What characterized Prolight + Sound 2016 with regards to lighting was not the introduction of new concepts, but rather an improvement of what has been produced in recent years. These changes have been implemented mainly by upgrading the quality of the source and the lenses, chasing a high CRI and by paying increasingly close attention to the television industry, working on important factors such as weight and size and additional features that aim to improve the product.
An example of this comes from the small Italian company SM International, with the first public appearance of DeLight, characterized by a “Solid State” zoom that avoids the use of a mechanical zoom. This is replaced with a system that significantly reduces the weight of the fixture. Achieved by variation of the electrical wave frequency, it determines the angle of reflection on the layer of film placed between the source and the lens, creating a zoom effect. The fixture features a COB LED 3in1 RGB full colour light source, or alternatively there are warm white and cool white versions, with temperature from 3000K to 6000K, 4in1 RGBW and 4in1 RBBG with CRI> 95. Another special symbol of the ingenuity that comes from the “Made in Italy” badge, is the assembly system that allows you to connect mutiple bars to one another in an array or matrix configuration, and with variable curvature.
Keeping in the LED Bar arena, Clay Paky has introduced SharBar, a motorized LED bar capable of creating original multi-beam effects. The bar is composed of six 30W Osram Ostar RGBW LEDs, with an independent optical unit associated with each LED. Thanks to the special motorized double mirror system, each beam of light can be manoeuvred independently from one another within a range of 60° (+/- 30°), creating an effect similar to that of 6 separate beam projectors working synchronously or asynchronously.
Robe has presented a motorized LED bar with infinite pan/tilt and five 30W multichip RGBW LEDs, called Linee, and equipped it with a zoom of 4° to 33°, with individually controllable pixels. Zooming allows the creation of real beam bundles, while the Ethernet ports along with the Kling-Net protocol allow pixel mapping and video mapping.
D.T.S. has fielded its own advanced LED bar, Katana, capable of producing a totally new type of light beam, defined by the company as a “dynamic blade projection”. It consists of twelve 20W Full Color RGBW LEDs, able to express 9600 Lumens with individual LED control possibilities, coupled to custom optics with a zoom from 3.5° to 40°, allowing the creation of wash effects right down to a real blade of light.
At the Ayrton stand we had the opportunity to observe the MagicBlade R, a LED bar with dual rotary PAN/TILT, composed of seven flicker free RGBW LEDs and special 4.5° optics that allows the creation of real “light carpets”. A compact and impressive fixture, the output power is equal to 2500 lumens and can be controlled via DMX-RDM, Art-Net or with a LumenRadio wireless connection.
With regards to traditional moving heads, we also noticed improvements in optical groups and savings in terms of weight and size, in addition to a focus on the medium-small market. An example is Core from DTS, a fixture with a very good price/quality ratio, with a multitude of features – such as RGB / CMY mixing. Core is capable of producing 153000 lux at 5m with linear zoom from 2°-39° and a weight of only 22 kg.
Other examples come from Martin, who introduced MAC Axiom Hybrid, which features the same colour palette, gobo wheel, zoom and iris of the Viper, and is characterised by a high-precision optical system with a total weight of only 24 kg. The Robe Spikie, a small super fast LED WashBeam which uses a 60W RGBW LED, has a a special 110mm front lens that produces an extremely solid and precise beam. Another example comes from JB Lighting with the new Spot P7, equipped with CMY mixing with a 270W LED source and 11500 lumens @ 1m, integrated wireless control, 2 gobo wheels, 2 color wheels, zoom from 8°-48°, and a weight of just 17kg.
Moving into the conventional fixture market, Adam Hall introduced Zenit z 120, an ip65 protected Par64 with Neutrik connectors, equipped with flicker free 120w RGBW COB LEDs. The highlight feature of this product is that it is a fixture capable of generating a uniform light even when multiple colours are mixed. It is extremely compact and quiet, recommended for theatre and television applications.
Interesting and functional improvements also come from Arri with SkyPanel, a fixture made one year ago, but rich in new features thanks to the the new firmware that now enables the adjustment of the plus and minus green, along with improved management of the LEDs, the introduction of new dimming curves, simulation of LEE and Rosco colour standards and much more.
Spotlight has completed the 450W LED series with the spot, fresnel and profile models, with 3 different interchangeable lenses. The high level of customisation possible with the fixtures has allowed the creation of four versions (including 3200K, 5600K and RGBW) with the common presence of a pure white channel constructed with phosphor technology that allows precise mixing, in addition to the creation of well-defined colours .
A little hint to the architectural lighting world with important news coming from Clay Paky with the introduction of the Odeon line. The range consists of more than 30 models and these are available in versions with flood and linear optics of 15 °, 25 °, 45 °, as well as RGBW, Tuneable White and Total White configurations.
Let’s finish this report with the some news about structures and special effects, the areas we believe to have created something truly new in terms of innovation.
Prolyte Truss introduced Verto, a coupling system between truss modules that could be described by the motto “goodbye plugs, pins and hammers”. Thanks to this innovation, the connection system between structures appears to be fast, quiet, and above all, safe. Furthermore, such a system provides important benefits in that the technicians can work without additional tools and are able to uninstall a structure quickly at night (with a speed that has been estimated to be 10 times that of traditional systems), and remaining within noise levels ranging from 55dB to 80dB maximum.
Finally, talking about smoke and haze machines, we could use the motto “goodbye to the boiler”, because the Canadian company MDG has produced a special series equipped with a system that does not use boilers for the production of smoke. Due to this they are extremely silent, solid and environmentally friendly, thanks to special recycling systems that do not allow the build up of deposits, in addition to the use of non-combustible materials.
Walter Lutzu
ZioGiorgio Team
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