Stage lighting with LEDs

[Ken Coker]

But you do need to use the high-end fixtures and these are expensive.

 

Nic's right about this - and I'd agree with everything else he writes in his reply. If you are trying to do "acting area washes", then you need to revert to the old "S-Batten" style of lighting. You can pretty much forget about using the individual luminaire approach - the LED PAR 64 - because they are just not bright enough!!!

 

To Nic's list you might want to add the AC ColorBlock - Here. Cheaper, but not cheap.

 

Cheers

 

KC

[RobOwen]

I've always been a little wary of speaking on open forums, and for good reason it seems.

 

Tokm, PaulEARS was referring to a German product, I never made such a statement.

 

Secondly, Fine Art is not a knockoff brand, and false statements like that can do serious damage to companies.

 

And the "Chinese lot" you are referring to have 800 fixtures going on the Olympic Games in Bejing. So they are obviously not as stupid as you are inferring.

[niclights]

Thanks Ken. Forgot about ColorBlock. They are cheaper individually but when I have considered them I found the need to use multiples (and the obligatory controller) and so probably not as cost effective. Of all the units I have compared, the DTS Delta's are by far the most economic and are the ones I am currently using with great results.

 

Since it has just been mentioned, the GLP unit was the only new product that impressed me at Plasa this year. Too expensive IMO, but amazingly small yoke for full (and fast) movement.

 

 

I can't help but feel parts of this thread have drifted horribly offtopic. Can you wash stages with LED? Yes.

[paulears]

The trouble, Rob, is finding out solid information - I've found the same press release on quite a few web sites, all with Robs comments, but eventually I found the link to the fine arts website here. It wasn't that easy, I'd have to say, and Google eventually became my friend.

 

The website shows a nice picture, but no photometric data, or price - yet claims it as a best seller.

 

My searches produced an awful lot of Chinese product, some very different to Robs, and others very similar. The Blue Room rules on advertising are pretty strict, but as it would be easy to get Rob to PM one of us, and that person could post the result, if Robs are indeed cheaper, then we could all be interested? Now much cheaper Rob?

 

LED fixtures rarely offer any solid data in their publicity, just pretty wild statements. The Fine Art ones look interesting - we just want to know how bright they are so we can consider how effective they'd be doing a wash?

[tokm]

Secondly, Fine Art is not a knockoff brand

All I can do is direct you to my 1st post.. All the gear looks very similar to other well known manufacturers. The units on your website seem to only be a few of the Fine Art range, but on the Chinese website, you've got a mix and match of VL, Robe, SGM, CP & Martin looking units. Sometimes mixed together (i.e. base is similar to one brand, while the yoke head is similar to another).

 

And the "Chinese lot" you are referring to have 800 fixtures going on the Olympic Games in Bejing. So they are obviously not as stupid as you are inferring.

I never said or inferred that they were stupid, just they were the perpetrators of this whole copying of other fixtures.

 

I know you've got to defend your companies products, but you've got to admit the similarity. Thats all I was commenting on. Nothing on their reliability and such..

 

Apologies for the comment about LED's, on my initial reading the thread, it appeared you did.

 

And I agree with Niclights comment, this is all rather offtopic from the O/P's original request. I'm sure it'll get dealt with accordingly.

 

Tom

[martinw]

And the "Chinese lot" you are referring to have 800 fixtures going on the Olympic Games in Bejing. So they are obviously not as stupid as you are inferring.

Without wishing to question the quality of Fine Art fixtures, I suspect that the selection of equipment may have far more to do with the politics of the event than anything else.

Martin

[RobOwen]

I must apologise to Jolly_Camper123 for inadvertently steering this conversation off topic.

 

I do have answers to the Tokm and MartinW (I agree with you Martinw, but there's still a lot of local competiton, and Martin and Vari-Lite are also involved. Tokm please look at the range on the UK website, these are the most current products. A lot of the fixtures on the Chinese website are discontinued, the 2000 issue has been discussed). Out of respect to the orignal poster I will not make further comments on the above in this topic, and let the conversation revert back to the question in hand.

