I just completed a road test of a new moving light from Clay Paky, called the Sharpy. Three things were immediately noticeable about this fixture. It’s fast, tiny and packs a lot of light output for a lamp that has a bulb under 200W.
The light output is extremely white. It boasts a color temperature of 8000K. When I stand 60 feet away from this fixture, I measure a light output of 60,000 lux. This is amazing for a fixture that utilizes an MSD Platinum 5R bulb that is only 189W. The light output is comparable to a Xenon bulb, but the bulb is boasting a 2,000-hour lamp life! The light itself is emitted in a tight collimated beam. It reminds one of the light swords used In the Star Wars movies. It is indeed the New Age equivalent of a PAR 46 ACL beam on steroids. Clay Paky utilizes its patent pending triple lens HQ optical system to achieve this brightness from its small lamp. While there is a zoom on the fixture, it never gets wider than 3.8 percent, and it can actually maintain a zero zoom. This means that the beam will never get wider than the light shining directly out of the fixture’s opening.
Quick and Sharp
The fixture is incredibly compact in size, but compacted with functions as well. While the fixture is 19 inches tall and 16 inches wide, it still weighs in at 35 lbs.
Handles on either side make this easy enough for my grandmother to hoist it up. The self-sensing power supply can handle input voltages from 115V to 230V. It has an onboard self-charging battery as well as cooling system monitoring. The bipolar circuit breaker insures thermal protection. In fact, this smart fixture will automatically disengage the power supply to prevent overheating. One can hang this fixture at any angle, and it comes with Fast Lock Omega clamps that attach with ¼-turn thumbscrews.
I can hook up DMX via the 5 or 3 pin XLR connections. It is also Ethernet-equipped to accept commands from a lighting console.
So it’s time to see how this baby drives. I notice the pan of the fixture can go 540 degrees. To my eye, it can swing that distance incredibly fast. I take out my stopwatch and hit “Go” as I tell the light to pan from zero to full at its fastest time. Just under 2 seconds. But let’s see how it reacts to an effects engine command that makes the light pan a full 360 degrees and back. It takes 1 full second each way, with no noticeable hesitation between changing directions. Incredible torque on the pan and tilt. I try the same thing with the tilt and, I have to admit, this fixture is the closest I have ever seen a yoke light move to a mirrored fixture.
I check out the color system. There is no color mixing in this fixture, but I am okay with that. This is basically an “effects” light to me, and not made to actually light set pieces or people with slow, even fades. The color wheel itself has a nice array of 14 various colors in slots as well as an open slot for white. The filters appear to be interchangeable. One can make half colors as well as roll the color wheel at variable speeds. The wheel itself can virtually click between any two colors on the wheel in zero time, and I notice just a little flicker of light, but no color changes, as it speeds by many other color filters to get to my next color. I put some fade time on the color wheel, and I could physically roll from one color to another. Unfortunately, the fixture does this in a jerky manner of steps — not a continuous, even roll in the 14-channel mode I am running it in.
I check out the zoom. It’s minimal, but cool in the way the fixture can move from a relatively flat field of light to an out-of-focus hilated beam where the center of the light beam is much hotter than the outside. With the flat field, I can get a hard edge on the gobos easily. There is a frost flag that can roll into the light path. It’s not really a variable frost, but I was interested to see what would happen to the beam when I placed this frost flag in a sine wave pattern from zero to full. It made a great effect, and I could run this extremely fast. While it may not be a strobe, it is quick enough to give the user a dazzling soft/sharp chase effect. The mechanical dimmer allows for a smooth dimming curve, and the various shutter/strobe effects are all there for the user.
The interchangeable gobo wheel comes with slots for 17 fixed gobos. The first few gobos are various-sized holes that can change the diameter of the light beam from a pin spot at its smallest to several larger pencil-beamed sizes. There are another 10 gobos that range between nice breakup patterns to thin bars to various shapes. The gobos are all designed for aerial beam patterns as opposed to painting textures. None of these gobos spin, but they all shake at variable speeds. They do, indeed, shake faster than I’ve ever seen any other fixture I’ve ever used. Somehow, these guys at Clay Paky have managed to fit an 8-faceted rotating prism in this tiny fixture as well. Used in conjunction with the gobos, I saw some nice shimmering effects emitted from the fixture. The gobo wheel can roll at variable speeds and, I must say, the beam looks incredibly wicked when the wheel is run fast. It’s not a strobe, it’s not a pulse effect, it’s just another unique function to this fixture that you have to see for yourself to understand.
The fixture appears to be quite ruggedly-built and road worthy. It is an aluminum structure with the typical die-cast plastic cover that we’ve come to like with many of Clay Paky’s recent Alpha series of lighting fixtures. It did not get hot enough to burn me after being on for an hour of testing. The fixture can run in an extended version utilizing 20 DMX channels. One can also upgrade its firmware from another fixture or without it ever being turned on. There are preset macros to make programming easier as well. The backlit LCD panel display was simple to use without viewing a manual.
At Prolight + Sound 2011, Clay Paky introduced a chrome-plated Sharpy. The chrome finish helps blend the fixture into its setting, becoming less visible by reflecting its surroundings.
