Just wondering if I am odd in running my first PJ with zoom at ~1.18 out of 1.20?(basically about all the way up)
I'm guessing that I'm losing some sharpness and maybe some color saturation, but not sure......

Hi E-A-G-L-E-S,

Actually you're near minimum zoom. Maximum zoom is when you throw the biggest image possible for a given throw distance.

With most PJs, due to the nature of the optics, you get higher contrast but lower brightness at minimum zoom (i.e. PJ far away - smaller picture), and lower contrast but higher brightness at maximum zoom (PJ closer - larger picture). Whether or not this difference is meaningful depends on your sensitivity, your viewing environment, and the PJ.

I believe other things such as chromatic aberration (which I guess could impact sharpness or perceived sharpness) are also impacted by throw distance, with max zoom being worse than min zoom (I'm pretty sure at least).

Wouldn't he be at maximum zoom?

P.S. These limited zoom ranges of cheaper DLPs annoy me. :p

Yup, I have it close with as large an image as it can project.
So I'm losing contrast and gaining brightness by going as big as possible....

You have a DLP right?

yes....Mitsubishi HC1500 720P DLP PJ.

would this mean that short throw projectors suffer neither of these issues if they are mounted closer and at minimum zoom?

I just upgraded to a 106" Da-Lite VS 1.5 from a 92" 1.0 Matte White last night. In the process of doing so, I had to re-mount my projector approx. 6" back (the maximum I could go due to wall behind projector) in order to throw 106" at FULL ZOOM.

Setup:
106" Screen
HD70 mounted at 12' 4" (1.18x Zoom)


Sounds like you and I are in very similar boats. However, After re-calibrating last night, I am very pleased with the image quality, even with such large zoom margin.

I have mine almost as close as possible to the screen. I think it does make it a little harder to achieve razor sharp focus, but overall I think it still looks very good!

would this mean that short throw projectors suffer neither of these issues if they are mounted closer and at minimum zoom?

Now that's a good question, my 'guess' is that is right. Hopefully someone else will chime in that knows.