Okay, so here's the deal.

Hello everyone, I'm really hoping you can help me. I'm an independant filmaker who is looking to have a laser gun effect done with practical special effects. Laser pointers (green ones to be exact) seemed the most logical choice. But I don't know jack about them. So if you would be so kind as to point me in the directio of my needs, I'd be eterenally grateful.

I need a green laser pointer/torch (I don't know the difference) that has the following capabilities:

Instant balloon popping
combustion of steel wool
combustion of black gun powder
highly visible beam (Even during the day)

And as is usually the case, I need the cheapest option possible.

I was wondering if these would do, would they?

DealExtreme: $20.90 True 50mW Green Laser Pointer Pen Black

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First of all..... that is not much of a deal.....:thinking:

Why would you need to pop a balloon or burn Steel Wool in a Film...

You will need quite a substantial more power than a 50mW 532nm
green laser to see it (highly visible) in the day outdoors...
Indoors... on the other hand you could use a beam enhancer (fog
machine smoke for example)...


BTW... Welcome to the Forum...

Don't forget to read the Newcomers section and the Forum Rules..


Jerry

Welcome to the forum.
Most of this information you can find by reading old threads, but I will try to point you in the right direction anyway.
You are looking for quite a high power unit here - if you want the combustion of black gun powder and steel wool to be fast and possible at a distance, you will need about 500mW at least.. otherwise we are talking close-up burning. This will be extremely costly.
A highly visible beam during the day and close-up ignition of gun powder can be done with about 200mW and some smoke. Even a several W unit will not have a highly visible beam outside on a bright day without a lot of particles in the air, and even then it will only be somewhat visible.. a smoke machine is your best, cheap bet for providing air particles to visualise the beam, but it will mostly work indoors.
As you can hear you are looking at a lot of money here.

Seb

I'm sorry, to combust steel wool and black powder, you need way higher powers than 50mW, and it should be focusable for best result. I don't think any green laser has a very visible beam in daylight, except with very much smoke/fog.
One of these is probably your best bet, the 250mW should be able to to the burning stuff, but as said, the beam will not be visible in direct sunlight:
www.0-like.com--product

EDIT: I was too late :/

At what range do you need to ignite gunpower or steel wool?

It can be done with limited power (at least the gunpowder, steel wool i have never seen done), as long as you can focus the laser to its smallest 'dot size'.

If you need to do it from several meters away or with a constant beam width, you will need a heck of a lot of power. The 250 mW green might be able to do it since it has a fairly narrow beam to start with, but dont count on setting off black powder across a room with that either.

think Hollywood- fake it---hide an igniter inside the steel wool &gunpwder and make it look like the laser did it-same with the balloon. You can make the beam more visable in several ways- the angle of view makes a big difference and something in the air will be very important look at this:scroll to post #6 from Good ole Dave: http://laserpointerforums.com/f52/200mw-silver-pen-greenie-focalprice-38-65-a-43336.html--this was done without a fog machine which would be too obviouse and the angle he took the photo shows is much better than others would. good luck-Hak...nm<(*U*)>mn.... PS we wont tell anybody that you had to fake it--promise...<(*v*)>...

^^^^^
That is a lot less expensive...
and more sure-fire..


Jerry

Well, thank you all for the advice. To be honest, I wasn't expecting a miracle. At the moment, I'm thinking a cheaper unit and squibs are the answer. So that bumps down my needs considerably. I would say that 90% of the script I'm considering would involve night shots when using the laser. So all I need is a visible beam that would read convincingly as a weapon. Will the fifteen dollar job do for that?

Unless you've got a lot of fog around, you'll need to enhance the beam effect on film. the beam will be visible with just about any higher-powered portable green laser (50-400mW), but without some fog in the air it will seem pretty unimpressive to a camera.

Agreed.

Something with a momentary switch might appear more convincing as a weapon, otherwise the thing may just appear clumsy as a weapon. You might also look into focusable greens. They are not terrible common, but I think rayfoss may have one.... an expanding beam might look pretty neat as a weapon.