How to Increase Luminosity for a Pocket Projector | Bizfluent

How to Increase Luminosity for a Pocket Projector

How to Increase Luminosity for a Pocket Projector
Written By
Steve Lander
Steve Lander
Jan 8, 2013
2 minute read

Pocket projectors make it practical for you to have a projector with you wherever you go. They're small, light and inexpensive. However, they also have significantly less light output than traditional business projectors. With this in mind, getting an acceptable image for even the simplest business presentation requires you to pay careful attention to the way you use the projector and how it interacts with the room and the projection surface. Given the limited luminosity of the LED light sources in most pico pocket projectors, you'll need to maximize everything they can give you.

Plug your projector into the wall or into an auxiliary battery pack. Some projectors won't output their full brightness when they're running off of their internal batteries.

Aim the projector at as white a surface as possible. If the projection surface is anything other than perfectly white, it will absorb some of the projector's light output, robbing you of luminosity. Full-sized projectors have enough light output to not only let you project on a colored wall but also lose more light in the process of compensating for the wall's tint, but pocket projectors don't have that much leeway.

Move the pocket projector closer to the screen, thereby shrinking the projected image and reducing the degree to which its luminosity gets spread out, increasing the perceived brightness of the image. While many traditional projectors can easily project a 100-inch image, pocket projectors can rarely project an acceptable image that's much larger than 40 inches. Start with a monitor-sized image and gradually increase the size from there.

Use your pocket projector's menu system to select its maximum light output mode. The projector might call it a Bright mode, or it might require you to exit the Eco mode. Doing this ensures that you get the projector to output as much of its theoretical maximum luminosity as possible. The drawback to using these modes are that the projector's built-in battery will deplete more quickly, the fan may make more noise, and the light source may burn out more quickly.

Steve Lander

Steve Lander has been a writer since 1996, with experience in the fields of financial services, real estate and technology. His work has appeared in trade publications such as the "Minnesota Real Estate Journal" and "Minnesota…

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