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LED's - They are actually getting "there" rather quickly


mac.calder

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Soo... I walked into work a few weeks ago and I had 2 roadcases presented to me... "New Toys" they said. The cases were rather low to the ground, and rather thin. So I assumed (correctly) that these cases did not contain the 700w moving lights I had been after for the last god knows how many months... In fact, the cases contained 2 new LED fixtures, the Mac350 Entour, and a GLP Volkslicht. I must say that I had very low expectations. I mean sure, I had been using LED battons etc for yonks... but such a small panel size, such low weight... nah...

 

Well colour me impressed. Both fixtures weighed in at a little over nothing.

 

The 350 uses white LED's, so whilst there is no colour mixing (just a colour wheel), only one gobo wheel and no prism etc, the fixtures output actually went head to head with a mac550 and gave an impressive fight. It's power usage was about 1.1A and the head moved rather fast. Martin also gave thought to gobo and colour changing in the fixture - there is a little flap which when opened reveals these two wheels allowing you to quickly change them. By closing and opening the flaps, both wheels advance one position (that is right - you can change gobos whilst the fixture is still powered on!!!)

 

The Volkslicht gave an output very similar to a Par64 with a narrow bubble, there was next to no chroma shifting (that annoying propensity for the R, G and B from an LED fixture to create three distinct shadows around objects), and the unit moved with INCREDIBLE speed.

 

I used these for band lighting in a room that holds upwards of 1600 banquet style and they actually cut the mustard. My power usage? Less than 20A including hazers.... It makes the mind boggle!

 

So a question for the group - seen any impressive LED fixtures out there? And do you think that LED's are "there" yet?

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The GDS LiteWares are the nuts for corporate uplighting. LED, battery driven, and radio DMX. Loads of colours, stand alone options. Generally brilliant with good output. Been using them recently with a company that I freelance for in Cardiff and I think that they are great. Quite heavy though.
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The 350 uses white LED's, so whilst there is no colour mixing (just a colour wheel), only one gobo wheel and no prism etc, the fixtures output actually went head to head with a mac550 and gave an impressive fight. It's power usage was about 1.1A and the head moved rather fast. Martin also gave thought to gobo and colour changing in the fixture - there is a little flap which when opened reveals these two wheels allowing you to quickly change them. By closing and opening the flaps, both wheels advance one position (that is right - you can change gobos whilst the fixture is still powered on!!!)

 

So a question for the group - seen any impressive LED fixtures out there? And do you think that LED's are "there" yet?

We had some mac350's on our plasa stand a few things that surprised me, all of them pleasant: they have an iris, which is unexpected on a fixture that size but still much appreciated. Also a very pleasant surprise was the quality of the optics - they could focus a gobo sharply and evenly across it's width. Much as I realise we take that for granted with discharge lamps to do that from a cluster of 7 leds is impressive.

 

The choice of white LED and a colour filter is an interesting one, because as mac says that does cost you colour mixing, however what it does give you is split colours and a complete absence of nasty colour fringing.

 

As the above rather hints at I was quite impressed with them. The only issue I found (which an embarrassed looking guy off the martin stand assured us wasn't normal, but is still worth a mention) is that the iris on them was sufficiently loud that the sales staff begged me to leave the iris chase off until the hall got loud enough to drown it out!

 

Edit: also worth whole heartedly seconding mac's point about brightness - they appear by eye (influenced as that is by the surroundings and colour temperature) to have at least the punch of a 250watt discharge fixture, if not more. The guy we hired them from tells me that in his warehouse a mac550 couldn't wash out the gobo from the 350 projected onto a wall.

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I'm just pleasantly surprised at the sheer level of light we're now getting out of fixtures that aren't as cost heavy as I'd expected. My other thread about the LEDJ/Chauvet tricolour spots refers - the LEDJ Omni had a vastly superior light level compared to a 650W T18 lantern, and wins especially when looking at the more saturated colour spectrum.

 

I saw some baby Mac 101s last week as well, and whilst they're more a glorified pin scan (ie just pan/tilt/level/RGB colour) the output was very good from a small lantern.

 

Haven't tried the 350 yet but my local guy has them in hire stock so will probably try a couple early next year.

 

Just taken truss loads of movers down from the Hairspray tour and they have a mix of Marti, CP and VL on each of the main stage trusses, including several VL LED moving heads that were competing VERY well against the traditional VL2k and Mac 200 etc.

