I LIKE TOOLS. I'm one of those people that is always looking for that new, time-saving tool that makes the job easier, the product better, or just lets me have more fun doing it.
I guess that is why each year I make multiple pilgrimages to the various production tradeshows to look at the new lighting tools, and this year has been no exception. With Lightfair and InfoComm under my belt, and LDI and WFX looming this fall, I thought I would share some of the new and trending lighting products that could be useful tools for worship.
One of the first things that you notice at the tradeshows is the prominence of LED technologies. It seems that almost every lighting company has some sort of LED offering in its lineup. While LED fixtures are not new, advancements in LED fixtures are happening all of the time, providing better performance, new features, and lower prices. So here are just a few LED products that caught my eye that are either new products or products that are beginning to see acceptance by the industry as good lighting tools.
One of the hottest, new LED products is the COEMAR REFLECTION LEDKO HARD EDGE PROFILE LED FIXTURE. The LEDko comes in three different versions, a warm white version, a tunable white version, and a full color-mixing version. The LEDko can also use full color gobos that were printed on transparency plastic with an ink jet printer. Think about how you could use a fixture that projects full color transparencies that you make yourself. A new set of gobos for each sermon series could be pretty cool.
Of course, if you want an ellipsoidal with full color-mixing at a budget price, look no further then the Strong Neeva. The fixture comes in tunable white and RGBA, or RGBW color mixing. With only a 50-Watt LED engine, the Neeva is not very bright, but with a list price of $895 it isn't very expensive either, and would be great in a youth room or children's ministry area because of its low power-consumption and low maintenance requirements.
There is also the PRISM PROJECTION'S REVEAL PROFILE that does many of the same things as the LEDko, but with Prism's TrueSource color-mixing system. Prism also offers its new Reveal Studio Fresnel fixture.
Don't need full color mixing? Arri and Desisti both offer Fresnel's with LED light sources that could be a great fit for use in your TV studio or on a location shoot. With their cool running temperatures and low power-consumption, your worries about tripping breakers while shooting on location could be almost completely eliminated.
Need a 500-Watt PAR can replacement? Give ELATION'S WW TONE a look. It has a nice-looking light with a 3,000-degree K color temperature, and the LED engine has a five-year warranty.
SCENEX WAS SHOWING ITS LED BASE 4 TRUSS TONER. This is an LED fixture that is square in shape and fits in the bottom of a 12-inch lighting truss—and perfectly lights up the truss.
CHAUVET LIGHTING WAS SHOWING ITS NEW SLIMPAR LED FIXTURE, which is an LED PAR in a smaller package at a lower price. Featuring RGB, RGBA, Tri-color, and tunable versions with built-in dimmer curves for smooth fades, flicker-free operation for video use, and silent convection cooling, the SlimPAR offers a lot of punch at a reasonable price.
But it isn't just static LED fixtures that have new offerings; there are many new LED moving fixtures, as well. One of these products is the MARTIN MAC 101 FIXTURE. It comes in a full color-mixing, tunable white, warm white, and cool white version, and all of the units are bright and punchy with fast motion. They are well-built and have the support of the Martin dealer network behind them, as well.
Another new LED moving wash fixture is the GERMAN LIGHT PRODUCTS (GLP) VOLKSLICHT, which roughly translates to “the peoples light.” The Volkslicht is a little brother to GLP's Impression moving head LED fixture and is a complement to GLP's other new fixture, the Spot One.
The GLP SPOT ONE is very intriguing, as it is a 400-Watt RGB color mixing LED profile moving fixture. It features full RGB color mixing, 14 rotating gobos, an effects wheel, a prism, an iris, electronic strobe, 10- to 32-degree zoom, and focus. GLP claims that it has a light output equal to a 700-Watt arc lamp and is low maintenance, with a 20,000-hour lamp life and replaceable light engine.
