An outdoor movie projector is an amazing way of enjoying your outdoor space. But with daylight and background of different colors, the question remains how many lumens does an outdoor projector need? That means how many lumens a projector should have to project in daylight or when the sun is still shining. As a minimum requirement of lumens for outdoor projector, it should have 2500 lumens or lux to project properly. The said requirement will be helpful in making your projector lamp brightness visible. As a result, the image will not look washed out or too faint even in the broad daylight. However, for rooms full of ambient light, you need 3000 lumens and more than that. But 2500 lumens is a good number as far as the outdoor projector is concerned.
Things to Remember
Projecting in daylight requires many things in addition to lumens. Angles, shade, or trap present all are necessary for a visible image. All these things stop the sun from disturbing your projection. Without which, your projector needs 12000 lumens or lux of brightness in order to make your image visible. No projector is capable of such as the huge amount of lumen of lux. The following things must be kept in mind in order to make your projector visible even with 2500 lux of brightness:
1: High Lumens for Outdoor Projectors
The spec of 2500 lumens is good to go but a starting point. For outdoor projection at a backyard movie night or a parking lot theatre, getting a brighter projector is the best. Even when you are projecting at night, it is perfect to have a brighter projector because everywhere is ambient light, from porch lights to sunlight. However, if your projector only has lumens in hundreds not thousands, the better place to project is a theatre or a dark room instead of outdoors. Although brightness is not equal to contrast, watching out for contrast ratio is also required. Brightness is just a part of the outdoor projection.
2: The More Lumens, The Better
The projector that has more lumens does win. This is a thumb rule. Brightness is one of many considerations that you think of while buying your device. The projector you buy must feature at least 2500 lumens. Even then it can be attributed as an “outdoor projector.” Everything above this threshold is a blessing for a sharp and visible image. As a standard, you should buy a product that has lux numbering in thousands. Outdoor projector lumens below this will not be worthy if you want to play outdoor.
3: Projecting in Daylight, the Higher Wins
Give attention to your projector lux or lumens. As a minimum, start at around 3000 to 4000 lumens and there is no limit to where it should go to project your TV shows, live streaming Internet programs, Blu-Ray discs of movies, or DVD. Moreover, what else it works with are Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime. For better results, the higher, the better especially for 4K. In addition, backyard parties in the evening or afternoon require a projector that should have 5500 lumens at least for better imaging. The same is the deal at high noon. It is good to find a shade to abate whatnot and sun glare.
4: The Perfect Outdoors
With 2500 to 3000 lumens, a projector can work well in brighter rooms without turning the lights out. But for a backyard barbecue and a movie marathon of the “Avengers” franchise, you need more than that to ensure the sharpness and vivacity of the image. Without it, the image would be hard to visualize. Ambient light robs or lessens the light of projectors with fewer lux. Weaker lights or fewer lumens for outdoor projector work well in darker shadows. A projector with 3000 lumens or lux would be sufficient to project in front of a large audience in a large area.
5: Daylight Projection is a Large Area
As it has already been said that more brightness is a prerequisite for a sharper image when push does come to shove. Furthermore, the extra brightness of the projector is useful especially when you project on a theatre-sized screen. It is a fact that the more an image blows up, the fainter it becomes. As a result, what you need are 4000 lumens to deal with dozens and even hundreds of guests in your backyard. A projector under 500 dollars has more lumens to ensure sharpness of the image. The same is the deal when your project is in a convention or warehouse that is spacious and bright all around. This amount of lux or lumens ensures the image remains as visible and sharp as it is on a TV screen. So as a simple fact, more lumens are required if you want to play in a large area.
6: Bright Backyards vs. Dark Cinema Rooms
The question arises what is the difference between an outdoor projector and an indoor projector. The simple answer to this question is brightness as was mentioned above. For an indoor projector, the number of lumens is 1000 at the minimum to work in a home entertainment hub or room with curtains or blinds drawn. Not only this, a projector featuring hundreds of lumens can be functional in pitch darkness if it has an extra-reflective screen. But when it comes to outdoor projector lumens, the “The brighter, the better,” principle is what you need in your projector very much like TV sets. Most modern projectors come with higher brightness requirements that couple with their bigger resolutions.
7: Requirements of a High-Resolution Projector
The higher resolution demands higher brightness of the projector. Because lack of either can lose the highlight, detail, and quality of the image. Even in a pitch dark theatre or room with curtains drawn, you need 1000 lumens of brightness at the minimum. These are necessary to see every pixel of an HD projector. The high resolutions and brightness are required to meet the crystal-clear clarity pledge of these devices especially the Ultra HD 4K projectors.
Closing Words
So, lumens for outdoor projector should stand at 2500 at least. Lack of which will make it hard to see the image. For better imaging, you need more lumens or lux because daylight bars the clarity of the image.
