12″ Axiom just became the most efficient and useful unit of the range.

To learn more about the LitePad Axiom and the LitePad HO+, visit Rosco’s web site at www.rosco.com.

Rosco Improves DMX Iris

A long LONG time ago at LDI last year, I got a sneak peak at what Rosco Labs was up to in the labs.  Rosco recently announced their new DMX Iris.  Since then, Rosco went back to the drawling board and made a couple of changes and improvements to the DMX Iris.

The New design still features some of the unique and original ideas and functions found on the first revision of the DMX Iris, such as the 24 leaf design for cleaner apertures, the integrated power supply, reversible values, test button, manual operation knob and the Friction Lock & Plunger.

The new design went away from turn pots for DMX addressing.  If you have ever used turn pots to address a fixture, you know how hard it can be and also how quickly you can strip the pot.  Rosco changed the original design from turn pots to a digital display for addressing. Now the DMX Iris has four push buttons to address the Iris, and to change modes and setup of the Iris.  Since the DMX Iris now features a digital addressing system, Rosco added in another channel of control for speed control of the Iris.

Another neat feature is the LED Dim switch next to the DMX Address buttons.  You can change the brightness of the DMX address LEDs.  But can you turn them off, we’ll have to see.

For more information and pricing on the Rosco DMX Iris, visit www.rosco.com or contact your local Rosco Dealer.

Friday Flickr Lighting Porn – Matt DeLong

This weeks randomly selected Friday Flickr Lighting Porn comes from Matt DeLong, a Lighting Designer and Product Manager for Rosco Labs. This is a photo from the production of Hair at the Warner Theatre in Torrington, CT.  What is interesting in this photo and production is the use of the Rosco X24 X-Effects Projector on the cyc to produce movement and trippy texture that is almost always associated with the time frame of Hair and the 70’s. Excellent use of your own product Matt! ;)

Want to see your lighting design work featured here on iSquint?  Add your photos to the iSquint Friday Flickr Lighting Porn Group.  Each Friday a photo is randomly selected from the group and featured here on iSquint.

Review: Rosco Strobist Gel Collection

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about an interesting product from Rosco Labs, the Rosco Strobist Collection Kit. While this does not have to do directly with Entertainment lighting, it is still worth a mention as a designer we must document our work for our records and our portfolio. Rosco Labs was kind enough to send me a sample of the Strobist Kit to test out the color corrections and write a review here on iSquint.

First, let’s hear what Rosco has to say about the Strobist Collection:

Rosco, the worldwide leader in color filters has assembled the essential collection of filters for use with your on-board flash. Rosco has been manufacturing color filters since 1910 and our Cinegel range of color filters has earned two Academy Awards™. Working with David Hobby, the founder of www.strobist.com, The Strobist Collection contains the Cinegel filters photographers need, properly sized (1.5″ x 3.25″) to fit most shoe-mount strobes. There are 20 different colors inside with multiple pieces of each color for a total of 55 pieces of filter.

So what comes in the Rosco Strobist Kit.  Think of the kit as a normal swatch book with only the colors that you might need to correct colors of a photo with the use of a flash. The size of the cuts of gel are the same exact size from the normal Rosco gel swatch book, minus the hole from the pin. The cuts of gel are already the perfect size to place in front of most standard shoe mounted strobes.  While there is no specific way to attach the gel to the front of your strobe, using tape will work just fine.  In my case, I used a flash hood not only to help diffuse and soften the flash, but to hold the gel cuts in front of our strobe. The cuts of gel were a little larger then the size of my flash hood, but the gel easily flexed a little inside the flash hood while still giving me the same effect.

My camera of choice is my Nikon D80 and Nikkor DX 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G lens with a Nikon SB 28DX Flash. Each of my review photos was taken at a distance of 2.5′ with an ISO 200, F 5.3, and a speed of 1/60 so that each photo was consistently the same except for adding of the gel. Have to be some what scientific about this testing!

From the gallery of images below, you can get an idea of what the Strobist Gel kit has to offer to change the look and color of the scene you are trying to capture. Most if not all of these color corrections can certainly happen in post production, but it is always better to do less in post and frame and correct the shot before hand.

Is the Rosco Strobist Gel Kit worth the $9.95 it cost to color correct your images while on location?  I am going to leave that question for you to answer.  For me, the Strobist Kit will be a nice addition to my camera bag.

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Rosco Introduces 12 New E-Color Gels

LDI brought some great an wonderful new technologies to life.  Leave it to Rosco to continue expanding on something that everything lighting person uses almost daily, the gel.  You may not know what Rosco’s E-color is, here is what Rosco says:

E-Colour is Rosco’s comprehensive system of European color filters for film and video production. E-Colour includes different filters and materials for color correction, color effects, diffusion and reflection. They’re manufactured with the latest dye formulations and bonding technology to assure the highest levels of reliability and performance.

