From stage production to shop window, salesroom to trade fair stand – certain lighting applications require special effects. Help in these instances is provided by special luminaire attachments for directing or colouring light or projecting patterns onto illuminated objects. They are inserted into or mounted in front of the light emission aperture of a spot.

Attachments are available for a wide range of tasks and functions. They include:

• anti-glare attachments for containing scattered light and shielding the face of the luminaire
• lenses for use in combination with specular reflector elements
• barrier and colour filters
• absorbers for IR and UV radiation.
  
  

Lenses focus light

Lenses are used to change beam characteristics. The most widely used lenses are diffusers, flood lenses and sculpting lenses. Stepped (Fresnel) lenses make different, adjustable beams possible.

Help in positioning lenses is provided by focusing aids, which can make for a tighter, more focused beam, for example, or sharpen the edges of projections.

Colour filters for new colorations

Coloured light can be provided by special colour filters. These are discs of highly heat resistant body-tinted glass or plastic. As a rule, filter magazines are used to accommodate several colour filters. Today, colour filters have mostly been replaced by LEDs or fluorescent lamps offering RGB-mixed colours.

Safelight filters = less radiation

Like natural daylight, artificial light sources emit ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) rays. Depending on the colour stability of the objects spotlighted, this can result in considerable damage. Light and UV-A rays can cause fabrics to fade, for example, and infrared radiation can dry out, discolour or deform heat-sensitive materials.

The only effective shielding from UV or infrared radiation is provided by barrier filters or absorbers. Combined UV/IR barrier filters address both tasks.