[Graham Threader]

Can I mention the SGM Palco?

 

This unit has been around for a while, is an established fixture, and has a performance that takes some matching. The high cost of this unit means that many of our worthy contributors have not experienced the superior performance available.

 

If fitted with the 25 degree lens set the overall performance approximates that of a PAR64 fitted with a CP62. Taken across any diagonal the colour shows hardly any variation, and the soft edged circular beam makes focusing easy. For general cover you could use the 40 degree option.

 

However to return the point of the original post: you would find cheaper options using generics/scrollers/washlights or a combination thereof. It is also worth remembering the lack of beam control available to LEDs. No barn doors or shutters!

[niclights]

Can I mention the SGM Palco?

 

You can, but reading the whole thread you would know I already did. I also mention the DTS Delta, which I think is better (and cheaper). So there :P

 

I do have one constructive comment about FineArt. Awful website Sir!

[RobOwen]

I do have one constructive comment about FineArt. Awful website Sir!

 

Your not wrong there, its being completely re-worked. When we aired our disapproval to the designer I never saw him again.

 

Brand new flash based website is in the works, and will be an awful lot better.

[paulears]

Moderation: As many have noticed, the topic is now very different from the answers the OP wanted - however, it can't really be split as we'd do normally as practically every post relates to another and splitting it seems pretty impossible. If you read it again, and extract the too and fro traffic, there's actually some useful stuff that has led me (sorry!) to products I'd not paid attention to before - so it does seem to be quite useful. We've accidentally made it into a topic where manufacturers and distributors can post info and prices - not something that usually happens.

 

It's not causing any major problems, moderation wise - so as long as it doesn't degenerate, let's see what happens.

Paul

mods

[Modge]

I - when I work for the stage bus - often use 4 * showtech trackpod 90 batons for front light. These provide good saturated colour washes for the thrust stage (4 bits of deck). With that I still generally use some conventional fixtures to up the overall brightness. I also use the trackpod as "eye candy" behind the bands in sight where it's more than bright enough. As front light I do for moody looks run the conventional front light at very low -> nothing, but more normally I have 2 650w fresnels washing the stage from the front as well. I would also echo other's comments about there being much better at saturated colours than others.

[Tomo]

Brand new flash based website is in the works, and will be an awful lot better.

Please don't do that.

Flash websites are completely unsearchable, very slow to load, require a lot of expensive (especially to you) bandwidth and provide absolutely nothing useful that can't be done with CSS (and AJAX if you want really 'interactive' stuff).

 

If you do go Flash based then Google will not see it properly and a large number of internet users run Flash blocking plugins, so you're kissing goodbye to a large number of possible leads.

 

Keep it HTML please - a manufacturer's website is all about informing users and possible purchasers the capabilities of your products and services.

Flash offers nothing except 'flashy twirly bits' - and flashy twirly bits annoy people who wanted to dive into the site, grab the DMX spec and get back to their show.

 

I've surfed a huge number of manufacturers' websites, and the best are always the least complex.

[swampman]

I do have one constructive comment about FineArt. Awful website Sir!

Your not wrong there, its being completely re-worked. When we aired our disapproval to the designer I never saw him again.

Brand new flash based website is in the works, and will be an awful lot better.

OFF TOPIC: Please not another flash based site: more software load and unusable by some of us Linux based people. (Better: HTML+moving GIFs + good layout and graphic design, less licensing, easier access... etc)

 

LED washes: from what I've seen: effects only: as a visible point/surface source of light, not yet for projection onto surfaces, Heat disipation also a problem not because of efficiency  - they go out/die from overheating easily and life is much reduced.

[LDODD]

So... Can we use LED for general colour-washing on stage?

 

In my humble, yes. Absolutely.

 

I'd consider contacting your friendly UK flood/strip manufacturer and request fittings to be made using Cree XRE (new generation) or Seoul Semi P4 LED's.

 

With massive thermal package improvements and increased brightness at 1W (ish) per die, we are currently experiencing upwards of 80Lu/Watt in Warm white (3600k ish) and even greater gains with RG and B...

 

Just a thought.... :-)