Elation also makes a moving head LED profile fixture called the PLATINUM SPOT LED. Its version features a white light LED engine rated at 50,000 hours, and then adds an eight color color-wheel, strobe and shutter, seven rotating gobos and seven fixed gobos, a prism, focus, and electronic dimming.
Of course there are still many arc-lamped moving fixtures in use, and several companies had new products.
Elation has created its PLATINUM SPOT 5R PRO AND 15R PRO FIXTURES. Both fixtures use the new Philips Platinum MSR arc lamps that provide higher light output at lower wattages. The Platinum Spot 5R Pro falls into the same range as a typical 575-Watt arc lamped fixture, while the 15R Pro competes in the 700-Watt arc lamp range. Both fixtures have color mixing, 22 gobos, zoom, focus, iris, shutter/strobe, frost, and built-in wireless DMX.
Vari-Lite also has several new moving head fixtures that are a great fit for the worship market. They are the VL SERIES 400, 700, AND 800 SPOT FIXTURES AND THE VLX3 WASH FIXTURE.
The series 400, 700, and 800 spot fixtures all feature 10 fixed and seven rotating gobos, zoom, focus, frost, prism, dimming, shutter, and an eight-color color-wheel. Additionally the 440, 770, and 880 spots include full CMY color mixing.
The VLX3 WASH is a 360-Watt RGBW LED color mixing fixture with a 15- to 55-degree zoom, electronic dimming and electronic strobe.
One lighting-related product that keeps getting critical acclaim is the RSC LIGHTLOCK, a product developed by the UK's Royal Shakespeare Co. to keep moving lights from swinging lighting pipes.
In the simplest of terms, the Lightlock is a device that mounts to your moving lights that are hanging on a free-swinging lighting pipe or truss. Generally, when you move the lights you cause the pipe or truss to move—and it takes a while for the pipe or truss to stop moving. With the Lightlock, the motion of the pipe or truss is dampened in less than two seconds. While it might not be a product that every church needs, with the number of churches with free-swinging lighting pipes, it is definitely worth a mention.
A few other products are popular in the lighting and staging industry that are just starting to come into play in the church market. Some include the use of LED video displays, for example, not only for their primary video source, but also as scenic pieces on stage.
Elation has both its EVLED lower resolution products with a 37mm and 20mm resolution, which are perfect for use as scenic elements, and its higher resolution EPV LINE that has 15mm, 10mm, 7.6mm and 6mm resolutions that work great for scenic, but can also be used as a primary display. Elation also makes an LED video tile mounted on a moving yoke so you can have a moving LED video tile as a scenic piece.
In addition, CHAUVET recently introduced an LED display product with resolutions of 37.5mm, 18mm, and 12mm.
While not every church is going to buy an LED video display, if it is something that you think you might use once in a while you might contact a local dealer and see what the rental options are.
Of course, if you use a video display you need a video player to serve the media content. One such media player is HIGH END SYSTEMS' AXON MEDIA SERVER.
The Axon is a feature-rich media server that supports mapping of multiple video streams to 2D and 3D objects for use with any display type. It also supports video-clip-looping, scaling, dissolves between clips, chroma-key, color effects and many other parameters too numerous to mention here, all controlled from a lighting console.
If you want the features of a media server but don't need the entire feature set of the Axon, GREEN HIPPO'S HIPPO CRITTER MEDIA SERVER might work for you. The Hippo Critter is a “baby” version of the Hippotizer media server that is well-suited to the smaller production environment.
There is also RENEWED VISION'S PROVIDEOPLAYER that just recently added lighting console control via an external DMX to USB box. ProVideoPlayer doesn't do the same things that the Axon and the Hippo Critter do, but if you just need to trigger clips, change hue, saturation, contrast, and speed, change the transition time, or manually transition from one clip to another from your lighting console, then ProVideoPlayer might be right for you.
While this list of products is not exhaustive, it does give a broad overview of some lighting-related products that are relatively new to the market. Hopefully it will give you some ideas of what to look at if you are in the process of building or upgrading your lighting system.