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Just thought of another one... sorry drink was taken last night. We used some (I think) JB Lighting VaryLED fixtures which are basically copies of the Martin 301's. No zoom, no white LED's, around £1000 I believe, and a really punchy output from a small, light unit. Especially the blue. Nice.
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Not seen the GLP Volks|Licht, but worked on shows with the Impressions. First thought was they're small, but then once they're powered up they become obnoxious little buggers - move faster than a rat with a fork up it's arse, and have the light output of a small star....
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The GDS LiteWares are the nuts for corporate uplighting. LED, battery driven, and radio DMX. Loads of colours, stand alone options. Generally brilliant with good output. Been using them recently with a company that I freelance for in Cardiff and I think that they are great. Quite heavy though.

 

I second that although the new GDS Liteware HO units (high output) are incredible; the Liteware UL's are not a patch on them. With 80w of LED on a battery with WDMX.... Thats why we bought loads of them!.

 

I am constantly amazed at the progression of LED technology. I recall seeing a firm at plasa (Chinese exhibitors) exhibiting a single source LED module that was literally comparable to a 700w discharge. Admittedly it needed a heat sink as big as a shoe box!

 

Will it ever replace tungsten? Probably, but I hope not. I am yet to see a LED fixture that has the same warmth and tonal depth of tungsten. I look forward to being corrected!

 

Dunc

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I had my first experience with an LED moving head last week - the GLP Impression. The XL version! They're a lot heavier than I thought they were going to be but my oh my did they output a lot of light! The white on them wasn't fantastic, but they did some very nice colours. We were using them to light a train at the National Railway museum and they weren't washed out by the 1200W fresnel we had on the stand!

 

Very impressed with it I was.

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The GDS LiteWares are the nuts for corporate uplighting. LED, battery driven, and radio DMX. Loads of colours, stand alone options. Generally brilliant with good output. Been using them recently with a company that I freelance for in Cardiff and I think that they are great. Quite heavy though.

 

I second that although the new GDS Liteware HO units (high output) are incredible; the Liteware UL's are not a patch on them. With 80w of LED on a battery with WDMX.... Thats why we bought loads of them!.

 

I am constantly amazed at the progression of LED technology. I recall seeing a firm at plasa (Chinese exhibitors) exhibiting a single source LED module that was literally comparable to a 700w discharge. Admittedly it needed a heat sink as big as a shoe box!

 

Will it ever replace tungsten? Probably, but I hope not. I am yet to see a LED fixture that has the same warmth and tonal depth of tungsten. I look forward to being corrected!

 

Dunc

 

I was an LED sceptic up until very recently with the same concerns about colour temperature for face lighting etc. After seeing the RJ Aledin fixture at plasa however (it looks absolutely identical to their 1k TH profile!) I am now convinced that tungsten halogen lamps will be gone within the next 15 years.

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Will it ever replace tungsten? Probably, but I hope not. I am yet to see a LED fixture that has the same warmth and tonal depth of tungsten. I look forward to being corrected!

 

I have to admit to having said here on this very forum (I think) only a couple of years ago that I wasn't expecting LED technology to be improved sufficiently to compete in the brightness stakes any time soon.

I also recall making a statement to the effect that I doubted a multi-point source LED unit would ever likely be viable as a focussable projection option with clear gobos...

 

I believe that I've been proven wrong on both counts....

 

Ho hum...

 

So I won't be making any more predictions based on LEDs NOT being even more capable in the VERY near future.

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My experience is more with architectural lighting than theatre, though the similarities are growing.

I too have been very impressed with latest LED products, the efficiency is far greater than incandescent, and the better ones exceed floursecent and discharge sources.

 

Although incandescent theatre lanterns will probably be used for decades yet, the day is coming when a new or refitted venue will contain ONLY led lighting.

 

Some will argue against this, on the grounds that LED lighting is liable to give poorer colour rendering than incandescent.

It could however be argued that theatre lighting should replicate every day life, and that will increasingly mean LED.

 

Outside the Royal Courts of justice, I recently observed a TV/film crew useing LED lighting of most impressive output, it was powered by a vehicle battery.

 

Slightly O/T, but what is going to be the first modern lamp type to go out of production due to competition from LEDs ? My guess is low wattage metal halides, or the smaller CFLs.

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the LEDJ Omni had a vastly superior light level compared to a 650W T18 lantern, and wins especially when looking at the more saturated colour spectrum.

I'm picking up on this comment Tony. Could you elaborate? What type of fixture are you meaning?

The reason is, after reading this thread and seeing what's around it's got me thinking of looking at LED to replace 650W Selecon fresnels for doing general stage washes where colour temp is unimportant. We have several short shows and concerts (Junior/Infant age) and the odd talent show where I just want to wash the stage, dimming curve is unimportant, but being able to do a colour wash would be a real bonus, especially with a talent shows.

Currently, I can wash the stage apron (all that's usually used!) with four 650w Selecon fresnels, so to replace those with four LED panels for a few 100notes would be perfect!

Am I being too ambitious, or is it a real possibility?

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