The 12 new E-colors Rosco introduced are:

• 5084 – Damson Violet
• 5085 – French Lilac
• 5211 – Ice Blue
• 5264 – Venetian Blue
• 5287 – Fuji Blue
• 5336 – Wisteria
• 5454 – Olympia Green
• 5455 – Tarragon
• 5461 – Grotto Green
• 5463 – Prussian Green
• 5202 – Max Blue

To learn more about Rosco’s E-Color line up of gels and specifically the new gels they just released, visit Rosco’s website at www.rosco.com.

An Industry That Listens: Rosco Strobist Collection

We received an interesting email from Rosco Labs marketing department about a new gel kit that they have put together called The Rosco Strobist Collection. The Rosco Strobist Collection is an assortment of standard gel colors and correction gels that photographers and lighting professionals use on a regular bases.  What is unique about the Rosco Strobist Collection is that the gels are cut to fit in front of standard photography flashes to help correct the flashes color temperature to the light source.

What makes this product stand out is the fact that a photographer, David Hobby, who runs a blog called www.strobist.com wrote an article about how to contact Rosco Labs to obtain a free gel swatch book and yank out the color corrections that a photographer may need in order to correct the color temperature of their flash.  Rosco labs was overwhelmed with request from readers of the strobist.com for free swatch books.  From there, Rosco Labs and David Hobby worked together to create the Strobist Collection of gels.  You can read about how David and Rosco worked together to create the collection at www.strobist.com.

What we find interesting about this product is how an individual found a unique use of a current product and how the manufacture listened to what the community was using it to develop a new product based on the end users requirements.  It just proves that manufacturers listen to what we have to say and how we can work together to make are lives easier.

The Rosco Strobist Collection of gels is a package of 55 different gel colors with varies shades and colors.  With a retail price of only $9.95, the Rosco Strobist Collection is a good investment for photographers.  For more information on the Rosco Strobist Collection or to locate a Rosco dealer near you, visit www.rosco.com.

Rosco Labs iGobo iPhone App Available on iTunes

We just got word via twitter that @Rosco_Labs announced the availability of their new iPhone and iPod Touch Gobo app, iGobo via the iTunes App Store (iTunes Link).

At just under 43mb, the iGobo pack over 2300 images of select steel, glass, iPro and effects gobos available from Rosco Labs.

Similar to other iPhone gobo apps out there, you can search and compare gobo’s in both black & white or color.  Additionally, you can rotate or spin gobos with the flick of your finger to see what sort of effect it will produce on stage. The library of gobo’s are broken down into categories for easy browsing and is similar to the view experience at www.rosco.com.

Visit the iTunes App Store to download your FREE copy of Rosco’s iGobo app.

New Gobo iPhone App On It’s Way

We heard from a reliable source the other day that Rosco Labs is in the works to release a new Gobo iPhone App of their entire Gobo catalog!

We just found confirmation of this on the Rosco website, www.rosco.com.  While details of the app are still missing in action, it is clear from the rotating image from the Rosco web page suggest that it is easily navigated to find a genre of gobos.

Visit the promotional page for the app to sign up to receive your FREE copy of the app for both the iPod touch and iPhone.

http://www.rosco.com/promotions/goboapp/

Tuesday Twitter Trivia – Another Roscolux 6×3 Swatch Book

It’s Tuesday Twitter Trivia Time!  This week brings us yet another Roscolux 3″ x 6″ swatch book.  The larger Roscolux swatch book is a great addition to any lighting professionals toolbox as it offers a larger surface area then the standard swatch books to test color mixing.

The rules are simple.

1. You must follow us on twitter
2. send your answer via Direct Message via twitter to @isquint
3. We will not accept reply messages via twitter, also, not a good idea, everyone will see it!
4. Have your answer in by 5pm EDT
5. First correct answer wins
6. Only open to US residents

Simple enough right?  So this weeks question is….

How many gel does Rosco manufacture?

Tuesday Twitter Trivia – We Have a Winner

With over 30 responses, the first one with the correct answer was @afgld! He had the correct answers in by 9am yesterday, just an hour after the Tuesday Twitter Trivia was posted. @afgld wins the Roscolux 6″x3″ gel swatch book furnished by, Rosco.

The correct answer is:

• R381 – Baldassari Blue
• R302 – Pale Bastard Amber
• R325 – Henna Sky

Thank you everyone for playing and look for another exciting Tuesday Twitter Trivia next week.

Tuesday Twitter Trivia – Roscolux Gel Swatch Book

Today we start the first Tuesday Twitter Trivia.  This week we have a very generous offering from Rosco US, a RoscoLux 6″ x3″ gel swatch book to give away (pictured left).  Once a winner has been selected, we will contact them and then announced here on iSquint and Twitter.

The 6″x3″ gel swatch book is great for testing color mixing with a larger source then the standard gel swatch book.  It is a handy tool for lighting designers, students and professionals to have in their lighting tool box.

The rules are simple.

1. You must follow us on twitter
2. send your answer via Direct Message via twitter to @isquint
3. We will not accept reply messages via twitter, also, not a good idea, everyone will see it! ;)
4. Have your answer in by 5pm EDT
5. First correct answer wins
6. Only open to US residents

Simple enough right?  So this weeks question is….

What are the 3 newest colors added to the Roscolux gel swatch book?

Please give the Roscolux number and name of the gels. Thanks and good luck!