Strong Entertainment Lighting recently started shipping their latest in a long line of followspots. The Radiance is a lightweight fixture designed to be used for small installations and shows that do not require extremely bright followspots with long throw distances. But don’t let that fool you; this spot cuts quite nicely from a 150- foot throw.
The 110- volt fixture draws only 10 amps. It can plug into any standard convenience wall outlet that you will find in a ballroom or in your bathroom. It uses an 850-watt metal halide lamp capable of a hot restrike, which can come in handy should you lose power during a show. Bulb replacement is simple and quick; it can be done in a minute.
The optics in this fixture will surprise you. Strong built a custom electroplated reflector for this fixture that they claim ramps up the efficiency because of the quality of the nickel reflector. It appears to produce intensity levels that rival xenon followspots. The optics produce a perfectly fl at field to this viewer’s eye with a color temperature of 6000K. It’s a nice beam.
The Radiance boasts of a new technology they are calling the “true zoom focus.” Through some clever engineering they have created a fixture that can keep a sharp edge as the operator zooms from full flood to a pin spot size.
The zoom and focus are adjusted by one handle. Likewise, if the lighting director wants a soft edge over the zoom range, the operator can oblige. Instead of a standard cabling system that adjusts the zoom lens and the focus lens together with a fixed distance from each other, this one has a cam system that moves the two lenses in relation to each other while the entire mechanism moves so that the focus stays constant. The zoom mechanism works for short or long throws, so there is no need for different lenses.
Their new iris mechanism is made from nichrome steel and will not stick when the temperature inside the fixture rises. On top of this, Strong has given us separate shutters for horizontal and vertical masking of the beam. This is a treat for those occasions when a round spotlight beam is not wanted. Picture yourself lighting podium speakers without spilling light onto your set. The color boomerang is your standard six-color self-canceling type. It accepts the same nine-inch gel frames that fit their Super Trouper line of followspots, so you can interchange them. The instrument also comes with two types of stands. You can choose from a heavy-duty base for permanent installations, or a lightweight (16 lbs.) tripod for trouping the fixture from gig to gig. The height of these stands can be adjusted as needed. The instrument is 54 inches long and weighs 96 pounds. Two people can easily set it up in minimal time. The new “low profile” yoke design allows for a tilt range of 75°. Of course, it can pan 360°. The yoke allows for exceptionally smooth pan and tilt operations.
From a 150-foot throw this fixture can flood out to a 39-foot diameter with the iris wide open with an illumination of 22 footcandles. When zoomed all the way in and the iris cut down to a pin spot, the diameter of the beam is a mere two feet wide and the illumination soars to 191 footcandles—very impressive optics to my eye.
Strong had been beta-testing units before they started shipping and it appears to have paid off. They got some valuable feedback from a show on Broadway and as a result they have moved some of the controls around to make it easier to operate. There’s no better design engineers that those out in the field using the products in real life situations every day. The newly redesigned followspots began shipping in June.
The Radiance followspot fills a need for a medium-sized followspot for a variety of application where a large followspot is too much. It’s has a good intensity with nice features that make it easy to operate. It’s manufactured in Omaha by people who have been doing this for a very long time and are very good at what they do. The Radiance is definitely worth checking out (www.strongint.com).
