Thread: Lighting help needed now...

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Hi again, all -
Once again, this first-time haunter needs some help, and can't find exactly what he needs via the "search". I apologize again if this topic has been done in detail before, as I am sure it has - if anyone knows where a good thread is buried, please direct me to it!
I am unsure as to what sort of lights I need to illuminate my outdoor haunt. I will have a fairly concentrated area in the backyard, and want only a few colored spots of fairly low wattage, as they will be set up close to the figures & props. I can run extension cords into the house & hide them, so cords are not a deal-breaker, but am also wondering if there are lights available that run on batteries or other independent power sources.
I've looked on Home Depot's site (I will get to the store tomorrow), and spoke to a coworker who is knowledgeable in these things, and am more confused than ever. So many lights seem to need adapters, and seem to not be compatible with the colored bulbs I've seen on ebay. So... what small spotlights do YOU use in your small haunt?
As always, thanks in advance for your patience!

I use five or six 50W blue floods for the ambient lighting. You need more of them since they're not as bright as a 100W flood, but they give me more versatility as to where I can position them. It's not always practical to have one or two ambient light sources.
For individual props, I use small LED spotlights of various colors (blue, green, amber) that use 9 volt batteries. For a good haunt lighting tutorial, look here:
www.skullandbone.com

Thanks, Otaku - those little 9-volts look good, and are small enough to fit in a pumpkin! I did read the Skull & Bone tutorial, and it was very helpful.
Does anyone use a regular spotlight tinted with a filter or a colored gel? How are those, or is a haunter better off getting a colored bulb?

Here's a pic of the spotlight. It uses 2-3 ultrabright LEDs with the appropriate resistor. The holder is made from 10 ga. solid copper insulated wire. The tube is 1" OD from Home Depot, ~ 4" long. I got the pipe caps at HD, too.

Another route that's gaining more & more popularity is the LED MiniSpots. I first this "look" after viewing the photo galleries at the Davis Graveyard. This is definitely the route I'm going this year (no this is not an infomercial!... lol).

http://www.davisgraveyard.com/slides...%20Tombstones/
(Scroll in a couple of pages to the night shots of the tombstones!)

Commercial options for mini LED spotlights:

www.minispots.com
http://www.shop.minispotlight.com/ca...c?categoryId=3

and some DIY options:

Plug and Play LED Lighting (I'm going this route!)
http://www.toykeeperslair.com/PDF/LEDSpotlights.pdf
http://haunttheyard.blogspot.com/2009/08/led-spots.html
http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=20809

Now on the other hand... I fully aggree that Skullandbone is an excellent tutorial for more traditional cemetery lighting. I needed something to "creep-up" the front of my townhouse. So I placed a standard blue flood in a fixture at the bottom of the front of my house. This is then aimed upward through the exposed branches of a rotodendrun bush producing super creepy tree shadows on my house! It's amazing how much a single light can add to a scene!

Good luck!

PS. I know it's hard to do... but keep it simple!!!!

Here's a great how-to for making them with 10mm blue LEDs:

http://haunttheyard.blogspot.com/2009/08/led-spots.html

Wolfman Joe, two things are absolutely neccesary for awesome lighting. Time and Money. I wanted to have a kick-axe lighting set upfor our cemetary last year. But I didn't leave myself enough time to do it properly. The only time you can really see it is...at night! So don't do what I did last year - turn everything on the night of the 30th, get disappointed and say, "better luck next year".

Welcome to the Forum,BTW!