A few years ago, Elation Lighting unveiled their version of the low wattage, high lumen output pencil beam moving light. They were the first company to use the Philips Platinum 5R lamp in a moving head. The Platinum 5R was a successful product in the overall lighting industry, yet it left room for improvement. Elation felt the need to grab the ball and run in another direction by developing an “Extreme” version of this popular fixture. And in the process, they appear to have scored a touchdown with this beauty.
Pure Beam, Smooth Dimming
I was hesitant to even look at this fixture at first. The original Platinum beam 5R was a good fixture, but needed some marked improvements if it wanted to compete with other manufacturers’ models of similar ACL beam type fixtures. That’s why the first noticeable difference was the beam itself. Emitted out of the crystal clear glass lens is a pure white beam of light one would expect from the 189W MSD Platinum 5R lamp. There is a noticeable hot spot in the center of the beam. That is immediately compensated for by the use of the “focus” function on the fixture. By adjusting the DMX value slightly, the field of light on the wall becomes flat. I like this option. I run the beam through an atmosphere of stage fog to see how well it will dim during a live concert. The manual dimming is smooth enough. I’m looking to see if this fixture has the same dimming fault the other pencil beams have — the appearance of a gobo entering the beam path as I dim. Thankfully, it is nowhere as noticeable as I expected it would be.
Speaking of focus, I throw one of the breakup pattern gobos of the light into the beam path. Yes — I can finally sharpen or soften the gobo pattern with a variable lens. The fixture is so physically small I didn’t expect it to have a zoom function, but the beam of the light can be adjusted several ways. Besides the focus channel, there is also a variable frost function. This immediately turns the hard-edged pencil beam into a little wider, soft-edged beam. I put the frost itself into a fast sine wave effect on my console. The effect on the wall of the gobo bumping in and out of sharpness is a sweet strobe effect by itself. I move on to the strobe functions, and the usual modes work just fine with the mechanical shutter. Personally, I think I would add the frost into a lot of concert looks. It would help knock down the intensity of these almost-blinding rays as well as make a decent rear wash light on a rock star.
Elation certainly did not waste any space on unnecessary gobos. They are metallic and therefore can be exchanged rather inexpensively.
The stock ones include one single pinhole gobo for that Darth Vader beam, but then they fill the rest of the eight fully indexable/rotatable gobos with nice breakout stuff — gobos seemingly developed for aerial beams. I like the selection and try several of them out on a wall while running them out of focus. I project lovely streaks of shafted light skimming across a rear cyc. The fixture seamlessly snaps between gobos instantly and roll between them smoothly with time. Each gobo on the wheel can shake, even while rotating. The wheels themselves have a variable gobo roll spin function too. They have one hippy star gobo that I thought was rather worthless at first — until I applied this really cool eight-facet prism the “Extreme” has added to the mix.
Unique Effects
The manufacturer here has gone outside the box. Rather than give in to the typical three-facet prism most manufacturers settle for, they have put this strange lens into play. As noted, it separates the light’s output into eight different beams. But in doing this, the single 3°-wide beam of light appears to spread at least 45°. The eight separate beams make a wide “cone” of light out of the beam. The prism lens can spin at a variable speed in either direction. By spinning the gobos clockwise and the prism counter clockwise, I get some snazzy eye candy effects along with the ability to emulate various laser-type movements.
The light can be run in several DMX modes, varying from 14 to 18 channels of operation. I choose the smoother 16-bit mode. The lights are a little touchy to move at first, until I set my encoder wheels on the console to a “fine” resolution. I can now focus them easily. I write some cues that whip the pan a full 180° from one side to another. It takes under a half second, I estimate, to move that distance. Nice improvement over the old model. I now put the light in a circle effect on the console. Even at a fairly quick speed, the fixture can execute some large sweeping circles in a perfectly linear motion.
I move on to the color wheel. There is no color mixing system in this light, so the user is dependent on the colors issued by Elation. Of course, the user may substitute other dichroic filters in their place. There are only 12 color slots plus white on this wheel. They fill three of the slots with CTO and CTB color correction glass, while placing a UV filter in the other. Although that leaves enough slots for your basic ROYGBIV colors, I miss not having a blue-green or a pink color available to me. But with the wheel, I can bump between colors pretty easily, and the wheel rolls in time from color to color as well. The fixture can execute a variable speed color roll in either direction.
At a Glance
Mighty Mite
Physically, this is a tiny brute of a fixture. The thing is less than a foot wide and about 16 inches tall, while weighing in at just under 40 pounds. It’s got several fans that evidently work pretty well, as this fixture is barely warm to the touch. There appears to be a tiny antenna attached to the body. This is for the built-in wireless DMX signal it can accept. With such a low power draw, I could easily plug three of these into a single wall outlet and have no mess of cable running back to anywhere. Perfect for showrooms and quick location shoots. Hardware-wise, it’s got a nice LCD screen to change your modes and program standalone looks. The power supply will take any voltage from 100-240V. DMX can be fed in and out through either 3- or 5-pin XLR connectors. Ergonomically stealth looking, they appear to be built of rigid material that will handle the rigors of the road.
Sidebar 2
Elation Platinum Beam 5R Extreme
What it Is: An extreme ACL/beam moving head
Pros: Fast, precise movement, high quality optics, unique gobo/prism system for ACL type beam fixture.
Cons: Could use a few more colors
MSRP: $3,999.95
More Info: www.elationlighting.com.
