ADJ PAR Z120 RGBW LED Luminaire
Over the past few years, ADJ has shifted its product line in a more professional direction. The new PAR Z120 RGBW fixture follows in these footsteps.
Overview
The Z120 is an LED-powered fixture with RGBW (Red, Green, Blue and White) color mixing. The size and general configuration of a PAR64 fixture, the fixture weighs in at a reasonable 8.5 pounds, and draws a little under an amp of power (107 watts at any voltage between 100 and 240 volts). At the rear of the fixture are configuration controls, Neutrik powerCON power in and through jacks, and 5-pin XLR jacks for DMX in and through. The 5-pin jacks are nice to see, and are a feature that indicates the more professional tack that ADJ has taken with its product line.
Included with the fixture is a short power cord with Edison plug and a gel frame that can be slid into the frame holder at the front of the fixture.
Included with the fixture is a short power cord with Edison plug and a gel frame that can be slid into the frame holder at the front of the fixture. Since this is a color mixing fixture, the frame is intended primarily for diffusion filters, but one could also use other types of filters, such as color correction filters, if desired.
Setup
The fixture was easy to set up and configure; it will accept a standard C clap with its ½-inch mounting hole through the yoke. (I’ve recently encountered some fixtures whose mounting hole would not take a ½-inch clamp screw, so thought it’s worth pointing out.) The only attribute that you need to set via the configuration system at the back of the fixture is the DMX address. Other options include setting the DMX personality (anywhere from 4 to 9 channels depending on the flexibility you desire), the default fade curve (six different fade curves available); adjusting the white balance; and a color macro mode for manual effects.
The fixture can be set to one of five different beam widths via manually sliding the lens inside the barrel. The zoom mechanism is easy to operate, and you can pick between a 7, 11.5, 16, 20.5, and 25 degree beam width.
Evaluation
The fixture’s beam has a nice appearance, with a round pattern that fades nicely from center to edge. In measuring the beam angles, I found my informal measurements to line up with the fixture’s specifications, and the field widths (the point at where the beam drops to 10% of its center brightness) to be 11.2, 17.7, 23.5, 31, and 37 degrees respectively. This should facilitate blending the fields of the fixtures together nicely.
The fixture’s beam has a nice appearance, with a round pattern that fades nicely from center to edge.
For color temperature, ADJ does not provide any specification. Using the white-balance function of my Canon XF300 video camera, I measured the color temperature of the fixture with all four emitters at 100% to be 7400K; with just the RGB emitters it is 8500K; and with just the white emitters it is 6200K. Given that standard tungsten lighting is about 3200K and daylight is about 5400K, the Z120 is too cool a fixture for use as key lighting. However, as a stage wash it would work nicely.
The colors produced by the fixture look very nice and are well saturated. With such a cool color temperature, you can expect the colors to look different on camera than they do in person, especially if you’re using a tungsten color temperature for your key lighting.
Brightness is also impressive. Using all emitters at 100%, at an 18-foot throw distance, with a 25-degree beam angle, the center brightness is 45fc. At the seven-degree beam spread setting, the center brightness at 18 feet is 350fc.
The fixture did not flicker at all on camera at any shutter speeds, and the cooling fan was reasonably quiet.
The fixture did not flicker at all on camera at any shutter speeds, and the cooling fan was reasonably quiet. Dimming was smooth, and with the eight- and nine-channel personalities you can change the dimming curve being used via a DMX attribute, allowing you to apply one of the preset dimming curves that best matches your rig when needed, but change to the standard dimming curve for instantaneous blackouts when desired and not be bound by the curve picked via the configuration menus.
Fixtures are getting brighter and less costly year by year, and the Z120 fixture demonstrates this. This fixture puts out a lot of light, and at a street price of about $500 (MSRP is $750), it’s a strong contender for the church market. My only wish is that the native color temperature would be closer to tungsten, but the cool color temperature is pretty typical in LED lighting.
Learn more here: www.adj.com
